H. Adam Stevens, NQ5H wrote:
I once had a ladder line fed doublet.
It was disconnected at the feedthroughs because a thunderstorm was about ten
miles North.
I could pull 1 inch arcs off the feedthroughs to a grounded wire.
Made me think of Ben Franklin.

For sure, a gradient is established by thunderstorms
resulting in all sorts of electrical and magnetic
phenomena. But the particular type of noise I am
talking about is precipitation static caused by
charged particles hitting a bare wire dipole when
one element of the dipole is floating. In particular,
this type of noise can occur in the Arizona desert
when there is not a cloud in the sky. Here is how
"precipitation static" is defined:

http://www.atis.org/tg2k/_precipitation_static.html

"ATIS is a United States based body that is committed to
rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations
standards for the communications and related information
technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible
and open approach. ATIS is accredited by the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)."
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp