Added a Couple I.C.E. Arrestors to Station Ground / Lightning Protection Box

First pic is what I've been using since I put the Carolina Windom up in the trees. Since I added a couple more antennas, I thought they needed the same treatment.

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Following four pics are MS Paint renderings what I think will work for the additional antennas. Small lines on the radio side of the arrestors are BNCs. Larger lines on the antenna side are Davis RF BuryFlex 9914F coax.

Looks good to me. Very nice.

Very nice indeed, that's what I plan on doing in a few weeks for my station.

What it turned out really looking like...




Pulled (2) more ~60' runs of BuryFlex.

It really sucks that they are no longer producing their balanced line arrestors

Hey BD, where'd you get that box?

They do....they just call them knife switches now.

DX Engineering...Stand By for link...

Grounding Utility Box

Ah, a little bird sent me an IM letting me know I'm looking in the wrong place. I should not be looking at the old ICE web site, but rather here

Order placed, thank you very much! Now I can be protected at my BOL, too!

That makes me cringe every time I see those. When I was in the field we had hundreds of those boxes stacked in the office. The techs threw them away if there was a scratch or hole wrong in one.

Well....who'd of thunk it. I reckon a couple of those are now on my procurement list!

I never knew they made them.

Live and learn.

I basically did the same thing here, even got the same enclosure and stuff, but I have a couple question for ya'll.

My HF antenna is mounted on a 30' wood utility pole, back in the woods behind my house for stealth reasons (HOA's suck), and I was thinking about putting a bulkhead connector, mounted to a piece of stainless steel angle, at the base of the wood pole where the feedline comes out of the conduit. The angle would then be attached to additional ground rods around the pole. The feed point is about 40' up, so I would have about 140' LMR 400 from the ICE equipment at the entrance to shack, through conduit to the bulkhead at base of antenna pole, then the grounded bulkhead, then a 40' run of LMR 400 to the feed point.

Is the bulkhead a good idea, or overkill? Will it cause any issues? I've always had my antennas, even back in the CB days, grounded to the earth via the antenna pole itself, or, a #4 bare ground wire from the antenna mount to earth ground rod. I've only been struck by lightning once (summer 2010) but that was once to many, and I'm really trying to make this new setup better.

That's probably a more professional installation than 99.999 percent of the entire world's population of hams have...

Inside the grounding box, joining copper directly to the aluminum mounting base might eventually cause problems - lots of potential for galvanic corrosion between those two particular metals. The usual solution is to sandwich a layer of stainless steel between them (even though the stainless doesn't conduct nearly as well as copper or aluminum).

Thanks for the kind words, Ski. A lot of people here have helped with this project. As always, the constructive criticism is much appreciated!

I didn't use anything between the arrestor and the balun at a little shorter distance than you refer to above. I wanted an uninterrupted piece of coax to the antenna. Fewer joints to weatherproof.

In my line of work as a network architect/Router monkey, one thing that is very pleasing to me (and increasingly rare) is a clean, tidy, and professionally done install. In this age of slamming things out as quickly and cheaply as possible, craftsmanship and attention to detail is fast becoming a lost art.

You Sir have a clean, tidy, and professionally done install

FINE BUSINESS


....as the old farts say

CJan_NH, coming from you, I consider that quite a compliment! You are my OCD brother from another mother here on Arfcom. Do you see anything familiar in all the stuff I routinely keep in my truck trunk?

Beautiful...simply beautiful

Almost brings a tear to my eye

Yeah, a fargin' showoff, huh?

yes, in fact i do: A GREEN BOX.

tonight on the 11 o'clock news: scandalous duplicity seen on ARFCOM!

ar-jedi

Yeah, but that green box is a little smaller than the spud7 EmComm Box size. This one has several ratcheting straps, a big wide tow strap, and siphoning hoses in a couple different sizes.

note: duplicity does not mean "2".

ar-jedi

WTF are you implying? I have freely admitted to keeping a folder on my desktop containing cool gear pics that I would like to (and have frequently done) assimilate into my own system(s). You and CJan_NH are major contributors to that folder, BTW. I'd bet other members do the same. Nothing deceitful about that.

LoL.

gotcha!

ar-jedi

Wait!....But what about...I thought you...damn.

i did learn definition #2 of duplicity via your quote from Websters, so all is not lost.
that said, i don't know that i have ever seen it used in that manner.

ar-jedi

BD,

When you first started this project, how did you decide upon the copper strap connection approach...

welding, soldering vs the expensive copper clamps (those things must be gold plated)

was there anything that pointed you away from simply soldering???

Thanks!

Ground connections shouldn't be soldered. In the event of a lightning strike the currents involved may be enough to heat the conductor to the melting point of solder. If the solder melts you've no longer got a connection to ground .

makes sense... thanks!

Sorry for the late reply, busy buying an electric guitar and amp for the teenage son's upcoming birthday. ALKVA's right on target. In this case, a good mechanical connection is preferable to soldering. And you're right, those freaking clamps are really expensive!

ETA: Not very long ago another member posted a link to a different site that had similar clamps for less $$. Searching for the link now...

$25 EA @ KF7P MetalWerks vs $30.50 EA @ Georgia Copper

Good deal.. thanks for the link. !!

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