[TowerTalk] Rain Induced Voltage

Dennis OConnor ad4hk2004 at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 1 12:35:20 EST 2006


Interesting to see the thread drift...  I thank all of those who are concerned about my antennas being unprotected... They are well grounded when not in use, that is why I de-energized the antenna relay box as soon as I heard the characteristic rapid popping in the receiver - cutting the power drops all the antenna relays back to ground...  The coax to the radio bench is also unscrewed when I am not in the shack...

Whoever it was that posted about aircraft building up a static charge in flight, is correct... I can tell you some hair raising incidents when flying, the worst involving super cold precip, i.e. very dry snow, out over the Great Lakes...

On the comment about the static voltage rising to high levels and possibly damaging the coax... I have not seen that, but I routinely see the voltages rise high enough to arc over at the PL-259... THis is most pronounced during thunderstorms nearby, and conversely during fair, dry weather when the wind blows actively...

denny / k8do
On the suggestion that the falling water drop is charged, I agree... The issue is the polarity of charge and the mechanism...  Given that the earth is normally negative on the surface to mirror the positively charged cloud base <cloud tops are negative>, I would expect the falling droplets to be positive, i.e. lacking electrons, and that upon impacting the wire they attract an electron... Where upon falling away from the wire they carry that electron with them leaving the wire positively charged...  Ja? No?

denny

 
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