[TowerTalk] Connectors and grounding on tower

[Dick Blumenstein]

Hello tower gurus-

My 73’ crank up tower just went vertical a couple of days ago. This is 
my first tower. I’m starting the planning of the antenna coax interface 
box near the bottom of the tower and grounding/protection of the coax 
cables. (Of course, I will have multiple ground rods pounded in in a 
tree-like fashion, connected with 2 AWG cad welds).

I read in the ARRL book that I should wrap butyl rubber tape over 
connectors with Scotch 88 tape. Some people say to put 88 on first with 
sticky side up followed by butyl tape. Others reverse that.

Finally, I found that I had 5 rolls of THIS:

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/37648O/scotch-linerless-rubber-splicing-tape-130c.pdf

Even though it isn’t butyl I have a feeling this is just as good or 
better than butyl. Comments?

Also, many times I’ve read to install and ground coax connectors at BOTH 
the top AND bottom of the tower. So, once my cables leave the 
polyphasers in the antenna box 3 feet from the tower base it seems I’ve 
got to place 2 sets of pass-through connector grounding brackets, one at 
the top and one at the bottom of the tower. This means 4 EXTRA 
connectors in each antenna coax line before the final connection to the 
antenna itself at the top of the tower mast!! Wow!

An Extra friend of mine said that adding those connectors isn't worth 
it; that the polyphasers in the antenna interface box are enough and 
that the risk of losing the coax down the tower is acceptable and 
outweighs the risks of additional connector issues on the tower.

Comments on this, too?

Thanks,

Dick, K0CAT

E-Mail: rcblumen at centurylink.net <http://enturylink.net/>