[BC] Lightning and grounding ... fun for all!

[Bruce Doerle]

*******************************

Bruce:

You are certainly well aware of lightning and its effect on broadcasting if 
you have equipment on a tower.  Especially since the strongest lightning 
area in the nation is the line from just South of Tampa to near Daytona 
Bch, FL.....

II guess this will always be one of the great discussion topics,  lightning 
along with grounding. One thing I remember, an elderly engineer telling me 
years ago,  lightning is like a big elephant  IT goes wherever IT wants to, 
usually taking multiple paths to ground.  Your job is to try to see that 
the path is easier for IT the next time.

Dave
   
------

Dave and other interested participants,

Absolutely, my station's tower is right in the center of that alley, Orlando.  We have a 477' self-supported and there is nothing else that tall nearby.

And you are absolutely right, watchout for where the elephant walks.

We have been getting some very good discussions on this issue.

Back in 2002, we were looking at the lightning protect for this tower.  The specifications were still under review and our consultant only claimed we needed some #8 wire and ground rods to make an adequate ground system.  But I looked into the subject, I discovered he wasn't even close to what we needed.  So I joined the LightningProtection at yahoogroups.com group to learn more about dealing with this problem.  I also took a local vendor supported course on lightning protection.  Although this vendor sold both CTS and ESE products, behind the scenes he discouraged their use in that he claimed they were a waste of money.  He suggested that we put our money into a good ground system.  This we did, but I continued to monitor the LightningProtection group to find over that year they independently concurred with his assessment.

One of the things that came up in June of 2003 was an interesting demo clip from Hitachi.  I was wondering from this group what they thought of this demonstration:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/B/r/BroadCastDesign/lightning/Hitachi_prevention_video_clip.wmv. 

Any comments?  I believe Mr. Mousa, BTW who is the moderator of the LightningProtection group and who has posted here today, will comment since this clip came from him, but I would hope he would wait until others have given their thoughts.

Thanks,

Bruce