[TowerTalk] Why Rain static is worse on the top antenna.

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

> the noise can start well before the rain or snow start, and
> indeed can happen when there is no rain or snow at all in the 
> area... and
> can continue well after the rain or snow stop.

Personally I've never once heard that, and I've many times been 
outside listening to the noise through a window and heard the noise 
dissipate with the rain or snow. But I take you at your word.

That also runs in parallel with Tom's observation that if [the bulk] 
of the noise were caused ONLY by rain or snow, some corelation to the 
rain or snow contact should be heard.

That would mean that there is an ACCOMPANYING CHARGEABLE MEDIUM 
(whatever that may be) that comes with the rain/snow, that is 
accepting charge in a manner to explain the random pulse noise.

It would not surprise me if there were regional differences that would 
make your observation more likely in some areas than others.

I have been on the air a few times when lightning struck close (flash 
and little delay to sound) and the sky was clear overhead. There was 
no "precip" static accompanying whatever made the lightning strike 
possible.

That makes me believe that whatever makes lightning possible and the 
precip static's "accompanying chargeable medium" may or may not occur 
together, and do not depend on one another.

Given the attention paid to this subject and its decades long ability 
to evade clear irrefutable repeatable explanation, I suspect that the 
genre of effects may be a muddle of a half dozen separate phenomena 
that people keep trying to explain with a single magic bullet, or two.

Whatever, the "chargeable medium", compared to the top beam, needs to 
be the neutral entity, and the top beam the carrier of charge, so that 
the explanation can encompass the "shielded" less noisy lower beam. 
The "shielding" simply being a lack of charge, which took the 
opportunity to go closer to the oppositely charged clouds above by 
moving to the upper beam.

What is the chargeable medium? I really don't know. Micro droplets or 
micro crystals? Humid air? Humid air succeptible to corona? Except 
"precip static" doesn't sound like corona. Corona has a discernible 
pattern to the noise. I've heard corona that sounded something like a 
scream.

73, Guy