[TowerTalk] Lightning...

[Kimberly Elmore]

OK, this is what I thought, but wanted to make sure there wasn't something obvious that I'm missing. 

I don't yet have a nice, grounded, copper-plate bulkhead through which I feed everything, but I'm working on that.

Yes, I know well that lightning does pretty much whatever it darn well pleases, and I am unhappy leaving it all floating. Right now, it's about all I can do, and that has to be better than leaving it all connected (been there, done that).

Thanks for the info and sanity check!

Kim N5OP

----- Original Message ----
From: Roger (K8RI) <K8RI-on-TowerTalk at tm.net>
To: Kimberly Elmore <cw_de_n5op at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
Sent: Monday, April 7, 2008 4:03:49 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning...

Kimberly Elmore wrote:
> It's severe storm time in the Southern plains and, while I've taken, and am still taking, steps to protect my shack from lightning damage, I began to wonder...
>
> I always disconnect all transmission and control lines from equipment, but what should I do with them after that? Should I make connectors so that I connect everything to the 

Your best choice is to ground those cables where the enter the house at 
the bulkhead panel which should be grounded.  You definitely do not want 
to let them float.  Here the coax comes in through bulkhead connectors 
in the grounded bulkhead where the Polyphasers are mounted. Normally I 
do not have the option of disconnecting any equipment including 
computers and network connections and all that interconnecting wire 
makes a good inductive pickup.  
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/ham_files/cablebox.htm Photo next to the 
bottom and on the left hand side shows how I've been doing it although 
the photo is badly outdated it still conveys the idea.

73

Roger (K8RI)
> station earth ground or should I let them float? Especially if I disconnect all *equipment* from earth ground, should I still connect all transmission and control lines that enter the shack to earth ground when I'm not operating?
>
> Kim Elmore N5OP
>
>
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