[TowerTalk] Sparky Pays a Visit

[K4SAV]

Denn

Check Tom's message in this same thread to see what he does for 
lightning protection. He, and others, have found, it is possible to 
survive lightning hits if you do things right. Lots of other information 
is available on this reflector, try a search, then try Google.  
Lightning protection doesn't just happen by its self, you have to put a 
significant amount of work into it.  It is awful easy to to shortcut the 
process, because it is a lot of work, but the after-the-fact results 
will change your opinion.

Incidently, power companies aren't concerned with lightning protection 
on residential dwellings, only on shock protection, so one ground rod is 
sufficient for them. This does almost nothing for lightning protection 
(as Gedas, who had only one ground rod on each of his towers, just found 
out).

Jerry, K4SAV

Dennis O'Connor wrote:

>Having been through two lightning strikes ten years apart at two different QTH, I sympathize with you.. My experience is that the only rigs that survive are those that are on the bench with their cables wrapped around them and not connected to anything, and especially not grounded  (right after field day and the IC706 laying on the bench in front of the Omni 6, is just fine, thank you)  Everything else in the shop was fried, as was the well pump, some 180 feet down, and even the wall clock exploded it's motor windings and flew off the wall...  Now, none of the radios in the shack had antennas hooked to them and the 110 / 220 power breaker to the radio bench was off/open (it fried also)... But the current surge rode in on the rotor wires to the rotor boxes, arced across the cases of the rotor box(s) to the cases of the radios and amps blowing chunks of paint off the cases, none of which had antennas hooked up but were always GROUNDED for safety, and everything fried of course.
> ..  
>My employees who were in the shop at the time said they were blinded by the glare of the arcing inside the building (no fires)... Consumers Power Company came out an inspected the damage for the insurance claim and said I was properly grounded and that a hit of that magnitude, estimated in excess of 60,000 amps by them, is uncontrollable...
>
>denn
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>See: http://www.mscomputer.com  for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather Stations", and lot's more.  Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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