Wireless Joint

Now that my setup is nearly done I would like to pay it forward and share the details of my antenna mast and some of my build for anyone interested in something similar.

My 10' mast is mounted to a 33' old tv tower. The mast itself is made from a 10'; 1-3/8" chain link fence top rail. I also purchased 2 packs(4 total) of these panel clamps to attach the mast to my 1-1/4" tower leg. I then cut off the end of the top rail that will accept another rail. This piece will be the base and allow you to turn the mast to aim antennas. Once you mount the base tightly using a panel clamp you can slip the mast on it and pop another panel clamp on the mast to the tower to hold it in place. While brainstorming this setup in Menards i figured if this didn't work, another idea would be these gate hinges bolted together but the panel clamps worked perfectly for my specific setup. I then mounted my antenna brackets to the mast using a flat surface so they would both be in sync with each other(pointing the same direction). Attached antennas to the mounts and installed 90° n connectors. Hooked up my 50' lmr400 cables to each antenna. Make sure they're very tight but don't strip them. Wiped them down with alcohol to remove any oil from my hands and wrapped with scotch butyl rubber tape. Then squeezed the tape together to make a nice waterproof seal. Then wrap electrical tape over the butyl tape so the butyl tape is UV protected. When wrapping you want to start from the bottom up overlapping to create a shingling of tape so the water can run off. There's good YouTube videos out there about weatherproofing coax. I climbed my tower and mounted the base about 3' below the top to give my panel clamps plenty of bite on the mast. Now the hardest part is to climb the tower with the 10' mast, antennas mounted, and cables dangling off. I'd suggest getting help doing this unless you are pretty physically fit. The way i did it by myself was climbing each rung and reaching through the center of the tower rungs and grabbed the mast. That helped me keep balance and ensured i couldn't fall while reaching for the next rung.

Now for the lightning protection. I started by bonding each of my tower legs with a 5' piece of #4 bare copper wire to an 8' copper grounding rod. Before running the copper wire around the legs I wire wheeled off the galvanized coating down to bare steel. Then bonded/clamped them to each leg using stainless steel hose clamps. Finished the base ground by burying the exposed ground rod.

This next part is *not* recommended per the lightning arrester manufacturers but I did it anyway. The lightning arresters are supposed to be outside before entering a building and grounded with #8 bare copper wire. I mounted mine inside because I wanted the least amount of coax connectors exposed to the elements as possible and the least amount of connectors as possible to minimize signal loss. So I repeat *do this at your own risk!*

I was aiming for a clean looking install inside of the house even though nobody will ever see it in my closet. (I'm ocd ) I installed my lightning arresters in a 4 gang old work box that will go in my ceiling. It will house my ethernet cable and electric hookup for the router/modem as well.
I purchased these blank "build a faceplate" pieces at Menards. Drilled out 5/8" holes on 3 of the faceplates. This custom stuff on plastic parts takes some time and patience.

Here's the box with arresters mounted. Mounted in ceiling and hooked up. Arresters bonded to tower. Final assembly. Have 1 more addition to add to the grounding that i will post this weekend when i do it.
If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Very nice setup! Thanks for sharing.

Just finished up my final grounding today. Definitely overkill, but we get a lot of thunderstorms in my area. In my research static electricity builds up in the atmosphere during thunderstorms and that static build up degrades the gas charge in lightning arresters. So not only do these wick away static before they reach the arresters, butbthey are also add additional lighting protection(200kA rated).

So here's the part number. They were $43.25 shipped on ebay. Cheap insurance imo! I started with the ground lead first to give me an idea of where to install the clamp end on the lmr400. The kit says to simply crimp the termination eyelets on but i took it a step further and filled the eyelets with solder first and pushed the wire in, then crimped/heat shrinked. Then wire wheeled galvanized coating off on tower mounting bolt area. The kit comes with 304 stainless bolts/lock washers/flat washers if needed. After mounting the ground leads this allowed me to make my marks on the lmr400 and cut/remove the outer jacket to expose the braided ground sleeve in the coax. Applied butyl tape, then wrapped with 3 layers of electrical tape that all comes in kit. Both wires complete. Fed some extra coax out to make the bottom of the loop lower than the ground straps for water to drip off.

that's an interesting grounding setup. My gas lightening protectors have N-connectors on them.

