[TowerTalk] from towers to shack

[Jim Lux]

On 12/8/13 6:51 PM, Steven H Sawyers (na0ia) wrote:
> Under ground is better for lightning protection. The feed lines and
> control lines, need to go to the base of the tower, through a lightning
> arrestor at the base of the tower), then to the shack. If they come off
> the tower high, then they are at a  portion of the whole lightning
> potential.

Yes, but... You'd have to bury pretty deep to get them totally "out of 
the picture" with respect to a lightning strike. It's not like the soil 
is a perfectly conducting ground plane of metal that is a perfect 
shield.  I think as a practical matter, whatever transient suppression 
you do at the entrance to the shack is going to be the same whether the 
cables are laying on the ground, suspended 10 feet off the ground, or 
buried a couple feet deep.



>
> Elevated lines of any kind are subject to deer with antlers snagging them.
>
Get em high enough and you worry about 8 tiny reindeer and a big sleigh 
with a guy with a pipe..<grin>