[TowerTalk] zapped with my dipole. OUCH!

[K0DAN]

Put a pair of lawnmower sparkplugs from each leg of ladderline to ground. If 
you can't visualize this, I'll send you some photos (they'll help bleed 
static to ground). Also, put around 3-6 megohm resistor from each leg to 
ground....it'll shunt the DC to ground but will be invisible to RF at low 
freqs. Of course, neither of these tricks will have any value if you get a 
direct lightning hit, at which point all components will likely vaporize!

Disconnecting & grounding the ladderline outside the shack, during a storm, 
is your best line of defense. If this is not easy/possible, at least ground 
the ladderline during a storm using a knifeswitch, but be aware this could 
bring very HV into the shack.

73

Dan
K0DAN

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "K2VI" <k2vi at cox.net>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2011 3:29 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] zapped with my dipole. OUCH!


> It seems every time there's distant lightning and i go to disconnect the 
> dipole i get this nasty discharge when i touch the pl-259. Im concerned it 
> will eventually damage my tuner and or radio. The antenna is not dc 
> grounded like my beam or vertical are. It is a ladder line fed antenna 
> terminating into a 4:1 balun outside the shack and a 3' run of rg8 coax to 
> the tuner. How can i bleed this static off? I heard from a ham friend the 
> jump a 2.5 MH RF choke between the two terminals of the 4:1 balun where 
> the ladder line connects.Any advice would be greatly apreciated.73
> tony k2vi
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