Grounding a new ham station, KEEP THE LIGHTNING OUT! 

Did you ever consider cad welding your ground loops?? I used to build cell sites up and talk about grounding systems. We used to use #2 solid tinned wire as per specs of the engineers of Crown Castle the tower owners. Everything we did outside in the compound was cadwelded. Great video sir..when I seen your video on grounding, man how much I miss it. Glad to see you going that extra bit which is only going to help you out in the long run. Real nice job!!!!!

Great video provided by years of practical experience. Noting better.

This all looks great if you live on dirt. Where i live we have 6-10 of topsoil and then solid rock

Excellent discussion that accompanied your grounding rods. Thanks!

Thank you for sharing your experience with installing grounding systems. It is good to learn from someone with practical experience. 73 KI7CDG

When I used to do cad welding at cell sites we had to cad weld everything . Ground loops around the compound, tower, fences,, ground bus bars on the feed line Bridge, and halo inside the building which was all #2 tin. Solid copper tinned on the outside and gates with braided wire. First thing when I got to the site and getting set up I would grab the mold and take a torch and heat up the mold for a period of time to prevent the mold from blowing up. In the 2 years and hundreds of welds, I never had a issue. That seemed to be the best solution that worked great. I was surprised though the shot would light up with a torch igniter but couldn't set it off with a lighter. Mike Niverville,N.Y.

Sounds like you are familiar with R56 and Harger Ultraweld. Damn good grounding job!

good job right tools for the job, love that ground ring Wayne N6FGV

FWIW in 40 years or so of visiting radio sites I have rarely seen lightning damage, none at all on properly engineered major sites. In my experience the small sites were more vulnerable to issues with landlines when struck. Interesting to see the products used across the Atlantic from me. 73

Back in my younger days, I did some tower installation work. We finished up a 150' tower in the fall before I returned to college. When I returned home for the holidays, my boss told me it had been struck by lighting. He showed me the base of the antenna where the loading coil used to be. There were scorch marks on the core but no sign of any copper.

Can't wait to see your tower take a hit. See if all your preps were worth it

Nice Electric Hammer ! Now I need one. Lol

Wow. Awesome.

you never have too large of a conduit.

Do you think that a grounded copper buss bar with bulkhead fittings located in your field junction box would add another level of lightning protection?

Is it correct to connect the ground of the tower or antenna masts to the RF ground of the antenna itself? Or should separate grounding be made for them?

Have you ever tried lubricant when doing pulls? I have used it pulling electrical lines. Great video as always! KE8PKO 73!

Jack, What do you do for controller surge suppression? Antenna Switches, rotators, etc? DXE and polyphaser have a rotator surge suppressor that looks like it might work.

Well planned station! so good it is pro! Look at sum pro stations are a joke. Well for us radio stations with wire antennas and no towers and on tight budget and rent/ move a lot how douse one ground a station? I know a lighting ground for a wire antenna is a bit on the spendy side ,and one can not all ways ground to the building ground for a singel point ground what is one to do? If one removes feed line from radio room for lighting thare can be a lot of static charge that can damige a radio so how doues one ground a stations agensted static charge? I can not find a solution.