[ADXA] Antennas & lightning

[David Norris]

EJ is right!

We’ve both had some hard lessons on this topic. 

Pull the plug!  Disconnect all of it! I have a theory on lightning and antennas that is too long to discuss on here but it has proven correct for 30 years. Since I started this practice and construction/installation techniques I have suffered no loss. 

73 ES DX

David A. Norris, K5UZ
Director, Delta Division

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 13, 2025, at 9:58 AM, Jussi Eloranta <eloranta at aa6kj.hopto.org> wrote:
> 
>  Hi,
> 
> The weather has been pretty rough at least here in the NE corner. Lightning on and off on almost all days. I have been running back and forth between the house and the shack disconnecting and reconnecting antennas & power. The weather forecasts have been pretty useless with these storms. They appear quickly and are gone quickly.
> 
> My question is as follows. With proper grounding and polyphasers on coaxes (+ surge protectors on power), do you guys disconnect antennas & power during storms? In CA lightning is rather rare and this was not an issue over there. I feel that here I have the radios disconnected most of the time! And my K4 died mysteriously during a recent storm with only the ground connected. It is possible that lightning can get in through the ground too... Fortunately Elecraft was pretty quick to fix it.
> 
> Jussi (aa6kj)
> 
> PS. I am headed to Finland to attend the annual SRAL summer meeting. Hopefully the weather is calmer there... Great to see some old friends over there.
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