Hi Richard

I was just a lowly sophomore peon in a class of mostly upperclassmen
who had started the project a few years before I went to skewl there.

The project was a side assignment for extra credit that just seemed to
carry on for all the years I was there and a few years thereafter.

I was an avid model railroader quite adept at building miniature
structures to emulate their full sized counterparts.
This was my contribution to the project, the modeling end of it.
When a new building was built in the town, I would make a scale model
of it for the project layout board.
I had to pay special attention to what objects of a structure
consisted of metal components and how they were attached to the
structure and if they led to a grounding source, as all of these
factors played an important part in the experimentation that was going
on.

I knew what the project was about and what they were trying to prove
with it. But I truly was not that interested in the purpose of the
project as much as I was in the authenticity of detail in the
structures used on the project layout board.

In other words, I learned just enough to be dangerous in my
observations, hi hi.....

However, the success ratio of known lightning strikes to the red zones
on our layout board was phenominal.
The data was collected by a whole different team than the team I was
on, but the layout board was loaded with bright orange lightning bolts
glued to places of known lightning strikes and all but 2 of them were
in our red zones.

I should note that a red zone was simply a 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide line
drawn on for example, the edges of gutters, at certain elevations on
taller structures not shielded by another object.

Naturally we did not know about many lightning strikes that did no
damage or were not observed.

My own antenna farm has been hit several times, but never was their
any damage because of it.

In fact, one year we had a strange phenomenon that caused neighbors to
call the fire department on a couple occassions. One of my Yagi's
appeared to have orange sparks flying from it, sometimes for as long
as a half-hour, but usually only for a few seconds or minutes. I was
only priviledged to see this myself in person one time. Scared the
bejesus out of me when I did too!

One of the firemen knew a man who worked on tall commercial chimneys
or something like that and told him about it.
The many came to my house, checked a few things out, talked to a
couple of neighbors and showed them some photo's he had taken of a
similar phenominon on other structures.
Turns out what was happening was weather conditions and the charge in
the air was just right to cause what was termed as St. Elmo's Fire, a
phenominon discovered on old sailing ships at sea during a storm.

I lived in that house roughly 20 years and this only happened for one
short rainy season in only one of those years. I had never heard of a
similar occurrance to ham antenna's before or after this event.
And I've been licensed for 45 years!

TTUL
Gary

Hi Jack

The damage to my tower was directly my own fault.

It was of tubular aluminum construction and DID have drain holes in
the legs so they could not readily fill with water.

I made two very dumb mistakes that contributed to the damage.
The first was using one of these holes for attaching the ground rod
strap to the tower, instead of the clamp that WAS provided for the
purpose.
And the second was backfilling over these holes when a new air
conditioner was installed, and a small retaining wall placed between
the steps, tower and A/C unit.

Had there not been water in the leg of the tower, it would have taken
the hit unscathed.

There was a grounding strap on each leg of the tower at the unions
between sections, these were installed properly or should I say, per
the instructions, hi hi.....

Ironic, I was way overboard on everything else as far as protection
from lightning. Had a copper bulkhead on the house, grounded of
course. All coax shields were grounded first to the bulkhead and then
through gas bottles which were also grounded. The station equipment
was ground, even equipment in plastic cases I installed a ground to
the chassis and they were grounded too.

I did everything right except I forgot about one old abandoned rotor
cable that was coiled up behind 4 file cabinets, out of sight out of
mind. Luck of the Irish, the day I took the hit, I had sparks flying
all over my shack. My pooch who was young then, terrified of thunder,
came to my office to be by me for protection, just when the sparks
began to fly. He never came into my office ever again!
The only damage from this rotor wire was a few burn marks on the back
of the file cabinets. The tower obviously took the main hit.

As an aside. A tree outside my mothers home was struck by lighting.
Split that sucker almost all the way to the ground. Dad bolted it
back together with threaded rods and it survived, it's still living
too.
But the reason I brought it up is that INSIDE the house, sparks danced
all over my mothers stainless steel kitchen sink, made burn marks and
pits all over it. We later discovered the aerator on her faucet spout
was fused to the spout and it too was severely burned and pitted.

Back then all the waste lines to the sink were metal, not PVC as used
today and all the water lines are copper. So I assume both the sink
and the faucet were grounded.

Makes one wonder how lightning got inside the house and bounced around
in her sink and did enough damage that the sink and faucet had to be
replaced.

TTUL
Gary

Gary Deutschmann wrote:
"Turns out what was happening was weather conditions and the charge in
the air was just right to cause what was called St. Elmo`s fire---."

From my time in broadcast stations, I can testify these conditions
repeat.

In my experience, the radio towers took all the lightning strikes in the
area.

Charge buildup was a separate phenomenon.from lightning. This happened
in the wind ahead of an approaching thunderstorm. The insulated guy
segments would charge from the static in the air, announcing the
approaching storm with loud reports when conditions were right. Peering
out at the antennas disclosed flashes across the guy insulators
producing the reports. There were many towers with many insulators which
produced barrage fire. Noisy!

