chuck wrote:
This study found that 20% of the observed charges were greater than 1.6
pC. Or, 80% were below 1.6 pC. At least it doesn't contradict your
hypothesis.

Let me make it clear that virtually all of my precipitation
static experience has been with wind-blown dust in the
Arizona desert with absolutely no personal experience
with snow static and very little with rain static. All I
know about snow and rain static is what I have read and
heard. Here in East Texas, rain is usually preceded by
lightning so precipitation noise from rain is hard to
detect. I think I saw it on the bandscope display of my
IC-756PRO the other day, didn't see any lightning or
hear any thunder but, of course, I can't say for certain.

However, I can say with certainty that precipitation static
from wind-blown dust can exist on a low humidity clear-sky
day and was somewhat proportional to wind speed. Changing
over from a bare-wire dipole to an insulated folded dipole
reduced the problem to a tolerable level. The folded dipole
was less noisy on dry windy days than a bare-wire dipole with
a 4:1 voltage balun (DC short) on the feedline. I can't swear
that corona didn't exist during receive, but I never saw any
glow at night even when I was transmitting 500 watts. Corona
should be less of a problem in low humidity like Arizona.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com