[Jerry Keisler]

Having problems with lightning? You need to shunt the lighting to ground and isolate your equipment the best you can. Good shunting causes most of the lightning to go straight to ground. Good isolation causes the lightning to avoid those paths. Lightning protection is like insurance. The more you install the better the protection. But no mater what you do there is that stroke that will get thru sometime in your life time. If you are lucky, You will never experience that. The attached has worked on public safety stations in 9 counties for over 10 years.

 

 

[Jerry Keisler]

Note! All thyrite protectors are now called whole house protectors. Thyrectors are now MOVs. Conduit should be steel or anything with lots of iron.

[Steven Smith]

Jerry’s Advice is sound

However, I think the single most important Item over looked by many amateurs is
Bonding one’s utility Service Ground Rod to the Ham Station Ground Rod

I have lightning Arrestors mounted at the base of each of my antennas in the feedline
and at the shack entry panel
My shack entry panel has Lightning Arrestors on each and EVERY feedline entering my station

In fact every wire entering my shack from outside has lightning protection
zero exceptions!

Every piece of equipment inside my Ham Station is connected to my single point ground entry panel
Zero exceptions !

Even after doing such a great job Bonding and grounding everything except those Two Grounds Rods I had equipment damage
during each and every lightning storm

Now I have zero damage inside my home or Inside my Ham Shack
and in the last two years since moving to non Traditional Transceivers (I now use FlexRadios)
I do not disconnect ANYTHING when I leave my ham shack

If you are having lightning damage or are worried you may
I strongly suggest you get Ward Silver’s Book Grounding & Bonding
Ward’s book is available at the ARRL Book Store
http://www.arrl.org/shop/search.php?mode=search&by_title=Y&by_descr=Y&by_sku=Y&search_in_subcategories=Y&including=all&substring=Grounding+%26+Bonding

For most of us, trying our electrical service ground rod to our shack ground rod
is NOT an easy task, it was not for me, but was worth every bit of effort

Steve
KG5VK

 

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