[TowerTalk] spider balls

[Tom Rauch]

> My thought was to attract lightning to the three
foundations, not to avoid a
> strike.  I thought that if I were to minimize the path to
the tower itself
> it would help avoid a direct strike on the tower.  If I
could get 1-2 ohms
> to ground at each point and make an attempt to isolate the
tower such that
> it sees a much larger resistance to ground....

This really all comes down to pretty simple physics. The
cloud has a charge, and the earth has a charge. Unless we
can reduce that voltage, which it is proven we can't, then
we have a spark gap. Only the voltage gradient of the
electric field matters. The resistance of the conductors in
that gap really don't matter until after the strike starts,
and then we want everything LOW impedance an all tied to a
common point if possible. Grounding the tower, having
intentional leakage, whatever rows your boat enjoy it. But
the facts are other than lowering height compared to
surrounding objects, there isn't anything we can do to
prevent a hit.

I agree with Polyphaser. There is no prevention, other than
lowering height. The key is in handling the strike with
minimum damage. They way to do that is to create the minimum
possible voltage differences between a tower and ground, or
between pieces of equipment in a room.

73 Tom