[TowerTalk] tower & antenna project questions

[Gene Smar]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jimlux" <jimlux at earthlink.net>
To: "Tower and HF antenna construction topics." <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] tower & antenna project questions


>
>
> Put your copper wire into the foundation and end it there.  It should
> only penetrate the air/concrete boundary above grade.  If you want to
> put ground rods in, too, put them into the soil outside the concrete.
>
> But concrete is a pretty good conductor, and has a LOT more surface area
> than a 1/2" diameter rod.  When you're talking dissipating lightning
> energy, you want to spread it out.
>

TT:

      You shouldn't need to use a wire from the tower to the concrete.  The 
base legs, or the base anchor bolts, will provide electrical connection into 
this massive Ufer ground.  What the ground rods outside of the concrete will 
do is spread the lightning energy through more of the surrounding earth than 
will just the concrete base.  In effect you are construcing several parallel 
paths to ground for lightning energy when you install several ground rods 
outside of the concrete and connect them all to the tower.  It would be even 
better if you were to continue each tower ground wire along a radial away 
from the tower and connect each radial wire to additional ground rods along 
the route.  Space these rods twice their length apart (ten foot rods at 
twenty foot intervals.)

     Sorry to keep bringing up my own tower as an example, but here is a 
photo of my ground wie installation on my self-supporting Trylon tower: 
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j282/ersmar/?action=view&current=Detail-groundwire.jpg .


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F