"Thierry" To answer me in private use http://www.astrosurf.com/lombry/post.htm wrote in message ...
Hi,

Was your house/shack stroken by Thor's hammer, I mean a lightning recently ?

My mast has been struck twice in the last 4 years.
I am interested in your experience...

If your installaiton was damaged by a strike event, I would like to now if :
- you used a central ground point bonded to an external grounding system, as
well as the home ground.

My mast is the central ground point. It's tied into to water pipe,
which is about 2 ft away, and also tied into my "ground window"
outside the shack. All the ground here is tied together, and at the
same potential. The water pipe is iron, not pvc.

- you left some gears switched on during the strike event

Gears???? No compute...

- you left the TX switched on and the coaxial plugged without protection

Yes. So was my computer and monitor. Neither flinched at all.
- you installed or not lightning controllers in your electric distribution
panel

No.
- you had installed another protection
No.
- you swicthed off and unplugged all devices
Yes. But to my radios only. IE: rig and amp unplugged from the wall.
Phone line to the computer unplugged. All the other stuff in the
house/room was left on and plugged in.
My computer was on, as was the TV in the room, which is on cable.

- you think that the energy came back via the grounding network (probably
dut to a difference of potential in a device)

Most all of the strike energy went straight to ground via the mast I'm
fairly sure.
I had no damage to anything anywhere. The only thing is did was blow a
hole in my electrical tape "water cap" on the top of the mast. Also
made the slightest arc spot on the end of the mast. You would have to
look hard to see it.

Tell me only in a few words what was the most probable cause of the
accident.

Accident? What accident? The lightning strike did exactly what I was
intending/hoping it would do.

At last, if you master the subject, do you really think that a grounding
system, as best it could be as the advice provided by PolyPhaser for
example, will never protect you against a direct strike on your antenna or
on the house lightning conductor
Why ?

You can protect from a direct strike. The level of protection will
depend on the clamping voltage of the gas tube, or whatever you use.
The higher power gas tubes clamp at a higher voltage. If you want max
protection use a low power protector. But I'm too paranoid to operate
during lightning. I see no point anyway, being the static would be a
mess... I totally unhook and ground all antennas. Also, my mast is
much most likely to attract a strike rather than my antennas
themselves. They just float along for the ride. My coaxes all run all
the way down to the ground. The mast acts as a lightning rod in my
case. I was sitting 15 feet away from my mast when it struck mine. In
reality, it's kind of a non event..It's so quick , it's over before
you realize what happened. The strike itself is pretty quiet if you
have a low resistance connection like a well grounded mast. About like
throwing a lightbulb on the ground and breaking it. Only the sonic
boom overhead is loud. You also hear a click in your auditory nerves
when you are that close. Lightning has also hit tall trees in our yard
in that time period. The tree in the front yard was nailed a few
months ago. MK