[TowerTalk] snow static, Quad v. Yagi

[David Jordan]

Interesting...here is some real world experience that might prove useful 
for this discussion.

I was talking to a ham last night about this thread and he is also an 
avid gas model airplane flyer.  He says when he was younger that he used 
to use steel wires for control cables. Those wires were about 60-70ft 
long. When storms were approaching he noticed that flying the plane at 
four or five feet above the ground was no problem but when he took the 
plane up to 50-60ft to perform loops, etc., a charge would build up on 
the pair of wires and zapp the pilot operator's hand.  SO, perhaps this 
is another practical proof that the gradient is real and measurable (?)!

73,
dave
wa3gin

jimjarvis at comcast.net wrote:
> Having  just spent time explaining to a guy named Yagi that his name was famous, I had two hours on trains to ponder the snow static thing.  
> Because the quad avoids the corona problems of the yagi and lpda at high power and high altitudes, it is not unreasonable to think that that same attribute of the closed loop would also reduce snow and rain induced static at lower power levels.   Let me append a question mark to that...I'd be interested in thoughts.
> I don't buy the "radome" effect notion, though.  I'm not made of aluminum, but I can build up a lot of charge walking across a carpet in New Mexico, and have an ESD event spanning close to an inch.  (> 1 mile above sea level).   Eventually, any charge buildup on the structure due to moving snow or rain particles will have to be drained off.  
> When that happens, what's the current path?   Down the conductors to the spool holding the BeCu tapes?   Is that grounded?   IF it's grounded, then it may bleed off continuously, as it would for plummer's delight yagis, with grounded elements.  Somebody might want to ask the Mertel's.  I'm sure they'll tell you.  
> Which brings me to a corollary question...has anyone had first-hand comparison abilities between plummer's delight monobanders, and an array with floating elements, like a kt34a, for example?   I'd be interested in the snow/rain static answer if so.
> I've heard the differences in snow static on tall arrays...where the higher antenna has been much noisier than the lower ones.   Pretty sure that's true, although I'd like to see a theory as to why.  
> OK...so much for questions from Tokyo.   Gotta get some bfst and go to work.
> N2EA
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