The following link talks about wind turbine towers but is equally applicable to radio towers. Lots of reading and links included.
Lightning Protection
Lightning Protection
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Good info about grounding.
- Thread starter Captain Kilowatt
- Start date
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST/This Month in QST/June2017/Chusid-Morgan.pdf
https://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/ham-radio-grounding-lightning-s/73.htm
https://www.w8ji.com/station_ground.htm
http://www.hamuniverse.com/n6jsxSimpleSmartStationGrounding2007.pdf
http://www.bwcelectronics.com/articles/WP30A190.pdf
https://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/ham-radio-grounding-lightning-s/73.htm
https://www.w8ji.com/station_ground.htm
http://www.hamuniverse.com/n6jsxSimpleSmartStationGrounding2007.pdf
http://www.bwcelectronics.com/articles/WP30A190.pdf
thanks Gary. those are all good sites. The link I posted above is over six years old so no wonder it is dead. I'll try and find a good link for it if I can find the original site again. It was very good.
Retired from Microwave radio industry. A great source for useful lightning and grounding is http://gpr-expert.com.
Frank
Frank
Solar City is in the Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120206114347/http://www.solacity.com/Lightning.htm
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https://web.archive.org/web/20120206114347/http://www.solacity.com/Lightning.htm
73
Here's what I do currently (pun intended). I only had two lightning arrestors on hand, and didn't have the cash to buy a bunch more. So only the top two have lightning arrestors on them because they're my most expensive radios. I'm in a low lightning area. Between 5 to10 events a year. So I manually disconnect the coax on the Shack side of the bracket if I'm aware there's going to be a thunderstorm. Disconnecting the shack is the only true lightning protection!! No grounding in the world will save your equipment if you take a direct hit!! All of this helps with RFI, static discharge, and turns the odds in your favor during a thunderstorm. Please don't ever think you are lightning proof though, unless you have disconnected the shack. I don't think you can see the ground rods but they are connected to the bracket and each other with solid core copper numbers 6 or 8 AWG I think. The copper line is buried between the ground rods. This is just for the coaxes and the radio chassis. The towers are grounded separately individually.