That's what mine have as well. Only non N is the router sma's. N connectors are the absolute best for our application since they have the best frequency range, lowest signal loss, and have excellent waterproof capabilities due to the sealing inside of the connector. I think these ground kits are intended for huge tower applications because the instructions say to space them out 200' apart on the tower
I wanted the best coax possible for the least amount of signal loss as possible. Times microwave was the best i could find. 10yr warranty with 20yr life expectancy. While researching them i came across this kit and it wasn't really expensive. I debated going with lmr600 but much more expensive for not too much more gain. I'm happy with the lmr400 results.

Gas lightning arresters are the cheapest protection but not the best. They have around a 5 year life expectancy. Also they can build up static electricity and discharge. Unfortunately if that happens, your equipment could be damaged.

Coil inductor type arresters are the best but extremely expensive(about $95/each). They never degrade and only need replacement when you take a direct hit. They also have less loss, 0.1 vs 0.4. Polyphaser is the company that i was looking into. Due to the overall high initial cost of my setup I passed on them. In 4-5 years, I'll change my gas charge ones to those. Now I have to upgrade my 2nd old asus n router to a gigabit router. It caps out around 95 over ethernet

Need4Speed wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:42 am . Now I have to upgrade my 2nd old asus n router to a gigabit router. It caps out around 95 over ethernet

That sounds like a good problem to have, I have the same issue on my PFsense netgate hardware

Hello,
Thanks for the photos it helps. Need to ground mine as well. It is on a very similar antenna tower like what you have. The thing I don't understand about these set ups. Is it really necessary to ground a TV tower antenna that is literally in the ground? My tower is over 3 foot in the ground with a concrete footer around it. Is that not grounded enough to just attach the lightening arresters too?

gscheb wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:58 pm Hello,
Thanks for the photos it helps. Need to ground mine as well. It is on a very similar antenna tower like what you have. The thing I don't understand about these set ups. Is it really necessary to ground a TV tower antenna that is literally in the ground? My tower is over 3 foot in the ground with a concrete footer around it. Is that not grounded enough to just attach the lightening arresters too?

My tower is also on a cement footer which unfortunately doesn't conduct electricity very well. Most of tower grounding information that I could find was from ham radio guys. They run an individual ground wire from every leg with 2-3 grounding rod on each lead. Then again those guys have about $10-15k in equipment they're trying to protect, where as I'm only $1200 in. Imo I kind of cheaped out on my grounding rod by only having 1 8' rod. I can't recall the formula for the height of the tower to ground rod ratio but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to have at least 3 spaced 8-10' apart from the 1st rod. In my specific situation, my tower is braced directly to the framing of my house about half way up. Obviously it's not been an issue yet but me running the ground rod at the base was better than nothing in my mind. My home was built in 1995 and no issues yet(knock on wood). Personally I'd run at least 1 rod regardless, but that's just me. It's cheap insurance imo to ensure that a direct hit can disperse quickly to the earth. I think the rod, 4ga bare copper, and clamp is about $40 or less. I'm no expert but just sharing my opinion.

Hello again,

Still haven't grounded my set up. Been kind of debating what to do. As I talked about in another post my antenna setup has one LMR-400 cable that goes from the antennas directly to the modem. When bought the LMR 400 from proxicast the person I talked to said the less connections the better signal strength. Recommended running from antenna straight to modem. This is before knew that grounding was needed. Learned about that thru this site.

So my concern has always been that the only connection to put a inline lightening arrester in is right after the antenna. Is this acceptable? Don't feel like the is the right thing to do. All the info I read about says to put it right before you enter the building. Hate to have to buy more cables again making the run even longer it is already 50 foot which is longer than my current needs to be honest.
(have extra slack in the attic)

So was wondering if used the Times Microwave Systems, standard ground kit for LMR-400 could that be good enough protection on its own? Then could use existing cables and not add more length or just replace everything and add more cost.

