"Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr." wrote

Where lightning will hit, if it hits, can almost be calculated with a
fair degree of accuracy.

Gary, there is no nice way to say this, but I mean no disrespect to your
experience. Unfortunately, what you wrote is absolutely incorrect, and flies
in the face of thousands of lightning experts all over the world, who agree
only that a 300' sphere rolled over a surface will indicate (by touching)
the most likely points of attachment. This means that no taller object
escapes the likelihood of being a point of attachment, period. It doesn't
mean anything below it is free from side attachments and flashovers.
Everything else you followed with was erroneous, based on misconceptions or
complete falsehoods. Places you think lightning "struck", were more likely
the opposite, the point(s) where it *left* a structure.

Every once and awhile a new theory arrives claiming to predict or prevent
lightning, and these have all been discredited, especially the CTS (Charge
Transfer System) of lightning dissipators. There have been and there is no
evidence whatsover that a point of attachment can be either predicted or
prevented. This is even when the best lightning air terminal is in place at
the highest point on a structure. Take your old notes and paper the bird
cage, they offer only false predictions that cannot be replicated or
withstand the studies that have tried this a hundred similar ways.

You have left at your disposal, the ability to make it as easy as possible
for a lightning attachment or near field effect from same, to be absorbed
and routed via capable grounding and surge protection systems. There is
nothing else newsworthy about it.

We did a small project in a college class and made a scale model of a
small city. We knew from past history some of the structures that
were hit and where. From this knowledge we made balls of certain
sizes so they would touch if sitting on the ground the place that was
actually hit. We ended up with only 4 such balls, each a similar size
factor to the others.

On our scale model town we outlined in red lines the most likely
places lightning would hit if it did hit in that area.

Every strike since that time, up until the project was abandoned, has
hit somewhere on the red lines we have drawn.
One such line was on a small single story U-Stor-It building between
two very tall radio station towers, that was assumed to be lightning
proof due to it's location. It was hit and hit hard when neither
tower was hit. We also indicated that if those towers were ever hit,
the location on those towers where the lightning would hit them.
Neither location was near the top either. Two small strikes to one of
the towers were both within 1 foot of where our red line was indicated
on the scale model.

We were so successful in our project we thought for sure some agency
would pick it up and make use of it. But long after I was at school
there, the project was abandoned with something like a record of 94%
accuracy on pinpointing areas where lightning can hit.

TTUL
Gary


Jack Painter
Virginia Beach VA
http://members.cox.net/pc-usa/grounding.htm