Ron,
Just to add some more information to this thread, I have a 150 foot tower
here that I excite as a series fed vertical on 160. This tower also contains
a 4 over 4 stack for 20 meters, a 2 over 2 stack for 40 meters and my packet
antenna that is mounted at the 120 foot level. Being that this is a series
fed radiator, I had to install isolation coils (RF chokes, if you will) at
the base of the tower to get the coax for each antenna as well as the rotator
wiring and stack box wiring across the base of the tower so that these feed
and control lines do not short out the tower. By doing this, I can operate
on all three bands simultaneously and not destroy the packet radio. Since we
do a lot of multi operations here, I have installed ICE filters on all the
radios, including the packet radio. The system hads been running for about a
year now (since the packet antenna was put on this tower) with no failures.
For lightning protection I also have a wire wound choke from the tower to
ground that bleeds off any static that tries to build up on the tower during
an electrcal storm. So far no hits.
For your installation, I think if you install the 2 meter (if that is the
band your packet is on) ICE filter on the radio, making sure to ground the
filter to the station ground, and I am sure that you will be fine. For
lightning protection wind a the coax coming from the packet antenna into a
two turn coaxial coil at the base of the tower. This will act an inductor to
the induced current from any lightning strike and help minimize the
lightning energy from coming into the shack. When you do this make sure that
the tower is well grounded to give any lightning strike a very low resistance
path to ground.
Hope th info helps!
73................de Goose W8AV
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