OK, thanks again for all the good advice. After concidering all the
suggestions and re-reading 3 different ARRL antenna manuals I have
decided to go with a buried cable (uninsulated of course) all around
the house and extending out to my vertical antenna base. I will run
ground straps from the electrical service box, my bedroom receiver,
and the entrypoint for my feed lines to the buried cable. I am going
to go with the spark plug (non resistor type) protection combined with
knife switches to disconnect the rig -and- ground the ballanced
antennas to the buried cable. All co-ax will have commercial gas type
protectors grounded to the cable. There will be a copper bus on the
back of the shack bench with -all- gear grounded through it to the
buried cable.
I will also put spark gaps on the base of the tower grounded to the
cable. There will be a large expensive surge protector in line with a
power distributing strip on the bench which will be unplugged at the
first indication of electrical storms.
The inspiration for all this is a large Oak tree out back with the top
15 or 20 feet blown off by a lightning strike.
If there is anything I have missed please call it to my attention.
Thanks Gary N9ZSV






On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:12:20 -0500, Gary Pewitt
wrote:

Here's a simple question. I want to connect my transceiver to several
antennas using 450 ohm ladder line and a balanced tuner. I found a
couple of small double pole double throw knife switches for the ladder
line. There are only two ways to hook these up. I can hook the tuner
output to the center with the ground on the bottom and the antenna on
the top connectors. This will allow me to connect the transceiver to
the antenna or to ground. The second way is to connect the
transceiver to the top contacts, the antenna to the center, and ground
to the bottom contacts. This will let me connect the antenna to the
radio or to ground. Is it better to ground the radio and let the
antenna float? Or to ground the antenna and let the radio float?
Of course if I leave the switch handle sticking straight up nothing is
connected to anything.
I am inclined to think grounding the antenna is better but I have been
wrong before.

Thanks and 73 Gary N9ZSV