I'm finally ready to correctly ground my Trylon tower. I'll describe my
grounding plan for those that are interested below... but for now, I have a
question:
I am using #2 bare stranded copper wire. I need to figure out a way to
attach these wires to the base of the Trylon tower. I was hoping to find
some sort of lug to crimp onto the end of the wire, and then just use the
large bolts at the base of the tower to attach the lugs to the tower.
I visited an electrical supply house today but they don't have any lugs
like that (the bolt holes at the base are quite large compared to the #2
wire). I was hoping to find brass lugs so I didn't have to worry about the
dissimilar metal problem (copper against galvanized steel).
Hey you Trylon Tower owners out there... what did you use to ground your
tower?
Now, as promised, my grounding plan:
* From each of the two legs furthest away from the house, I will run 4 runs
of #2 stranded bare copper wire, fanning away from the tower (and away from
the house), as far as I can go, to the end of the lot line (each run will
be about 40 feet or less).
* Will put a 8 foot 5/8" ground rod about every 16 feet or so.
* I'm using Cad-Weld "One-Shots" to permanently weld the wire to the ground
rods.
* I plan on only going down a foot or so, despite those saying to do it 4
feet or more. Phooey on that! If you feel it is so important, please come
here and dig all 8 40 feet long trenches. :-) Seriously, I realize it
would be better, but I figure the worst case scenario is I won't be as
protected as I could be in the event of lightning AT THE SAME TIME as the
ground is frozen -- not really all that likely. And I will have so many 8
foot ground rods, they will all certainly be hitting moist ground. Am I
way off base here?
* I plan on removing a couple panes of my basement window and mounting a
metal plate. I have purchased PolyPhaser bulkhead lightning protectors for
each coax line and will mount the protectors to the metal plate, then run
coax jumpers on the inside to my coax switches. In the summer, I will
probably disconnect the jumpers when rigs are not in use.
* I will run a couple of short runs of #2 stranded copper from the plate to
some ground rods outside the basement window (lengths and number of rods
not set in stone). I will also be contacting the power company and phone
company to see if they can tie their grounds to this ground (is this how it
works?)
* My tower is about 50 feet from the house. From various TowerTalk posts
recently, it sounds like it is NOT a good idea for me to take a run of
copper and ground rods and tie the tower and the bulkhead panel together.
The concept of doing this is complicated further because I would have to
pass over buried electrical cables (and telephone and cable) to do it.
Scott KA9FOX
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