Don't forget to provide PLENTY of buns and bread and condiments like mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, chopped Vidalia onion, and bags of a variety of potato chips and corn chips. It's amazing how much you can accomplish with a case or two or three of beer, maybe throw in some hamburgers on the charcoal grill and a few hot dogs and brats with homemade coleslaw and you have the makings of real party. They did this in an effort to build high-volage transmission lines less susceptible to lightning damage.įinally, there is no reason to do this alone! Find an experienced group of hams or swl listeners and ask for their advice. unless you really know wtf you are doing! The Japanese have a lot experience deliberately "bringing down the lightning" by IIRC using high-power lasers to create an initial ionization path. almost as if it has a "life of it's own." About the "best" you can do is not tempt lightning strikes. "Grounding" conductive surfaces and keeping them close to earth is a big help, but lightning will strike anywhere it wills. There really is no way to "lightning-proof" anything. I will lower the antenna prior to any weather likely to produce lightning and connect a heavy wire between my "purpose driven" ground and the metal frame of the antenna. If I do erect an HF antenna it will probably be a "no radial" vertical, mounted on a tilt-over pole. The sole function of the ground rod, lightning arrester, and connecting copper wire, is to "bleed off" any charge induced on your antenna by clouds passing overhead. Try to keep the length of this heavy copper wire as short as possible. The lightning arrester will have a screw terminal to secure the other end of the wire. Use a copper saddle-type clamp to secure the bare end of the wire. I would use a gas-tube lightning arrester, inserted in the coax line leading to the antenna, and connected with 10 AWG solid copper wire to a purpose-driven "ground rod" nearby. I, do love a nice thunderstorm, but I also get somewhat antsy when there are lightning bolts hitting all around me. I have NO experience with "small" vertical antennas such as this one, but as noted, it "looks like a nice,tall, ungrounded lightning rod." Where I live in southwestern Florida is called the Lightning Capital of the World.
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