Topband: Lightning QRN

[KN4LF, T. F. Giella]

Doug NX4D Said:
.....One thing I remember is that they used super high-speed cameras to
determine that all lightning strokes were really several hundred individual
strokes happening within a fraction of a second.....

Thomas KN4LF Said:
  That's basically correct. Actually a lightning bolt is comprised of on the
average 3 discharges, to as many as 20. That's what the flickering is that
our eyes see and it all happens generally in less then a second.
  I homebrewed a lightning detector back in 1991 and you could plainly see
the multiple discharges within one lightning strike event on the digital LCD
counter display and here the individual chirps too on the piezo buzzer. My
lightning detector was mounted at 30 feet on a grounded steel mast and
unfortunately was destroyed by a direct strike in 1997. It was the only mast
I had up at that time that wasn't protected by a spline ball.
  Lightning research is still being conducted here in Florida at Camp
Blanding by the University Of Florida, Florida Power & Light Company and
NASA. Their website is at http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu .



73,
T. F. Giella, KN4LF