RE: White Sands Missile Range
Minor note--WSMR is an army facility.
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/
>John, actually I think you and Jim are both right. Apparently there
>are co-located facilities:
>
>http://www.wstf.nasa.gov/
My note to "clarify" something was in grave error. (ie WRONG!!)
I appreciate W4EF's attempt to help me get off the hook here -- but the
NASA facility is between Las Cruces and White Sands, and not
"co-located" with WSMR--just close to WSMR.
Although I have worked at a number of NASA facilities and
have also done a lot of work at the White Sands Missile Range--
I was not aware of the NASA White Sands Test Facility for
materials testing, oxygen handling, and other important projects
that would greatly benefit from lightning protection and good
grounding.
I have long had an interest in lightning--having done VHF
interferometric location of the charge buildup of the stepped leader
in the mid/late 1970s as a way of better understanding the physics
of the path of the lightning. At about that same time I was offered
a job at the VLA and had a very interesting dinner with a ham
in Socorro, NM who was in charge of the state's repeaters -- all
located on mountain tops and very subject to lightning strikes.
When he took over the job the various repeaters were being
damaged by lightning on a daily/weekly basis. By the time
I met him (wished I could recall his name or call) he had done
all of the right things so that the sites were virtually unaffected
by lightning.
Later I gave my lightning interferometer data and hardware to a
bright student who used it for his PhD thesis and then went on
to teach and continue doing lightning research at New Mexico Tech.
My apologies for screwing up--I guess it was the "White Sands"
part of the name. The ARMY range has also done some serious
work on lightning protection. It is considered bad form to have
rocket fuel ignite at the wrong time or in the wrong place.
I just can't believe that I violated my OWN prime directive of
not posting something unless I KNOW the facts. I'll be quiet
for a while before I venture out into reflector land again!
73 --John W0UN
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