Recommendations for grounding a painted tower

NRG recommends to carefully scrape or file off the paint, but not the galvanizing, at the contact between the lightning spike and the tower tube. Sometimes towers are painted only for visibility. In that case, if the zinc is not damaged when the paint is scraped, nothing further is needed to protect the steel from corrosion.

However, if the tower was painted to protect it from a marine or other highly corrosive environment, anti-corrosion compound (such as Noalox) should be applied on the joint.

Make sure the booms are connected to the ground wire by trapping the wire under the bracket or the hose clamp. This can be accomplished by placing the ground wire on the tower before the boom, and clamping the boom around the ground wire, trapping the wire at each boom.