[TowerTalk] Porcupines and other wives tales

[K8RI on Tower talk]

> Actually if you read some of the old literature about radioactive tips, 
> and
> some other fancy schemes to make franklin type rods work better the idea 
> was
> to help formation of the upward streamer from the rod to get it to strike
> the rod more often.  There is no way a little bit of ionization caused by
> those sources could bleed off any more charge, but they supposedly could
> help a bit forming that first streamer... kind of like cosmic rays may 
> help
> form the leader in the cloud.  There were also other fancy devices that
> looked like cones, or rods with balls and gaps to create sparks, all sorts
> of odd things, but the idea on all of them was to create a better chance 
> of
> the rod getting hit, not to get rid of strokes.  People back then
> understood, there is little man could do to prevent such a huge event, all
> you can do is hope to guide the energy away from your cows and cooking pot
> in the hearth.

Unfortunately neither cows or horses are smart enough to stay away from 
electric fences or just plain fences for that matter, during a thunderstorm.

Roger Halstead (K8RI and ARRL 40 year Life Member)
N833R - World's oldest Debonair CD-2
www.rogerhalstead.com

>
>
> David Robbins K1TTT
> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
> web: http://www.k1ttt.net
> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
>