[TowerTalk] Heat from nearby lightning strikes...

[Kelly Taylor]

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with…

Unfortunately, the same people who believe this are probably the same people who believe antenna manufacturers (or at least one) who claim you don’t need a balun on a tribander (or that one trap per element half for all three bands is a good idea…), or claims about the POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS horizontal mounting of 572Bs or 811s.

Marketing 101: tell people what they want to hear.

73, kelly, ve4xt 




> On May 30, 2016, at 9:26 AM, David Robbins <k1ttt at arrl.net> wrote:
> 
> Basic bull... too many things wrong with it to even start counting.
> 
> David Robbins K1TTT
> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
> web: http://wiki.k1ttt.net
> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://k1ttt.net:7373
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> Patrick Greenlee
> Sent: Monday, May 30, 2016 13:04
> To: towertalk
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Heat from nearby lightning strikes...
> 
> 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
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