[TowerTalk] Heat from nearby lightning strikes...

[Patrick Greenlee]

All towers are lightning magnets so we are or should be interested in 
protection but... Is it just me or does anyone else have a problem 
(Problem = old fashioned term for issue) with the advertising copy below?

Arc Gas Discharge
*Lightning Protection*

OPEK MODEL: LP-350A

Warmer temperatures bring an increased thunderstorm activity. So, now is 
the time to protect your radios. A good way to do this is with lightning 
protectors that utilize 'arc-gas' discharge tubes. Heat from nearby 
lightning strikes rapidly expand the gas inside the tubes opening the 
antenna feedline much quicker that old fashion surge protectors.


What a revelation, all these years I thought the gas tubes ionized above 
a certain potential offering lightning induced currents a low impedance 
path to ground thus protecting equipment further down the coax. But now 
we know that heat from nearby lightning strikes expanding the gas to 
create an "open" is the agent of protection not ionized gas offering a 
low impedance path to ground.  (all those years studying physics... 
wasted.) Associative memory... I recall a flight attendant on a red eye 
from Dulles to San Diego instructing the sparsely occupied cabin that in 
the event of sudden loss of cabin pressure masks would deploy from the 
ceiling and that we should grasp the mask firmly, give a tug to start 
the flow of oxygen, place the mask over our navel and continue to 
breathe normally. Maybe later she got a job writing advertising copy.

Patrick        NJ5G