{"id":3984,"date":"2011-10-12T07:30:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3984"},"modified":"2023-04-29T12:54:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T16:54:33","slug":"the-melted-ground-wire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-melted-ground-wire\/","title":{"rendered":"The melted ground wire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I found this on one of the guy wire anchor points for a 400-foot tower:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire-650x433.jpg\" alt=\"#2 solid copper wire burned open by lightning strike\" class=\"wp-image-3998\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire-650x433.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire-400x266.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/burned-open-ground-wire.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">#2 solid copper wire burned open by a lightning strike<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I generally try to do a brief inspection of towers, guy anchors, lighting, painting, and a general walk around the property twice a year. \u00a0That helps prevent surprises like &#8220;Oh my goodness, the guy wires are rusting through,&#8221; or &#8220;Hey, did you know there is an illegal &#8220;hemp&#8221; farm on your property?&#8221; \u00a0Well, no officer, I don&#8217;t know anything about that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-melted-ground-wire\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The melted ground wire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[215,218,5],"class_list":["post-3984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-fm-transmitter-site","tag-grounding","tag-lightning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3984"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11693,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3984\/revisions\/11693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}