Back in the good old days of CB, in Chicago, I had a ground plane
antenna which had no DC return path. My Lafayette CB radio started
making some very strange noises so I disconnected the PL259 and was
surprised to see a spark jumping across the connecter. This continued
for hours as the voltage built up and discharged. Pretty impressive
display of precipitation static.

Roy Lewallen wrote:

Sorry, I disagree with many of the suggestions being made. Putting a
nonlinear device or devices like a zener or a series of diodes across
your antenna terminals can produce intermodulation among incoming
signals. These will appear at your receiver as hash and spurious
signals at various frequencies. When transmitting, they can create
harmonics.

The advice I do go along with is to put a resistor or RF choke across
the terminals if static is a problem. Either will prevent it. You
won't be able to tell any difference between carbon, carbon film, and
metal film in just about any RF application -- any are just fine.
Don't use a wire wound resistor, however.

I don't see much sense in letting static build up to several tens of
volts, then have a neon bulb ignite to discharge it -- with a loud pop
you'll hear in your receiver -- down to a slightly lower level. A
resistor or RF choke will keep it at near zero. By all means, have fun
impressing your friends with blinking NE-2s, but use something else to
drain off the static.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL


--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"©

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

"Follow The Money" ;-P