The most recent project was to build complete the ground system for our new EME tower. Tower grounding is often done incorrectly. The proper way to ground a tower is shown above. Each leg of the tower is connected to an 8′ ground rod via a heavy-gauge ground cable. The cable is attached to the tower leg using stainless steel clamps meant for this purpose. The three ground rods associated with the tower legs are then bonded together using a heavy copper ground cable ring.
Source: EME Station 2.0 Part 6 – Tower Grounding System
Ever wonder how to go about grounding and bonding a tower? It’s not difficult to do this correctly. Most of the materials that are required are available at local hardware stores or online via DX Engineering. The required materials include ground rods, heavy stranded grounding cables, ground clamps, and/or a thermal welding system to connect the cables.
We recently put up a new tower at our station to support a 2m EME station that we are building. This provided a chance to show how to properly ground a tower. The photo above shows the completed ground system for our new EME tower. The link above explains the details.
Fred, AB1OC
It would be interesting to relate this to Hamilton’s article from a few weeks ago about station grounding. I know Hamilton’s article was largely about trying to keep potential close during an lightning-caused EMP. Is this more to deal with a direct lighting strike?