Leon Fisk wrote:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 22:55:42 -0500
John wrote:

snip
If the tower was not properly grounded lightning will cause damage.
Good grounding will carry off the charge and prevent it from doing
damage. Our towers would get hit almost every lightning storm and no
damage to the electronics. Most all of the telecommunications towers
can withstand a direct hit with no damage. The power has to have some
place to go and the best place is directly into the ground with the
proper grounding system.

Psst... John, wake up, you're dreaming...

I worked in two-way radio communication most of my career.


I guess you never learned that in a lightning prone system always use a
DC grounded antenna system a folded dipole for example otherwise the
lightning takes a partial path through the center conductor of the coax
and travels to the transmitter blowing your relay.


Several of the towers I serviced equipment at were grounded to R56 spec,
which was
very ambitious and the best at the time. The equipment still took hits
that caused considerable damage...

And other towers that had little to no grounding and got hit regularly,
had very little equipment damage. Go figure...

I got out of the business when Micors came out. I went into aviation
electronics.
I had worked on many HT 180's, Twin V 44 UHF and all the other stuff
Motorola made.
I maintained equipment on every tall building in NYC including the
Empire state bldg.
Chrysler building Pan Am building, and many others as well as many in
NJ. so I do have a little experience with lightning hitting antennas.

It all comes down to having a place for lightning to go directly to
ground so it doesn't take stray paths into the the equipment blowing
something out.

John