On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:31:56 -0500, chuck wrote:

My back of the
envelope calcs showed nanovolt-level signals at the receiver from this
current.

Hi Chuck,

From the nature of your questions that follow, your envelope appears
to be insufficient to cover the topic.

Clearly, adding charges could eventually result in a corona,
but how does the typical current density found in a storm result in
measurable (i.e., readily detectable) signals at the receiver front-end
when no coronas are present? As I asked in an earlier post, is there a
relaxation mechanism somewhere in the antenna/receiver system? Where?
What determines its time constants?

There are two mechanisms at work, and they are classically the source
and the load. The source imparts an impulse, the load provides a
complex response. Any impulse's origin is the arrival of a charge.
The load (the antenna feeding the receiver) is very large in
comparison to the volume of charge arriving and all impulses are not
coherent.

Your nano-volt determination appears to neglect the accumulation of
charges which, in turn, does not take into account the reactance of
the load (there has to be a considerable mismatch involved here).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC