[TowerTalk] Grounding the coax

[Alan NV8A]

In his articles on lightning protection in QST in 2002, Ron Block KB2UYT 
emphasizes the need for grounding the coax at the top and bottom of the 
tower (and perhaps at intermediate points, depending on the height of 
the tower). I doubt that anybody will argue with this, but the question 
is how?

Polyphaser sells expensive kits for grounding the coax: hefty 
semicircular hunks of copper that are clamped around the coax shield 
after removing its outer covering, then grounded to the tower by wide 
copper straps. Of course waterproofing is then applied to the coax where 
the outer covering was removed.

But would simply interposing a barrel connector and securing a ground 
wire to that with, say, a hose clamp, then connecting that ground wire 
to the tower be significantly worse? Again, of course, the section with 
the barrel conenctor and PL-259s (or whatever) would have to be well 
sealed against the weather.

Alan NV8A