Hello all,

I have hundreds of feet of copper wire lashed to 1/8" steel messenger strand running through poles and trees. This is a private plant on a forested land and there is usually no primary or secondary power lines above the comm space.

We often have lightning strikes on trees. I have seen lightning jump from one tree to another via a steel cable before (killed both trees).

I have put protection on phone cables entering buildings but I am wondering if I should ground the strand so that lightning is diverted to ground rods instead of following phone cables. And if so, at what intervals should I put ground rods.

Does that make sense? What is the practice? I haven't seen this mentioned in RUS bulletins.

TIA