[TowerTalk] CATV & Phone grounds

[Gary Schafer]

The plasma trail is created by the step leader making contact with a
streamer. The main strike follows the low impedance plasma trail. Being a
low impedance allows the high currents in the strike to flow.

73
Gary  K4FMX

> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:towertalk-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Keith Dutson
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:30 PM
> To: TowerTalk
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] CATV & Phone grounds
> 
> Rather than thinking of lightning as an electrical current flowing from
> ground to cloud or vice versa, I find it more interesting to think about
> what it is composed of: plasma.  The free electrons and ions created by
> the
> plasma must be neutralized by some method.  This is where current flow is
> involved.  Pick a path and connect via some conductor (tower, copper wire,
> tel wire, power line, water pipe, etc) to facilitate the neutralization.
> It
> is fairly easy to assume current will travel only one way on the
> conductor.
> 
> 73, Keith NM5G
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
> [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bill Turner
> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:14 PM
> To: Jim Brown
> Cc: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] CATV & Phone grounds
> 
> ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
> 
> On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:55:08 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> 
> >Yes. If you think of lightning as DC, you're likely to be in serious
> >trouble. IEEE studies show that the energy content in lightning has a
> >broad peak around 1 MHz, with significant content well above and below
> >that range.
> 
> ------------ REPLY SEPARATOR ------------
> 
> That raises an interesting question. As I understand it, lightning really
> does flow in one direction, making it DC but having a square-wave nature.
> Is
> that where the HF component comes from?
> Lightning doesn't really change directions, does it?
> 
> Bill, W6WRT
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