Hi Bill

I don't know whether my system is considered right or wrong, but it
has worked for 20 years with no problems at all and no TVI.

On the wall outside of my shack is a 1/16" thick copper plate that
measures about 14" x 18" A #6 braided copper cable, brazed along the
left edge, along with 3 bolts through it as well, connects to an 8
foot grounding rod with clamps. It is through holes in this copper
plate that all wires lead into the shack.

On the inside of the house, a section of drywall was removed from
between the studs temporarily, in order to install 9 gas bottle
lighting arresters inside the wall. The grounding cables from them #8
copper pass through clamps (similar to romex connectors) at the bottom
of the copper plate and also connect to the grounding rod. Two open
ports (from inside to outside) were made through the wall using 3 inch
partially flattened PVC pipe with TWO 3/4 inch PVC pipes spaced to the
edges of this pipe, the center was filled with a 1-1/4 inch PVC pipe
and around it filled with spray foam and trimmed flush after drying.
The drywall section removed was drilled where the gas bottles and 2
openings were made and refitted to the wall and finished off with
joint compound, etc. so it looks like it was never removed.

This setup gives my place for through the wall connections to my
antenna's and I never needed to use all of the ports I installed in my
20 years there.

I have handled ladderline in a couple of different ways over the
years. Initially, I passed my ladder line, one leg through each of
the 3/4 PVC tubes and on the inside to my tuner, on the outside to the
antenna it was used with, in this case a loop skywire.

A rotor cable was fed through one of the 3/4 inch PVC tubes at the
other end of the panel. A major mistake as when I did take a
lightning hit, the only place it got into the shack was through this
abandoned rotor cable. No real harm done other than a rotor cable
welded to the back of two filing cabinets by lighting, and a pooch who
will never come into my shack again after getting dowsed with flying
sparks.

I later, after moving my desk to a different wall and didn't want open
ladder line running free in the room, used the gas bottles as lead ins
for the ladder line and coax from the gas bottle to the tuner. I saw
no difference in performance doing it this way, and it was much safer
in my opinion. Previously, I used a knife switch to run the ladder to
ground when not in use. Now it just stays connected all the time
through the gas bottles.

As an aside, I had a similar set-up at my former house, only without
the gas bottle lightning arresters. Then I would use connectors
through the copper plate which grounded the braid to the copper plate.

In all cases, after my system was installed, I heavily sprayed the
copper plate with like 4 coats of trumpet laquer, which also sealed
all of the connections against moisture. Silicone was not available
at that time (30 years ago) to the public that I know of. We also
used a lot of tar strips back in those days also to wrap around
connectors and areas of exposure to the elements.

In places where it is feasible, I prefer ladder line over coax!
One of the best ladder lines I ever constructed was using some of my
sons Monster Cable that he had used with his stereo speaker system.
This heavy cable for some reason made a noticable difference in how my
80 meter loop skywire functioned. Bandwidth was definately greater,
and many received station signals were stronger. Logical NO, but they
were.

As an aside, I often used miniature plastic I-Beams from the hobby
shop instead of wood for my spacers. When glued using an oil of
mustard based glue, the adhesion was permanent. With wood, I often
had the glues come loose and the spacers shift as the wood aged,
and/or absorbed moisture and redried, etc.

TTUL - 73+ de Gary - KGØZP