In 1972 I was living in a basement apartment in Dearborn, Michigan. The
landlady was very kind, and allowed a 67 foot dipole, fed with ladder
line to be run between 2 trees over the house. One day there were
thunderstorms predicted, and I disconnected the ladder line from my Johnson
Matchbox,
and went to work.
When I got home, a friend who lived in an upstairs apartment next door,
met me in the driveway. She told me that there had been a FLASH over my
house in the afternoon. I looked for my antenna, and it was GONE,
totally! The support ropes and end insulators were hanging in the trees,
and
the ladder line was on the ground in another neighbor's driveway. The
antenna? Never found a trace of it, and I looked for a long time!
OH, the neighbor who saw the flash, said that her stereo system stopped
working at the same time!
Don K8MFO
In a message dated 7/8/2012 9:34:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
w8ji@w8ji.com writes:
I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage
antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit.
About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a
hit
on a tree next to the wire.
Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just
vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire.
Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc
pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the
arc
pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't
even find any pieces of it.
Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this
happen.
Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-)
I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November.
73 Tom
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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