Table of Contents
Advertisement
APPENDIX 1 | Lightning Protection
Never underestimate the danger of lightning! Lightning may create dangerous current and voltage surges in
antennas, antenna feeders, and the equipment connected to them, measured in tens and hundreds of
thousands of Amperes and Volts, with steep (fast) rises (a few milliseconds) and a huge quantity of energy
dispersed momentarily, comparable to, e.g., an explosion of hundreds of tons of dynamite, yet released in
less than a thousandth part of a second.
The measures for safety and reduction of damage to people, animals, buildings, equipment, etc. that may be
caused by such a terrifying natural phenomenon, with parameters far beyond the range of human activity,
require a clear understanding and strict compliance with clearly defined principles and rules, the most
important or which are stated below:
1)
A short and low-impedance path for discharging the lightning charges into the ground is the
key to safeguarding from lightning.
Lightning always seeks the shortest path to ground. Regardless of what obstacles it may
meet in its way to it, and regardless of whether such obstacles are good or bad electrical
conductors or excellent electrical insulators, lightning ALWAYS overcomes the obstacles -
it can burn, destroy or blow-up obstacles, but lightning charges always reach the ground!
Lightning strikes cannot be stopped and it is not possible for protected objects to be "insulated" from them
by any means, because lightning strikes act as "current generators" with an electromotive force (EMF)
exceeding one billion Volts.
The only possibility is to "capture" lightning and "discharge" it along safe paths to the ground. If such paths
are well designed and built, damage will be prevented or minimized.
2)
Due to the exceptional speed of rising of the lightning pulses (thousands and tens of thousands
of Amperes per microsecond), the lower HF impedance we provide for the lightning currents,
the lower and less dangerous potential will be generated by such currents in the protected
object and, consequently, the danger of secondary discharges to adjacent objects in the
protected area will be much lower.
3)
Due of the exceptional magnitude of lightning currents (tens and hundreds of thousands of
Amperes), they instantly create a huge amount of heat in objects they pass through, so the
objects can ignite, melt down, rupture or explode.
Consequently, the lower active resistance we provide for such currents on their path to the ground, the less
heat will be released in these objects. The main part of the energy will dissipate in the soil, which is considered
a favorable outcome.
Page 82 of 88 | S e c t i o n APPENDIX 1 | Lightning Protection
User's Manual | ACOM 04AT | Remote Automatic Antenna Tuner and Switch
DANGER
October 2023
Advertisement
Table of Contents
