[Lowfer] Lightning

[Garry Hess]

Hi John,

Your experience matches mine. The day I moved into my current house a 
lightning bolt hit a tree in the back yard, tripped the circuit 
breakers, blew out the lamp inside the refrigerator (the door just 
happened to be open at the time), and set off the security alarm (thank 
heavens I wrote down the access code because it was VERY loud!).

I've had a 65' tower up for 19 years now and no more strikes. I have 
separate 8' ground rods on each tower leg as well as each guy anchor. I 
jumper each tower leg at the foldover hinge, jumper each guy anchor 
turnbuckle, and have Andrew ground connections on every feedline at the 
tower base. Inside the shack, the feedlines have shorting plugs in them 
unless in use. I did lose a towertop microwave preamp box once due to 
EMP. The only other failure I've had is a recently built active antenna 
that is installed on a separate small roof tower. The JFet gate, 
connected directly to the probe, shorted to the drain. I was on vacation 
at the time and mistakenly left the unit powered up. Judging from all 
the rain in my rain gauge when I returned lightning must have been 
plentiful. I'll try back-to-back zeners if I lose another JFet but 
hopefully I won't again forget to turn the unit off when not in use and 
disconnect the feedline from the DC inserter in the shack.

73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL