Part of the mental imaging problem here is that our brains, in their internal emotional response to orders of magnitude, simply cannot scale the destructive power in lightning. Lightning is quite capable of melting the leads to six properly done ground rods, AND at the same time blowing up a perfectly done to code concrete base with reinforcing rods.
It just needs to be a big enough strike. I would guess (zero proof, just a nagging inclination) that the odds of this are considerably reduced by the presence of decently tall trees in the immediate vicinity (another loooong discussion). Anyone who has seen a lightning strike turn three or four cubic yards of ground dirt into glass in milliseconds, or seen a huge strike on a lake surface boil water within a 10 foot radius has a good gut based lightning strike power scaling device. Every now and then I will get on YouTube and watch the cellphone videos of the 2011 Japanese Tsunami to remind myself of the absolutely enormous kinetic energy in a twenty foot high wall of water moving at 20 miles per hour. Nature can completely blast any one of us to smithereens if it wants to. Thankfully that is nowhere near norm. The question is how much moolah do you want to lay down, how many otherwise good solutions do you want to shelve, for a rarity? Like how to invest, that is a very personal decision. Good luck to all. 73, Guy K2AV On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 11:32 PM, Doug Renwick <ve...@sasktel.net> wrote: > That myth refuses to die. I have 5 concrete tower bases with ground rods > partially encased and never a worry about an exploding base. > > Doug > > > -----Original Message----- > > -NEVER- encase a ground rod in concrete ... especially a tower base. > > As a retired 2-way radio tech, I'm aware of two towers that had to be > re-installed because of lightening strikes exploding their concrete bases. > > 73! > > Ken - K0PP > > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to k2av....@gmail.com > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
