[TowerTalk] Quick Disconnect Suggestion

[Roger (K8RI)]

Jerry wrote:
> What do you use for your rotator, antenna switch, etc. connectors at 
> your SPG boxes? 
In one word, Nothing!  I do not normally disconnect the cables coming 
into either station (shop or house) which are also interconnected.  
There are just too many cables.  I agree the safest and surest 
protection is to disconnect and unplug everything, but I rarely even 
unplug anything.

 From the house to the tower are rotator, 2 remote antenna switches, the 
6-pack control , 3 LMR-600 feed lines (soon to be 5), two RG-6 to the 
UHF TV antennas at roughly 90 feet and two RG-6 from the satellite dish 
through underground conduit to the tower. There are also 3 CAT-6 network 
cables from the house to the computers in the shop.  There will be as 
many as 7 RG-6 feedlines from the splitters in the house to the shop, 
from the satellite HD receiver to the shop, and AV lines from the system 
in the house to the shop.

In the shop there are also 3 LMR 600's underground to the tower, control 
lines to the remote antenna switches, another to the 6-pack, and the 
rotator as well as RG-6 to a satellite dish and another to a TV receive 
antenna just under the AV640. There are also feed lines to the 40' tower 
on the West end of the shop.

BTW there are 4 state of the art quad core and one dual core computer on 
the CAT 6 Gigabit network

It's just too many things at 3 different locations that would need to be 
disconnected. To top it off the house and shop are different electrical 
feeds with their own meters even though all the grounds on the property 
are tied together along with 32 or 33 8' ground rods

BTW since finishing up the ground system I've not had any damage from 
lightning with a total of 15, visually verified strikes to the tower.
>  I like to disconnect my antenna feed lines and control 
> lines when thunderstorms approach, etc.  I've looking for ideas with 
> respect to SPG box connector and the line connector plugging into the 
> box.
A point that is often neglected is when lines from the tower are 
disconnected to protect equipment in the shack/house/shop the external 
lines should be grounded and not left floating.  Floating they can 
become antennas for inducing current into wires inside the structure or 
even arching into the structure.

73 and good luck,

Roger (K8RI)
>   Hope that makes sense!  I have use a mike connector and a Cinch 
> Jones, but these seem to have problems over time.  Thanks for your help.
> Jerry France
> K7LY
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