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

Hi Gary,

I did everything right except I forgot about one old abandoned rotor
cable that was coiled up behind 4 file cabinets, out of sight out of
mind. Luck of the Irish, the day I took the hit, I had sparks flying
all over my shack. My pooch who was young then, terrified of thunder,
came to my office to be by me for protection, just when the sparks
began to fly. He never came into my office ever again!
The only damage from this rotor wire was a few burn marks on the back
of the file cabinets. The tower obviously took the main hit.

A friend in Mobile, AL had several station equipments damaged this summer
when protection was presumed to be "complete". Old cabling on the floor
behind equipment racks was inductively charged and arced over to the
equipment and computers, defeating the extensive surge protection installed.
I had considered this a serious enugh problem to include it in a warning on
my web page, and he was of course furious with himself about this since we
had previously talked about it. This is also what I mean by the statement
that lightning finds and exploits the weak parts of a system.

As an aside. A tree outside my mothers home was struck by lighting.
Split that sucker almost all the way to the ground. Dad bolted it
back together with threaded rods and it survived, it's still living
too.
But the reason I brought it up is that INSIDE the house, sparks danced
all over my mothers stainless steel kitchen sink, made burn marks and
pits all over it. We later discovered the aerator on her faucet spout
was fused to the spout and it too was severely burned and pitted.

Back then all the waste lines to the sink were metal, not PVC as used
today and all the water lines are copper. So I assume both the sink
and the faucet were grounded.

Makes one wonder how lightning got inside the house and bounced around
in her sink and did enough damage that the sink and faucet had to be
replaced.

Could be either from an older home's cold water pipe grounding, or EMI from
the nearby strike. The former is more likely, when ground becomes saturated
with HV from a nearby strike, it raises the potential of everything
connected to it. Nowadays this is called "GPR" or Ground Potental Rise.
Possibly one of the biggest causes of damage to stations that are otherwise
"protected".


TTUL
Gary


Cheers,

Jack

On 21 Oct 2004 10:49:37 EDT, am (Gary V.
Deutschmann, Sr.) wrote:

As an aside. A tree outside my mothers home was struck by lighting.
Split that sucker almost all the way to the ground. Dad bolted it
back together with threaded rods and it survived, it's still living
too.

Hi Gary,

Sounds like this was from the 1950s era when fathers were omnipotent.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Hi Richard

Now 'that' I have seen a few times.
Probably not to the extent that you have experienced though.

When first out of skewl I took a job as a DJ, before a couple of
storms while working in the transmitter room at the tower site, I
could hear occasional pops, but never figured out where they were
coming from. Thanks for letting me know!

From my new residence I can see several radio and TV towers, I will
keep an eye on them just out of curiosity sake.

TTUL - 73+ de Gary - KGØZP

Hi Jack

That was probably the cause!

I figured the sink itself was at one ground potential and the faucet
at another which caused the arcing.

Of course, the way mom described it, one would think the whole sink
was ablaze.
Even back then I thought of possibly a single drop of hot metal
(probably from the aerator) and how that is what probably bounced
around in the sink sparking all over the place. Like dropped hot
metal when your welding goes all over the place.

Speaking of differing ground potentials. I think the wierdest thing I
ever saw was when my step-son was taking me through the automated
welding section of a body assembly plant for cars.

A line of steel platforms bolted to a steel floor framework, between
two of the platforms (about 2 to 3 inches apart) there was an
occasional arc that occurred when the machines on each both stopped at
the same time.

Don't know if you remember the old vacuum powered windshield wipers
that operated independent of each other. Every once in awhile they
would be in sync for a few wipes.
When these welders came into sync they hummed really loud and when the
sync broke is when the arc would jump between their two stands.

I thought it was interesting!

TTUL
Gary

Hi Richard

Are you insinuating that a tree struck by lightning cannot live after
being electrocuted?

Although not logical, since the sap turning to steam is more than
likely what split the tree in the first place. The path to ground
could have been less than 1/4 inch wide on opposing sides of the tree.

Nonetheless, the tree is still standing. It does have some strange
areas of bulging bark where the crack used to be.

I don't remember the exact year of the strike, but it was after 1968
and before 1972 and now this tree is the larger of the pair in moms
backyard. It's immune system must have been damaged, because it has
suffered from galls ever since shortly after it was split.

Now, as far as bolting trees back together using threaded rods, this
is not uncommon at all. The forked maple tree in my own front yard at
my St. Louis QTH was bolted together in two places to keep the two
trunks from spreading further as the tree grew. It worked!
A cedar tree in my backyard that split during an ice storm was mended
the same way at the same QTH. On this tree you can still see a part
of some of the rods that were used.

It only takes about 3 to 4 years for the large washer and nut to be
covered with bark and depending upon the gap where the rods were
placed, they may be visible for decades or covered in short order.

TTUL
Gary

On 22 Oct 2004 09:51:40 EDT, am (Gary V.
Deutschmann, Sr.) wrote:

Are you insinuating that a tree struck by lightning cannot live after
being electrocuted?

C'Mon Gary,

It was a commendation.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Hi Richard

OK, I'll take it that way!

YOU didn't know my father though, if it wasn't the way great grandpa
did it, it wasn't done right, hi hi.....

TTUL
Gary