[TowerTalk] Fwd: tower grounding

[Rick Stealey]

There's more to it than just grounding the tower for lightning protection. 
Maybe if that's all you're interested in (protecting the house from lightning, for example) then it would be ok to just install ground rods and radials as suggested but you are going to have coax cables coming down that tower and entering the house so you have to take all that into consideration.
As a bare minimum, you have to ground your coax shields at the base of the tower, and connect your tower ground to your house electrical power ground.  It is highly recommended to install a single point ground to which everything entering your ham shack is grounded.  That includes AC power, cable tv, telephone, rotor control lines, and every piece of equipment.
There are dozens of threads covering this subject on this and other reflectors.  Just this year there have been several discussions on this subject.  To see the archives of articles go to  http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/towertalk/.  In May 2008 you will see some, and in June there was talk about UFER grounds. You will be reading all day long !!
There is also excellent information on W8JI's web site, w8ji.com.

73,
Rick  K2XT

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