[TowerTalk] Lightnig Arrestors at tower base or house entrance?

[Dick Green]

I agree with Steve. The priority is protecting the house. With arrestors
at the tower only, a surge could be induced in the portion of the cables
leading from the tower to the house, and there would be no protection
from the surge jumping right to the equipment inside the house. There's
an interesting article about that in the February issue of QST.

The arrestors should be located at the bulkhead entrance to the house.
The bulkhead panel should be bonded to the single-point ground, which in
turn should be bonded to all grounds coming into the house: AC, telco,
cable, satellite etc.

I have a set of arrestors at the bulkhead entrance, and another
identical set at the tower. One reason is that I have SO2R switching
equipment at the base of the tower and I wanted to protect it. Also, the
run to the house is over 225 feet, which is a long way for a surge to
travel before finding a path to ground. Seemed like a good idea to give
it a shorter path to protect the long and very expensive cable runs.

73, Dick WC1M


> -----Original Message-----
> From: K7LXC at aol.com [mailto:K7LXC at aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 6:25 PM
> To: towertalk at contesting.com; gathorne at traer.net
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightnig Arrestors at tower base or house
> entrance?
> 
> 
> In a message dated 2/25/2008 12:42:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
> towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:
> 
> >  I've seen descriptions and pictures of installations where
> lightning
> arrestors were installed in a weather proof box at the tower base  and
> others
> where they are at the house entrance.  Which is  better?
> 
> 
>         Well, the whole idea is to  keep the transients out of the
> house so
> that's where your Single Point Ground  System should be and all of the
> transient arrestors.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve     K7LXC
> TOWER TECH
> 
> 
> 
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