It is not expensive at all. I drove a big copper rod pretty deep into the clay just outside our home. If you are driving the rod into the ground (sledgehammer with cap over the end of the rod while hammering), close outside your shack, I would recommend copper braided ground strap into your shack. Solid copper ground strap is best, but expensive, and difficult to manipulate into your shack. But as prior commenter said, use at least #8 gauge copper wire. It only costs a few bucks more to move up bigger to #6 gauge. Just a thought. But I may be wrong. Any others wish to input on this? RodNK5Q
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Wed, Oct 4, 2023 at 19:18, Fox Danger Piacenti via BVARC<bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: Thank you. This is indeed a deficiency in my current setup and sounds like it wouldn't be expensive to fix. Is there anything else I can do? Best, -Fox On 10/4/23 12:04, Robert Polinski via BVARC wrote: > First, make sure any ground rods or grounding system used in your ham shack > is bonded to your house electrical ground. This is a common failure in lots > of ham shacks. If a nearby strike induces voltage in your electrical system > and your house ground has a higher resistance to ground than your shack > ground, it will seek the lower resistance ground, by way of your ham > equipment. This is why the National Electrical Code requires all > supplemental grounds (your ham shack grounds) to be bonded with #8 ga or > larger wire together. Robert KD5YVQ > > -----Original Message----- > From: BVARC <bvarc-boun...@bvarc.org> On Behalf Of Fox Danger Piacenti via > BVARC > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2023 11:29 AM > To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB <bvarc@bvarc.org> > Cc: Fox Danger Piacenti <kelke...@gmail.com> > Subject: [BVARC] Techniques for mitigating Lightning > > Hi all! > > During most storms I find myself disconnecting my antenna from my radio and > staying off the air. I figure that a direct strike from lightning isn't > something I can do much to mitigate on a household budget other than to not > be the tastiest target for a bolt nearby. > > However I am concerned with strikes that are close enough to induce current > strong enough to damage the sensitive electronics in my transceivers. This > seems especially important for a place like Houston where our weather can be > very extreme, and where having radio comms working could be helpful. > > What do you do to make your home stations more resilient to nearby strikes? > How do these differ for UHF/VHF rigs verses HF? > > Best, > > -Fox, KW6FOX > > > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > BVARC@bvarc.org > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/ > > > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > BVARC@bvarc.org > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/ ________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list BVARC@bvarc.org http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/
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