[TowerTalk] Grounding the coax

[ersmar@comcast.net]

Alan:

     I ran into the same issues when installing my coax grounds on my tower.  The most vexing to me was the price for commercial straps.  So I devised my own using copper flashing and posted here on TT at:  http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/Towertalk/2005-10/msg00778.html .  (Make sure you paste the entire URL into your browser.)

     One significant advantage (to my way of thinking) to this approach to shield grounding is that you don't introduce another pair of potential failure points - the two PL-259s - into the coax system.  

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F



> 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
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