[TowerTalk] Lightning... and pointed rods!

[Norman Hockler]

It helps to have many pointed rods on the top of the tower.  Commercial 
towers use "spline balls" on the tower.  They are melon shaped metal ball 
with hundreds of sharp points.  These points help to dissipate the charge 
build up and therefore prevent the ground leader from going up to meet the 
cloud charge.   This is why a uhf/vhf antenna stack is less likely to be 
hit than a single vertical or a HF tribander.

de Norm  N8NH


At 09:52 PM 10/24/00 -0400, you wrote:
>As long as we're on this subject, I notice all the lightning rods on
>buildings have sharp points upwards...so... does it help to have a pointed
>rod at the top of the tower mast? If so, why?
>Jerry K3MGT
>
>
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