[TowerTalk] Special grounding and/or cable routing?

[Paul Beckmann]

I'm in the planning stages of planting a TX-472 about 15' off the corner of
a garage housing the shack in a loft with the floor at about 15'. We are on
the top of a 400' bluff overlooking the Mississippi River valley to the
north. There are 50-60' trees just adjacent to the tower site on two sides.
My plan will be to run cabling down the tower, in a short conduit under a
driveway path, through lightning suppression close to ground level, and
then vertically up into the garage eve and into the shack. A separate
conduit for the 110V to run the tower raising and tilt motors as well as
remote motor control will be run. Bonded ground rods will ring the tower
base and the garage. The garage has a separate breaker box and ground rod
currently with about 50' of buried 220 service from the utility meter.
There is a solar energy system with a pair of Tesla Powerwalls backing up
the main utility feed (i.e., both the house and garage). I'm aware of
possible RFI from the micro-inverters but that's not the topic of the post.

I'm writing the reflector members today to get their thoughts on my plans
for coax and cable routing, grounding, and lightning suppression. Should
suppression be installed at the base of the tower before it makes the 15'
underground run? Should the tower ground and garage ground be directly
interconnected? If so, should the ground be placed inside or outside the
coax and rotator cable conduit? Is it necessary to ring the house with
ground rods as well since the garage has it's own service entrance of sorts?

I'm hunting for references (books/articles) as well as personal analysis.
Thanks for your time and Happy Holidays to all.

73
--Paul, wa0rse


*Paul Beckmann*
*Vista Meadows Homestead*
*30125 719th Street*
*Lake City, MN 55041*
*wa0rse at gmail.com <wa0rse at gmail.com>*
*612-414-0302 (cell, leave msg)*