Dave wrote:
Was talking with someone the other day and mentioned that I had just
grounded the antenna (the mast, actually) to protect against lightning
strikes, and they said that was not such a good idea because lightning is
more likely to strike a path that goes straight to ground.

Like many things, "it depends".. what else is near the antenna? From an
electric field standpoint, whether it's actually physically connected to
the ground isn't all that important. It's that it's a conductor
sticking up, and that causes the field to change. As the surrounding
E-field changes over a time span of milliseconds, a mast connected to
the ground vs isolated will have a slightly different voltage
distribution over time, but over long times, it's not much different.





Now I am not
sure what to do. Anyone have any input on this topic? Ideas are gratefully
received...

Thanks,

Dave