[TowerTalk] Grounding

[RCM]

>> 
>> My experience is that lightning can be managed, to a point.  A direct 
>> strike to your tower can be catastrophic.  I suffered one on May 9.  
>> My daughter lives about 600 feet away and witnessed the strike.  She 
>> said sparks flew in all directions.  My losses are huge.  I am working 
>> with the insurance company, and expect the total damage to be well in 
>> excess of $50K.  There is evidence that high voltage appeared on the 
>> tower, power lines, phone lines
>> (fiber) and even on my wi-fi connection from the house to the shack.  
>> Every gigabit switch was toasted, and every PC connected was blown.  
>> Another big loss was two large screen TVs, both connected to internet 
>> via gigabit switches.  Repairs were successful by replacing the power 
>> supplies.
>> 
>> All this, plus my main two stations, both with Yaesu FTDX9000D and 
>> Alpha 87A, are gone.  Coax was not even connected because I had just 
>> reconfigured the station and had not completed the coax switching 
>> section.  However, units were plugged into power, and the Yaesu 
>> transceivers were connected to the PCs.
>> 
>> 73, Keith NM5G
> 
> 
> 


Some 30 years ago I did a one day class from PolyPhaser.

One of their ideas was the highest thing on the tower should be a  sharp pointy rod, that would bleed off the charge

before it built up to “jump the gap”.

Maybe that, and their other toys fixed a couple two-way sites that got hit every year.

Never again.