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[TowerTalk] more - Precip static

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Subject: [TowerTalk] more - Precip static
From: twoway@scoden.ma.ultranet.com (Scott Bullock)
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 20:01:13 -0400
If you are talking abt the red balls on the lines themselves, they are
there for aircraft protection, not static discharge.  I myself have seen
many 30-900 mhz two way radio antennas without the balls and have never
noticed any "static noise" Many of these balls are now just plastic and are
glued onto the whip.
73
Scott
KA1CLX



At 11:45 PM 12/30/97 +-100, you wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
><< You can find practical examples all over the world that support what 
> I say. One is on high tension lines, where a round very smooth ring 
> or ball is used to reduce corona from bolts and other hardware in the 
> same general area of the line. >>
>
>       Another example is your car radio antenna. It is a round-ish shape on
>the top to reduce the static buildup that would otherwise make the radio
>unlistenable. If the top of the antenna was spikey, wind generated static at
>60 MPH would be horrendous.
>
>Cheers,  Steve   K7LXC
>
>Not so sure about this one, since the ball on the car antennas is mainly
for safety reasons. If you remove the ball - I did it once - the difference
in noise while driving is negligible. Also you have a lot of various rubber
car antennas with no ball functioning perfectly.
>
>The theory which was presented by K1TTT is very reasonable, just the
question is if there is some practical possibility how to get rid of the
static discharge.
>
>My observation is very skeptic. We do have 40 m Yagi at 42m and above on
the same tower at 52 m is 5Y for 20 m. So according to theories presented
here the static rain should be reduced by the 20m ant significantly. In the
real life for instance while snowing in cold weather when the static rain
is always huge both antennas are unusable and the noise is about the same
on both antennas ?!
>
>It would be interesting if there is some HV - energy transfer engineer
which could explain functionality of the balls above some HV lines. I have
learned in school that the losses on very-HV lines (above 220kV) are in the
range of dozens of percent !!!!!!!! - which means a lot of coal, oil or
nuclear energy  - i.e. BIG BUCKS. If this solution would really work the
balls would be on all HV lines but they are just on a few ones !!!!! The
electric companies "swim" in money so the expenses to install balls
everywhere are peanuts compared with savings of only one percent of the
energy lost by static discharge. 
>
>73 !
>
>Jiri
>OK1RI
>
>
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