[Elecraft] Grounding & Receivers

Sat Feb 16 17:42:01 2002

There is no such thing as lightning protection, just lightning precaution -
BE VERY CAREFUL....please

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Barker" <[email protected]>
To: "Elecraft" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 11:09 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] Grounding & Receivers

In your post, "rather than make those right angle turns." Balderdash!

Let's see, what's the mass of an electron? Maybe it CAN make that right
angle turn! I'd imagine some of the electrons would jump to ground at the
first rod, and some would jump to ground at the second rod, and LOTS would
get into your rig and FRY IT'S BRAINS.

Disconnect the antenna when not on the air, and don't be on the air during
thunderstorms. Expect lots of burns along the wall and floor and table where
the coax was laying without a load. Multi-Megavolts aren't too picky about
complete circuits. They tend to make their own.

I got to see the lightening machine at Westinghouse DTD, Athens Ga. years
ago. They use this 5 Story Tall Van De Graff generator to test pole pigs
(distribution transformers). Turns out it's cheaper to replace the pole pigs
every now and again than to put breakers on them. Resetting a breaker is
cheaper than replacing the transformer, but the number of calls to do so
raises the ante enough that the economical logic is to Let 'em Blow!

(20 year old memories - They may have different technology now, like
automatically resetting breakers. Saves raining down hot oil and metal
shards on the paying marks, er, ah, customers).

Dan / WG4S / K2 #2456

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 10:55 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Grounding & Receivers

Dudley

The K1 is remarkable.  You will not be disappointed.

As for grounding, I too have a second floor shack.  I run a full KW in
addition to a 756Pro, an FT920, K1 and K2 without a problem.  I use a ladder
line fed doublet, a 2 element mini beam and a GAP Titan vertical so I guess
I
have every possible type of antenna in the air.  The secret is to "unground"
your station.  If you are trying to run a ground wire to the earth, it is
acting as part of your antenna.  Get rid of the ground wire.

For lightning protection, run your coax down from your antenna and tape a
foot or so of it to a ground rod then make a right angle turn, run the coax
along the ground, then tape a foot or so of it to a ground rod right before
you make a right angle turn to go up to your shack.  This is not a perfect
solution but the idea is the lightning will jump to ground rather than make
those right angle turns.  I have no personal experience as whether this will
really work in case of a direct strike but it is a solution that has some
logic.

Radio K4IA
Craig Buck
Fredericksburg, Virginia USA
QRP ARCI #2550  FISTS #6702 CC 788 Diamond #64
K1 #470    K2 #2460
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