Isolation Questions
Even after I bonded the antenna and house grounds together, I suspect that there will still be a significant voltage spike on the ground during a lightning event. There are only a couple of ways to isolate the computer from the radio and in most cases it is not real isolation but using something that is relatively cheap as a consumable to isolate the spike effects.
So I had originally decided to use external usb to serial converters and cheap passive hubs to isolate the equipment. A little testing yesterday showed me that (at least using the PCMCIA card as a USB source) the USB ports can not provide enough power for the USB-Serial interface and a hard drive. Once the Gx270 is finished I will see if it can source enough current to handle the drives, USB adapters, and soundcard. If not I will have to introduce yet another variable-a powered USB hub. Who knows how that will affect the isolation.