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<p>The one time my station was damaged by lightning, the lightning
actually hit the power lines, and the surge came in, destroyed my
12V power supply then went down into my IC-22S and came out
through a programming cable I had plugged into it, jumping across
a two-inch or so gap between the end of that cable and the coax
going to my well-grounded 2m antenna. The IC-22 had its
reverse-voltage protection diode destroyed, but suffered no other
damage.<br>
</p>
<p>For the uninitiated, the IC-22S is an early synthesized 2m FM
radio that you could program with this diode matrix to set up to
22 channels. Some enterprising individual had modified it to have
a 23rd channel, which was brought out to a 9-pin connector on the
back, and had purchased a box with thumbwheel switches that you
could use to set any frequency that could be used by the radio.
It assumed the old 30kHz channel spacing, which could hit all the
repeaters in the area, but you couldn't go to arbitrary
frequencies. Anyway, the magic thumbwheel box had died, and I had
no clue how to fix it, so I just built a cable with an 8-position
dipswitch on the end and was using that to set arbitrary
frequencies. When the lightning destroyed the dipswitch, I got a
big burned spot in the middle of the operating table which had a
smaller gold spot, from the gold-plated contacts, in the middle of
the burned spot.</p>
<p>Other than the cool gold-plated spot on the operating table, what
I got out of it was the knowledge that just because you've
disconnected the antenna, you can still get lightning damage.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/27/2021 2:25 PM, Robert Polinski
via BVARC wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Most lightning damage done in a house is
due to a poor grounding system on the AC service. All service
panels should have at least 1 8ft ground rod with a min of #6
ground wire going to the panel board. The size of this
conductor is dependent on the size of the service. In many
cases, this ground is missing, the clamp has rusted off, or is
just making a poor connection. In many areas, the copper
thieves have cut the pole grounds, making your rod the last
defense before the surge hits your home. Ground rods need to
have an impedance of lest than 25 ohms, sometimes more than 1
rod is needed to get this. Warning, before you do any checking
or service on your grounding system, turn off your main
breaker & test your ground wire with a clamp on amp meter.
If it indicates any current, it is a sign that the power co.
ground is bad & working on it could cause electrocution.
Call an electrician. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> The second issue is the failure to bond
all grounds together. Newer electrical services are required
by code to have a intersystem bonding block. On this block it
has terminals for bonding CATV phone & any other systems
to the service ground. You ham station grounding system MUST
be bonded (connected) to this system with a #6 ground wire.
This is a NEC code requirement and a must to prevent station
damage & possibly a fire. If you do not connect the 2
systems together, and a strike hits the power line, the
lightning will seek the lowest impedance path to ground. If
your station ground is lower than the service ground, it will
pass thru your equipment to find it. Bonding the ground
together eliminates this problem. Robert KD5YVQ <o:p></o:p></p>
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