The Day Lightening Finally Found Me:
20/05/26 15:58
N5XO’s Thoughts
“Well… Apparently Lightning Finally Found Me”
For more than 50 years in Amateur Radio, I’ve been one of those guys when it came to grounding and lightning protection. You know the type — the ham who lectures everybody else about proper station grounding, bonding, surge suppression, single-point entry panels, PolyPhasers, tower grounding rings, coax disconnects, and why “plugging it into a power strip” is not lightning protection.
And honestly? I was proud of it.
Over five decades of storms, towers, antennas, amplifiers, computers, rotators, preamps, feedlines, and enough RF to probably confuse small wildlife for miles around… I had never lost a single piece of equipment to lightning.
Until last night.
Apparently Mother Nature finally looked down and said:
“Well boys… let’s test Greg’s theory.”
And honestly? Considering what happened, I’d still say the grounding system passed the test.
We took a serious nearby strike during the storms. As far as I can tell, it was not a direct hit on the tower itself — and thank goodness for that — but it was close enough to inject a massive pulse somewhere into the station environment.
The casualty list currently appears to be:
- One radio connected to the 144.200 weak signal antenna system
- A Meshtastic relay node
- Our tower-mounted 180-degree 16 MP camera we use for antenna tracking and monitoring
- Possibly a few other minor surprises still waiting to be discovered
The most of the radios survived. The amplifiers survived. The computers survived. The bench test equipment survived. Most of the station survived.
And considering the amount of metal hanging in the Texas sky above my shack, that’s saying something.
Because let me tell you something many newer operators do not fully appreciate:
Lightning does not have to directly hit your antenna to destroy equipment.
A nearby strike can induce enormous voltages into coax lines, control cables, Ethernet lines, AC wiring, grounding differentials, and pretty much anything conductive. The pulse rise time is unbelievably fast, and when thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — of volts suddenly appear where they shouldn’t, electronics become very expensive fuses.
That’s why proper grounding matters.
And no — I’m not talking about the classic “I drove an 8-foot rod into the dirt behind the shack and called it good” approach.
Real protection means:
- Proper tower grounding
- Multiple bonded ground rods
- Heavy copper bonding between rods
- Single-point ground entry
- Coax surge suppressors
- AC surge protection
- Bonding all equipment together
- Proper feedline grounding
- Eliminating ground potential differences
- Protecting network and Ethernet paths
- Understanding that lightning protection is about controlling energy paths — not magically “stopping” lightning
No system can guarantee survival from a direct strike. Nothing can.
But a properly designed grounding system can dramatically reduce damage and help ensure that when the inevitable happens, you lose some equipment instead of all equipment.
And last night proved exactly that.
Honestly, if this had happened 30 years ago before I became obsessive about grounding and bonding, I suspect the damage list would have looked more like this:
- Radios: cooked
- Computers: smoked
- Rotor controllers: dead
- Amplifiers: now decorative paperweights
- Ethernet switches: molten sadness
- Shack owner: sitting in darkness muttering words inappropriate for publication
Though I will admit…
There is something deeply irritating about surviving decades without lightning damage only to have your station finally say:
“Congratulations Greg. Your immunity has expired.”
The camera loss particularly hurts because that 180-degree tower camera had become incredibly useful for antenna tracking, rotor verification, weather observation, and general tower monitoring. Of course lightning always seems to target the gear you actually like.
And naturally, the tiny little Meshtastic relay that barely draws enough power to light a Christmas bulb apparently sacrificed itself heroically for the greater good.
A moment of silence for the little node.
What this experience really reinforces is something many hams unfortunately learn only after disaster strikes:
Grounding and lightning protection are not optional station accessories.
They are part of the station.
We spend thousands on radios, amplifiers, antennas, towers, feedline, computers, and test equipment — but many operators still neglect the one system that protects all of it.
A properly grounded station is not glamorous. Nobody brags about copper strap at Field Day. There’s no “Best Grounding System” plaque at hamfests.
But when the Texas sky turns black and the static crashes start rattling the speaker…
That grounding system suddenly becomes the most important piece of equipment you own.
And last night, mine earned its keep.
So today’s lesson from Cedar Creek Ranch is simple:
Lightning eventually comes for everybody.
The goal isn’t to pretend you can stop it. The goal is to make sure your station survives it.
Mine mostly did.
And honestly… after 50 years, I’ll still call that a win.
