Good info about grounding.

[nomadradio]

Over the years I have seen more damage from hits to the electric utility than to antennas. Antenna rotator control boxes are a favorite victim. The operator will know to unplug the radio and amplifier from the wall, but leaves the control box plugged in. A surge on the house wiring is looking for exactly one thing, a good ground. Best ground in the house proves to be the tower. But it's on the other end of the rotator control cable. The path from the wall outlet to the tower goes through the control box. I recommend plugging the whole station into an outlet strip, so you can pull that one plug out of the wall when the station is shut down. That's the only surge suppressor I trust.

If you're lucky only the indicator circuits get hammered in the control box. If you're not lucky the rheostat in the motor unit gets whacked as well. Much more trouble to fix.

73

 

[SuperLid]

I have a friend who lives a few miles away and he had his Shack completely grounded as per the ARRL handbook. His system took a direct hit ruined 2 radios. Basically welded the two coax connectors onto the backs of the radios. Evaporated the antenna that took the hit. There are photos all over the Internet of commercial sites with melted equipment after a direct hit. I guess sometimes you're lucky sometimes you're not. So be my guest and don't disconnect.

ARRL Handbook, is full of errors. The defacto industry standard, is Motorola's R56.