[TowerTalk] CDwelding a tower leg

[Jim Lux]

On 9/17/12 10:49 AM, David Gilbert wrote:
>
> I'm certainly no expert on lightning, but I thought that that idea you
> could avoid lightning strikes by dissipating static from the clouds
> above had been debunked as nonsense years ago.

Yup.. that cloud has more charge stored in it than any little rod is 
going to be able to discharge by means of corona or similar.



  A lightning rod may
> offer some protection to the structure by being the most attractive
> target for a strike, but I doubt that it significantly reduces the
> probability of a strike.

That is, in fact, how lightning rods work.. it's higher than everything 
else around it, so it's preferentially hit.  Might even increase the 
probability of a stroke.


  Most likely other members of this list are far
> more knowledgeable on that than I am.
>
> The bottom line, though, is that just because you've never had a problem
> it doesn't mean that your system is properly engineered to avoid one.
> Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but we hear the same thing from hams who
> put up 60 feet of Rohn 25 without guying it ...
>

Anecdote is a bad basis for engineering design, in general.