Jeff Liebermann wrote in
:

What bugs me is that the diodes are blowing up despite this rather low
resistance to ground. Either hams are finding some rather high power
ESD sources with which to blow up their analyzers, or some other
failure mechanism is involved.

But the reality is that people do damage these things... and so the
method you suggested earlier is not likely to be sufficient to protect
them.

I am careful to avoid connecting an instrument of this type to an
antenna system unless I have drained any static charge first, and avoid
other transmitters on air nearby.

An easy trap is to connect the analyser or the like to an antenna, then
start working on the antenna without considerig the risk of introducing
a spike during the work.

Painful, but worth disconnecting immediately after each measurement. Not
as painful if BNC connectors are used.(Why did they build those things
with SO239... don't answer!)

Owen