Towertalk
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [TowerTalk] Grounding of Amateur Radio installations

To: Pete Smith <n4zr@contesting.com>, towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Grounding of Amateur Radio installations
From: kb9cry@comcast.net (Phil Camera)
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:26:38 +0000
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Did you have a SPG?  Was it tied to the service entrance ground?  How about a 
shack ground and the computers tied to that?  Most likely is that strike 
induced current in your house wiring and that found it's way to ground via your 
computers.

We can't prevent lightning but we can take the measures to intercept that 
energy, control it, and more important, direct it to ground (where it really 
wants to go, in a bad way) before it enters our house.

As far at the tower and antenna, were the coax shields tied to the tower?  What 
kind of grounding system was the tower connected to?  (The best is 75 ft of 
ground radials for each leg with rods every 2X their height.)  Was the mast 
direct coupled to the tower before the rotator?  If any of these items were not 
there, then yes you'd stand to lose some stuff on the tower.

Sri abt that loss and glad no one was hurt nor any fire started in the house.

Phil - KB9CRY 
Lockport, IL 
http://nidxa.org/memberWWW/kb9cry_home.htm

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Pete Smith <n4zr@contesting.com> 

> Actually, I took a direct hit on my 40M yagi some 3 years ago, about 200 feet 
> from the house and 100 feet in the air. Thanks to disconnection, I lost 
> nothing 
> on the radio side in the shack. Unfortunately, my wired Ethernet network 
> connections made a good antenna, and the induced EMP killed both computers. 
> Aside from them, we lost only the stuff on the tower, and a telephone 
> answering 
> machine. I'm not sure that additional measures would do much to improve on 
> this. 
> 
> 73, Pete N4ZR 

--
_______________________________________________



_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>