Was wondering if anyone on the group would mind posting a few pictures of their single point ground system setup? I currently have a fold-over mast that I would like to attach my antennas to and then feed the coax into the house but would like to run the coax into a outdoor weatherproof enclosure box which will serve as the single point ground, from this box feed the coax into a window feed-through panel and then to the equipment sitting on a desk. Would any one have any pictures of your setup similar to the proposed setup as I think it will not only give me a idea of how to setup the system but also maybe help others who may be looking for something similar.
Thanks,
Joey
I know this is an old post, but just stumbled onto it today. If your interested in single point grounding, then the first thing that comes to mind is the Motorola R56 standard. It is generally used in one form or another by all the cellular companies around the country. They all put their own small twists on it, but for the most part they all do the same thing.
You will see many comments by the uneducated that keep saying that you can't survive a direct strike on your tower. My stand on this is that statement is so far from the truth that it makes me mad when I see someone making it on a chat group. Think about it. If this was true, then the cellular companies, TV and radio broadcasters would be off the air all the time. Is that what really happens? No, these towers do take hits, the lights might blink, but the radio equipment keeps on playing.
Have seen with my own eyes that one of the towers I use to maintain cellular equipment on take a big, direct hit. It was raining hard and the tower was steaming from the tower steel being made hot by the high current from the lightning strike. Went inside the equipment building and everything was playing fine.
There was one damaged radio in the shelter. It belonged to a ham club that had a repeater there. When they installed the rack, the building owner told them it needed to be grounded to the facility ground system. They refused. The owner also told them that they needed to install a power surge unit on the AC power feed. They didn't do that. The owner told them that they needed to add a coax cable surge device as their cable came into the building. Again that wasn't done. So guess what, their radio became a black pile of burnt components.
Have spent about 18 years building cellular sites around the country. I have yet to see any major damage done in any of them when the grounding followed the R56 standard. There have been a couple of locations where short cuts were taken and the lightning followed those short cuts. But on the whole, a good grounding system will survive a direct strike on the tower.
The definition of a grounding system is not one ground rod in the ground right at the base of the tower. Then a # 14 wire run from the tower to the ground rod. This is not a good ground system and probably won't do much to protect your radio system. There have been towers that I have been to where the ground wire was attached to the ground rod with a stainless steel hose clamp. After a years or so, the oxidation at the connection basically wasn't there anymore. You now have a high resistance joint that wouldn't light a light bulb.
