You really can't protect yourself from a direct strike. But that is rare. More common is a close strike.
You first line of defense is to ground the metal mast (pipe). Place a ground clamp on the pipe and run a large ground write by the most direct route to a ground rod driven into the soil. This rod needs to be tied into the the building ground. You must use mechanical clamp type connections at each end. This ground system is direct almost all the energy away. If the coax wire is inside the mast it will be well protected. I owned a sail boat for years. On the ocean my 65 foot aluminum mast was the tallest conductor for many miles. But it was securely conected to a 8,000 pound lead keel that was in saltwater. Any lightening strike the energy would go mostly to the water. Then inside the atto you have a lighten/surge protector mounted on some kind of metal bulkhead. (A common electrical box works for this and is cheap. As long as you don't like in Orlando FL you should be fine -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
