I have a similar situation. I have come to believe the most important
thing to do is assure that all of the ground rods are connected. I
have power, phone and cable service underground. I don't think I have
had a significant strike since last August when I had a company
install lightning rods on the house. They were very careful to ground
the base of the tower to one of their rods. They installed Galvanized
rods.

Another good question is whether to ground the rebar in the tower
base. I elected not to worry about it but to focus on tower grounding.

I wonder about the dishes on the tower. In times past mounting them
too high mad them vulnerable to terrestrial noise. The wind load they
contribute can be awesome.

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:48:16 -0500, "Jeff Dieterle"
wrote:

I'm installing a 60ft self-supporting tower. It will have a vhf/uhf antenna
with rotator and a couple of satellite dishes on it. The tower will be set
in a concrete apprx. 4'x4'x4'. Is driving a copper clad 5/8"x8ft ground rod
and attaching a #6cu ground wire to the tower leg sufficient.
I live in a heavily wooded area and have lost several modems to lighting
strikes. Now when it looks like thunder 2 states away I unplug them on my
computers and Directv receivers.

John Ferrell W8CCW