Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish

[mikefurrey at att.net]

The feed point of my inverted L was blown apart and the copper inside the 
insulation (both the "L" and horizontal elevated radial) was reduced to a 
black, brittle mess from a lightning strike and an adjacent neighbor's TV 
was reduced to a melted pile of plastic. My antenna is suspended between a 
couple of 80' pine trees on my small lot. There were (still visible) also 
char marks on a tree that was used as a support for the elevated radial. The 
radial was about 6" from the tree.

Mike WA5POK

-----Original Message----- 
From: Eddy Swynar
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 8:47 AM
To: Tom W8JI
Cc: Topband at contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish


On 2012-07-08, at 9:34 AM, Tom W8JI wrote:

>
> 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?  :-)
>


Hi Tom,

Are you sure you weren't the victim of "...copper nappers", possibly...?!

There was a report in a Toronto paper the other day where some cell tower 
used by emergency forces of some kind in that city was knocked off the air 
for several hours---thieves had snipped as much copper & wiring that they 
could see, for re-sale to the scrap metal market...

That answers your last question, i.e. wire is NOT getting any 
"cheaper"---not by that stretch of the imagination! Hi Hi

~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ

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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK