[TowerTalk] Is lightning hitting the tower..or the yagi's ?

[Jim Thomson]

Roger mentioned his tower gets hit 3 x per yr  with lightning.    Does any of the radio gear/coax
ever get fried ?   What is getting hit... the top of the tower, top of mast, or yagi ele's ?? 

If yagi's are stacked on the mast.. is it always the top yagi that gets hit ?   Does anybody use those porcupine ball things
that extend above the top of the tower.   Tall building's in NYC + chicago get hit all the time with lightning.. and they all have
radio/tv gear on the top floors.... what is their procedure ??   


I think it was  w3lpl a while back, mentioned the lightning would stop when it got to his ant farm... pass
right over it.... then start up again on the other side.  That apparently will work... IF the towers are well grnded... and
have lots of well bonded yagi's  on the sides of the tower. 

Ok, what happens with yagi's like F-12.. where ALL the els are insulated from the boom ?   On a similar
note,  F-12 uses a hairpin... so both sides of the DE are bonded....via the floating hairpin.   Both sides of the DE
end up bonded to braid of coax.  in this case,  you want the coax braid  bonded to top of tower  [ and bottom of tower] 
On the OWA direct fed yagi's.... no hairpin used... and 1/2 of the DE is not bonded to top of tower via braid.  Now what do you
do?   Can you install say a 45 uh choke  [ made from  12 ga magnet wire, wound on single torroid]   directly across the ant terminals ? 
[ or one side of ant terminal  to boom]  At least that would DC grnd the center conductor of the coax.. and that 1/2 of the DE.  ICE does 
the same thing... but I wouldn't trust their box to be water proof. I use the ice box inside the house, on a 1/4" thick AL plate.. just inside
the basement. 

later......... Jim  VE7RF