mono2 wrote:To be clear you are bonding the tower ground to the earth from the municipal feed in these scenarios?
What, I do not understand?
In a normal WISP situation where you have a TOWER and an equipment box or shed you make sure the electrical service ground rods are bonded to the tower ground rods with a heavy wire like #2.
You NEVER run copper Ethernet cable between locations where each location is on a differnt electrical panel or God forbid an entirely differnt electrical service as the differnt ground potentials will try to equalize across the Ethernet cable - POOF!
Always run "fiber" not copper between network devices on differnt electrical sub-panels and especially differnt electrical services as the devices will all have a differnt ground potential and the worst ground service will try to take the Ethernet cable to the other ground system which is better (less resistance to ground). Keep in mind electrical services are 100 - 400 Amps on average and everything on that service is always shunting excess current to ground and if the ground rods are deteriorated or more resistance to ground exists the ground current will take the Ethernet cable and POOF.
Ground current is the most common source of damage to WISP equipment and they mistakenly think it is surges or ESD. The number 2 cause of damage would be Static Charges building up on tower trying to get to ground and the steel path sucks as it is bolted together pieces often with not good electrical connections not to mention steel is much higher resistance value than copper so the static charge follow the Ethernet cable to ground - POOF.
The 3rd most common cause would be a tie between "real" electrical surges and ESD from near lightning strikes.
People often lose equipment during a storm and all they see is the BOOM and FLASH and thus think "surge" when in fact the rain increased resistance to ground on the electrical service panel ground rods and for a brief moment the newer tower ground rods are a better less resistant path to ground.
I inspect my WISP ground rods every year to make sure they are tight in the ground meaning no erosion as loosened them and I clean up and corrosion and if I ever lose equipment on a tower I add 1 or 2 NEW ground rods a few feet away from existing rods and bond them all together.
