[Towertalk] Lightning

[Larry L Lindblom]

My fondest memory of lightening occurred a few year back as an operator
at N0NI during field day.  we were class 3 or 4 E.  My operating position
was a table just inside the entrance to a Morton (steel building) with
the door wide open.  A storm came up and I saw a bolt of lightening, up
close it looked like a silver ball that shot down from a low cloud then
went horizontally about 50 feet away from me and finally into the ground.
 Lightening must be very stupid as it could have gone to any one of 8 or
9 towers ranging up to 150 ft + tall. 

73 W0ETC


On Wed, 7 Aug 2002 11:30:32 -0400 "Larry" <lclarks@nc.rr.com> writes:
> Back in the early 50's my parents had a 50ft telescoping mast up on 
> the crest of a hill about 500ft from the house. This was the only 
> way for TV back then(southerntier of western new york) We had a very 
> large all channel TV antenna, came down the mast with 300 ohm twin 
> lead to a Blond Tounger(spelling) tube type preamp and went to 300 
> ohm open line(it had clear plastic spacers about every 1ft) all the 
> way to the house to the power supply for the preamp then to a block 
> that was for twin lead lightning protection. The house had lightning 
> rods(aluminum) and interconnecting aluminum braided wire about the 
> size of you thumb, it also had two things that were about the size 
> of a very large soup can filled with something that expanded when 
> lightning struck(which was quit often).
> 
> Well the antenna took a direct hit and vaporized the twinlead down 
> the mast and blew out the preamp, most of the wire in the open wire 
> was intact but the spacers melted and slid down the hill, it formed 
> a ball of plastic about the size of a basketball at the window where 
> it went into the house. That was quite the sight. It never effected 
> the TV. The arrestor that was at the window was tied into the 
> lightning rod grounds. My mother still lives there and the lightning 
> rods are still there.
> 
> Larry WA2SRY
> 
> 
> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
> multipart/alternative
>   text/plain (text body -- kept)
>   text/html
> ---
> _______________________________________________
> Self Supporting Towers, Wireless Weather Stations, see web site: 
> http://www.mscomputer.com
> Call 888-333-9041 to place your order, mention you saw this ad and 
> take an additional 5 percent off
> any weather station price.
> _______________________________________________
> Towertalk mailing list
> Towertalk@contesting.com
> an/listinfo/towertalk
>