I would think if you don't want to add length or buy new cables, just put it at the top of the tower.

Could you maybe just splice your LMR cable to add the grounding? I'm about to have to learn how to do this anyway for running cables without connectors on them.

Hello swwifty,
Actually today called proxicast tech support. Called them since it is where the lmr 400 was purchased from. Basically he told me there is nothing wrong with putting lighting arrestees at the top of the line at the antenna level. Said they usually advise to put them before they enter the building to decrease ground wire lengths. But if I could ground mine to the tower itself that would be fine.
He also said that lightening arresters don't help with static electricity. Only for lightening strike.
He also said that with the shielding on lmr 400 that static electric isn't an issue.
Based on this starting to think that I don't really have to ground my setup. Does everyone ground these things? Is it completely necessary?

At the top is fine, just be sure to weatherproof all threaded connections exposed to the elements really well. He was correct that the arresters do not stop static electricity. I'm unfamiliar how the proxicast antennas are constructed so can't comment about the ground shielding in the lmr400 protecting against static. As for my antennas, they're aluminum grids, steel mounts, and mounted on an all steel pole and tower. Not much plastic at all on them. So my setup is all highly conductive and basically a magnet for static. That's why I put the times microwave ground straps on. My thought is that they will wick static directly to ground before they reach my arresters. Preventing static from reaching the arresters will help them keep their charge since static degrades the gas charge. My setup is pretty extreme vs most but I only wanted to do it once and not ever be nervous during a storm. If you really want the best arresters out there I'd suggest Polyphaser coil induction arresters. They never degrade and only need replacement if you take a direct strike. They also don't have to be grounded which makes installation a breeze. But like most things I suggest, they aren't cheap ($90 each). I installed these on my parents set up which is identical to mine except for the lmr400 length. They have 75' runs. Was really nice to be able to to just plug them right in line without having to run ground wires!

gscheb wrote: Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:55 pm Hello swwifty,
Actually today called proxicast tech support. Called them since it is where the lmr 400 was purchased from. Basically he told me there is nothing wrong with putting lighting arrestees at the top of the line at the antenna level. Said they usually advise to put them before they enter the building to decrease ground wire lengths. But if I could ground mine to the tower itself that would be fine.
He also said that lightening arresters don't help with static electricity. Only for lightening strike.
He also said that with the shielding on lmr 400 that static electric isn't an issue.
Based on this starting to think that I don't really have to ground my setup. Does everyone ground these things? Is it completely necessary?

hmm, first time i've heard that, but doesn't mean its not true.

It's up to you if you want to ground things are not, but I've had issues with nearby lightening strikes causing damage to my equipment so be careful in doing things properly. I don't think the arrestors would save your equipment in a direct lightening strike, but maybe if one is nearby?

Very interesting set up for sure. Do i really need to do this? I ran 30ft of LMR-400 directly from my Wilson antennas to my Mofi4500 using an old Dish-network mount that was already installed in my house. It was not grounded to begin with so I figured that it will be fine, but now looking at what you have done makes me wonder if I need to ground that set up also. I appreciate sharing what you have done here I am just a newbie looking for advice.

Thanks

Erickpal wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 3:54 pm Very interesting set up for sure. Do i really need to do this? I ran 30ft of LMR-400 directly from my Wilson antennas to my Mofi4500 using an old Dish-network mount that was already installed in my house. It was not grounded to begin with so I figured that it will be fine, but now looking at what you have done makes me wonder if I need to ground that set up also. I appreciate sharing what you have done here I am just a newbie looking for advice.

Thanks

Apologize for the late reply, been awhile since I've been on here. I'm sure you are fine without the ground. My setup is overkill I'm sure. I just wanted to cover all bases. I get nasty thunderstorms regularly and wanted to minimize the wear on my gas charged lighting arresters absorbing all the static electricity in the atmosphere. Plus if my tower does ever take a direct hit it'll probably help having those direct in line ground straps. Won't really know if they work until it(if ever) happens.