On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 07:51:41 -0400, "DougSlug"
wrote:

I would think that the lower the impedance, the better, since a dead short
on the antenna would be the ideal situation when disconnected. The reason
it's 50 Ohms is because that's a readily available terminator. I'm using
BNC connectors, so the effort is minimal. The down side of leaving it
connected all the time is that, without a lightning arrestor, a strike would
probably damage the receiver, so I'm going to disconnect it in any case. I
don't think the 10K would protect against that.

Nothing, not even a dead short with #4 wire to ground, will protect
against a direct lightning strike - you're talking millions of amps.
And a 10k will protect against static buildup.

A 50 ohm termination is used to terminate unused outputs on a
splitter, because the only way the splitter will work properly is to
have a 50 ohm termination on each output - either cable to a receiver
or a non-inductive resistor.