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Not really. I have done similar with my tower system and it cost a couple hundred, five at the most for EVERYTHING including the three Alpha Delta coaxial surge suppressors and the 16 lead control line suppressor , which is a good price to pay for doing it right. As for the amount of work, well yes I had to drive a dozen ground rods but a 10 pound sledge hammer took care of that. Bonding the tower ground to the electrical service ground, which is probably the single most important thing you can do, was minimal as I did have the copper cable on hand but it is easily available at a scrap yard for a decent price. Minimum of 6 ga. required. Commercial installations spend big dollars because they buy new but the average ham can do the same for much less by looking for bargains as they come along. Make friends with a local electrician and you will be surprised how cheap it can be.
Not necessarily. The Jerk said there were about 10 or so main radials which is no where enough to serve as a radial field for an AM station which you seem to have assumed it was. Depending on the depth of the water table and ground conductivity ground rods may be a mere drop in the bucket compared to the effectiveness of a radial field buried just below the surface. The effectiveness of such a field depends on both the physical contact with the ground to help bleed off the DC component of a strike as well as the capacitance to ground which helps bleed off the RF component of the lightning. In many installations the radial field is much more effective than the ground rods themselves. This of course assumes the radial field is installed properly.
Sure it can be done, but like you say you have $500 bucks in it. Some of these guys don't have $500 in their entire stations.
And why would anyone WANT to sit around and try and operate through a local thunderstorm anyway? Everyone else is disconnected and you have a receiver full of bad static crashes.
What the heck? .... Disconnect !
And why would anyone WANT to sit around and try and operate through a local thunderstorm anyway? Everyone else is disconnected and you have a receiver full of bad static crashes.
What the heck? .... Disconnect !
B
BOOTY MONSTER
Guest
so concrete is not a insulator even though it's made or rock , sand , mortar and water ? i wonder why folks with towers on buried concrete bases even bother adding ground rods ?
My point, and that of Warren VO1KS, is that while everybody else says you HAVE to disconnect because if you do not you WILL have irreparable damage we are saying NO you do NOT have to if you do it right and doing it right is more actually DOING it then spending vast sums of money. As for my spending maybe $500 in copper and ground rods etc, since I am protecting about $10K in the shack and another $15K in antennas and tower,cables, rotator, remote switches etc I consider it cheap protection in the event that I am not home if a storm should blow up. Again the point is that if things are done right you do NOT have to disconnect which is what 99.9% of the people think. Check out W8JI's site. He never disconnects any of his gear even though he has a couple towers near 200 feet high and one nearly 300 feet high and takes several direct hits a year without having any damage.Sure he has spent some $$$ doing his installation but look at what he is protecting. Most ops thing a piece of 12 ga. wire from their antenna mast to a single 6-8 foot ground rod and making sure their gear is connected to the AC service ground at the other end is adequate. This the absolute worst possible set up anyone could possibly have.One has to understand just what lightning does before one can understand what works and what does not for protection. Both VO1KS and I have been in the broadcast business (he still is) and have seen many commercial stations do things wrong more times than right BTW. Sometimes it is just a simple matter of relocating the cable entry/exit point which costs nothing if done right the first time.
Because it is not a great conductor and it is not a great insulator either because it is damp. Ground rods offer a better path for lightning and lightning protection is all about giving lightning an easy path to where you want it to go. Check out the Ufer ground.Good IF DONE RIGHT.
Ufer ground - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://www.google.ca/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_nf=3&tok=Wxfnlz1eF2oCET17oMI3uA&cp=10&gs_id=72&xhr=t&q=ufer+ground&pf=p&safe=off&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=uffer+grou&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=bff3fa6952cdc4b3&bpcl=35277026&biw=1600&bih=708
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You'd actually be surprised by some of the dreadful installations. Tower grounded, building AC grounded, but no bonding between the two. The equipment acts a jumper between the two. It's surprising how long the gear lasts.
If the system is designed and installed properly the added cost is next to nothing. Just do it right the first time and you're not spending thousands of dollars. Simple layout of the building and tower are critical. Mess up and the repairs could easily be that much though.
If the system is designed and installed properly the added cost is next to nothing. Just do it right the first time and you're not spending thousands of dollars. Simple layout of the building and tower are critical. Mess up and the repairs could easily be that much though.
Warren, how many times have we seen a transmitter cabinet sitting directly on a concrete floor with the AC service grounded to the chassis at the bottom and the transmission line grounded at the top or vice-versa?
It would cost nothing to do it right the first time but lots of dollars and down time to make it right later.Or transmission lines entering the building and passing right by the AC entrance but not bonded. Wide copper straps going to the wrong places and in very long paths with many bends. Lots of money being spent, but done the wrong way. They always look and say it's been grounded and do not understand that sometimes the ground strap can actually make the problem worse.
What about transmitters repeatedly losing a power supply? Put the standby transmitter on air and its power supply fails. The repaired supply fails after going back in. Then after warranty period is up they say the transmitter is just no good and buy something new. Same problems keep happening. Sometimes it's not the equipment at fault, but the overall installation.
I've pretty much given up. No one listens. Don't get me started on antenna system maintenance and testing. Whoosh over their heads.
What about transmitters repeatedly losing a power supply? Put the standby transmitter on air and its power supply fails. The repaired supply fails after going back in. Then after warranty period is up they say the transmitter is just no good and buy something new. Same problems keep happening. Sometimes it's not the equipment at fault, but the overall installation.
I've pretty much given up. No one listens. Don't get me started on antenna system maintenance and testing. Whoosh over their heads.
Warren, how many times have we seen a transmitter cabinet sitting directly on a concrete floor with the AC service grounded to the chassis at the bottom and the transmission line grounded at the top or vice-versa?
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