Hi Gayle, There's a lot of information on lightning protection at:
http://www.arrl.org/lightning-protection I think you *definitely* want to ground any antenna tower. There was a great talk on lightning protection at last August's Summerfest in Austin. The speaker had a contest-grade station, with multiple 100-plus foot towers that take several direct hits per year. What impressed me was the use of a system buried radial lines from the towers that had buried, eight-foot long rods welded to the radial lines at periodic intervals. Probably overkill for your station, but it is possible to protect radio systems from even direct strikes. I can't seem to find links to his talk from the Summerfest site, and a quick look didn't turn up the notes I took at the talk. In any case, hope you find the ARRL site of help. 73 de Bill, KG5FQX On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 7:52 AM, Gayle Dotts via BVARC <[email protected]> wrote: > I’ve got a beach house in Gulf Shores Alabama. Last week it had a direct > hit to the house by lightning, took out the refrigerator, 4 tv’s, phones, 4 > surveillance cameras and much more. Luckily It had no radio gear or > antennas there…which brings me to here… > > My NOW attempt to layer my radio shack for protection against lightning. > Like unplug radio, power and cables, ground radio chassis. I’ve have heard > an antenna doesn’t get hit as such until you ground it at which time it > becomes a lightning rod and as such now attracts lightning, so don’t worry > about the tower as much as the lines coming in. Is this correct? Sorry > for being so chit-chatty guys but this is a real concern that got personal > with the lightning. I don’t have much protection at all except a copper > rod outside my window with the radio chassis grounded there. I guess I > need to add more protection. I have watched you guys at field day just > ground the line, I thought, coming off the antenna in to the radio area, > was there more I didn't see? > > > _______________________________________________ > BVARC mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > >
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