[TowerTalk] zapped with my dipole. OUCH!

[K8RI on TT]

On 5/14/2011 10:08 PM, john at kk9a.com wrote:
> If you sustained no damage how do you know that your tower was struck 17
> times?

I've seen some strikes and my neighbors have seen others.  So together 
we have 17 visually verified strikes since the new tower went up. How 
many times it's actually been hit? I don't know.  The coax connectors 
are pretty well etched too, but work just fine as do the antennas.

The neighbor behind and to the south happened to be standing in his 
patio way door and looking right at the tower, bout 250 feet distant 
when it took a hit right on top.  I guess it was almost one of those 
life altering events. When I got home that evening he asked how much 
damage I had.  My comment was, Damage?  Yah, from the lightning stike. I 
had a lightning strike. Yah, it hit right on top of the tower.   
Everything still worked.

Another happened while I was talking to my neighbor from across the 
road. There was an active storm in the distance.  I had just taken the 
mail out of the mailbox and as we were talking when the tower which was 
about 120 feet from us took a hit on top as did the power pole about 20 
feet from us.  That too was almost one of those life altering 
experiences. We both beat a hasty retreat to our respective homes.

With the old tower and ground system I had several strikes that did do 
some damage although the worst damage was totaling a computer less than 
two weeks old. Another took the front end out of my old Kenwood 221 
while water ran down the 9913 and onto the top of the desk, ruining the 
top of the desk. (Never get water on top of these "DIY computer desks"  
The water soaks through the vernier and causes the particle board 
underneath to swell ) The strike had removed all of the water proofing 
at the top of the tower, blew out a Comet antenna for the repeater, and 
punched through the 7/8" Heliax to the repeater about 20' below the 
antenna. It didn't hurt the repeater.

The new ground system consists of 32 or 33 8' ground rods, Cadwelded(TM) 
to a network of over 600 feet of bare #2 copper.

73

Roger (K8RI)

> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] zapped with my dipole. OUCH!
> From: K8RI on TT<k8ri-on-towertalk at tm.net>
> Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 21:44:54 -0400
>
> <snip>
>   The tower has taken at least 17
> strikes since it was put up, yet I've had no damage to antennas or
> equipment since installing a good/elaborate ground system.
>
> 73
>
> Roger (K8RI)
>
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