The melted ground wire

I found this on one of the guy wire anchor points for a 400-foot tower:

Had to be a pretty big hit to burn open a #2 wire. This is on one of six guy anchor points for the tower. The ground wire is U-bolted to each guy wire before the turnbuckle and then goes to ground. This was noted between the last guy wire and the ground rod.

It is important to find and fix these things, as the next lightning strike on this tower would have a less-than-ideal path to ground at the guy anchor points, forcing the current to flow through other parts of the transmitter site, possibly through the transmitter itself, to ground.

I generally try to do a brief inspection of towers, guy anchors, lighting, painting, and a general walk around the property twice a year.  That helps prevent surprises like “Oh my goodness, the guy wires are rusting through,” or “Hey, did you know there is an illegal “hemp” farm on your property?”  Well, no officer, I don’t know anything about that…