[TowerTalk] Grounding tower guy wires

[Paul Kelley N1BUG]

Yes and no. In my case the insulators breaking up the wires are more to 
allow shunt feeding the tower for low bands. But lightning will most 
likely ignore a few paltry 2 or 3 inch gaps at the insulators and go 
down the wires anyway. You can't ground the middle sections of wire, but 
  it is my understanding you should still ground the last section near 
the anchor.

73,
Paul N1BUG


markrob at mindspring.com wrote:
> Don't you have your metallic guy wires broken up into smaller lengths
> to avoid rf resonances and the resultant distortion of your
> directional hf antennas. People normally do that. That being the case
> then I cannot see how you can ground your guy wires. Comments?
> 
> 
> Mark N1UK
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Kelley N1BUG <paul.kelley.n1bug at gmail.com> Sent: Jun 25,
>> 2008 8:53 AM To: towertalk at contesting.com Subject: [TowerTalk]
>> Grounding tower guy wires
>> 
>> I know everyone must be really tired of questions about grounding,
>> but I'll blunder forth and ask anyway...
>> 
>> One of my towers took a direct lightning hit recently and I did NOT
>> have adequate protection! So now I'm in the planning stages of a
>> proper lightning ground for my towers. I've been doing some
>> homework but have a couple questions about stuff I haven't yet seen
>> spelled out anywhere.
>> 
>> I am planning to run copper strap radials out from each tower leg
>> with 8 foot ground rods every 16 feet. My question is about
>> grounding the guy wires, which are all 3/16" or 1/4" EHS.
>> 
>> I am assuming it is appropriate to connect the guy grounds into the
>>  radials coming from the tower? That is, so it is all one ground
>> system and not a separate ground for each guy anchor point.
>> 
>> Is #4 or #6 wire adequate, or do I really need copper strap for 
>> grounding the guys?
>> 
>> Obviously we don't want copper in direct contact with EHS, so what
>> is a recommended method of attaching to the guys?
>> 
>> I have read all the tech notes on the Polyphaser web site and some
>>  others, but did not see specific answers to these questions. I
>> also searched the Towertalk archives before asking and came up with
>> nil on these points. My apologies if the answers are right in front
>> of me and I just managed to not find them.
>> 
>> 73, Paul N1BUG
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
>