[TowerTalk] Is lightning hitting the tower..or the yagi's

[jimlux]

James Wolf wrote:
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>>> I think it was  w3lpl a while back, mentioned the lightning would stop when it got to his ant farm... pass
>>> right over it.... then start up again on the other side.  That apparently will work... IF the towers are well grnded... and
>>> have lots of well bonded yagi's  on the sides of the tower.
>>    
>> Bonding, bonding, and bonding... But I can think of no real reason why a 
>> storm would just skip over an antenna farm. They, being the tallest 
>> subjects around usually take the brunt of the attack.
> 
> 
> Although I have no qualitative data to support this theory, the thought is that the tall tower and antenna elements dissipate to ground static charges in the vicinity of the tower, reducing the effect of enough static energy to build up for a strike. I have 27 ground rods under my tower and I can hear continuous static discharge tics and "zips" from the top of the 130 ft tower, even when lighting occurs many miles away.  Of course, that doesn't mean you won't take a strike.
> 
> 

And, as it happens, the folks who study lightning for a living DO have 
quantitative data, and it's not borne out.  As K1TTT mentioned, you have 
to have many years of data, because local variability is pretty big.