Once you’ve gone to the effort to install a six metre high Lightning Conductor in the middle of a paddock, you probably want to give it a good earth connection before wiring it into your home network.

I have a very handy source of steel framing, so a 2.4m (8 foot) length of Galvanised steel Cee section was used.

I initially thought I would be able to cut a point on the piece of steel and drive it into the ground – We’d had lots of rain recently so I figured they would drive in easy. The theory was sound down to about 30cm (1 foot) where it just wouldn’t budge. I wanted to drive it to just below ground level so ended up having to dig a 2.5m (8 foot, 4 inches) deep hole with my hand auger and then compress the soil back around the steel.

Once the earth stake was in place, it was a simple task of running a very thick piece of copper wire to the pole – Unfortunately I never took photos of this, but I took about ten lengths of think copper flex, stripped off the insulation and then effectively plaited them into a “Super Macrame Wire(TM)”. This was attached to the steel stake using a number of bolts and to the pole using a big washer attached to the bolts that hold the pole up.