[TowerTalk] Antenna grounding and more

[Jim Lux]

At 07:31 AM 11/20/2005, Wayne Greaves wrote:
>I don't believe one could ever implement too much protection lightning
>protection.  At a minimum I recommend the following:

<snip>
Ground the tower legs and interconnect all ground rods together with the
>rest of your grounding system.

Draw a sketch of your grounding interconnections (including things like 
coax shields) and follow where the fault currents will go.  Make sure you 
aren't making things worse with some interconnection.  Just because A, B, 
and C need to be interconnected, you don't necessarily need to connect A to 
B, B to C, and C to A.. A to B and B to C might be better.



>Don't forget to install suitable arrestors on other points of entry such as
>power and telephone.


Wayne's ideas are all good ones, however he left off the final thing.. Make 
sure you've got insurance coverage, or are willing to take the hit to 
replace the gear from other resources.

For most hams, who aren't necessarily in the "24/7 five 9's availability" 
category, designing and building to withstand everything with no damage is 
probably not worth it. For the cost and hassle of building such a system, 
you might be able to buy "cold standby" equipment to swap in after the zap 
hits.

Or, you can decide that you're willing to wait the couple weeks or so for 
the insurance check to arrive, etc.