I was wondering all this neet posting about lightning

i understand that lightning wants to find path of least resistance

if my antenna is grounded, so over other objects on the roof,
including the brick building itself nearby trees etc wouldn't my
antenna then become the 'best' ground ie path of least ristance and
thusly ""attract"" the lightning

i get confused since, my antenna being a good conductor and grounded
(both pairs when not using it) will thereby dissapate ''static'' or
ionic buildup and so i think wouldn't that sorta make lighting not
become super attracted to seek it out??



dunno which takes the lead here??


thanks

m

ml wrote:
"wouldn`t my antenna then become the "best" ground or path of least
resistance and thusly ""attract"" the lightning."

That seems right and conductivity does not have to be high. Ben Franklin
found the conductivity of twine sufficient. He drained charge from the
atmosphere by placing fis kite high.

Height is shown to attract lightning bolts to grounded towers used for
various purposes. Many are hit by nearly every passing thunderstorm.
Towers take lightning bolts. They don`t always if ever discharge the
earth and atmosphere in their area to eliminate hits. They do seem to
divert strikes in their vicinity and offer some protection to their
surroundings.

I`ve spent years in broadcast plants and seen many lightning strikes. If
you build it they will come.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

"Richard Harrison" wrote in message
...
Height is shown to attract lightning bolts to grounded towers used for
various purposes. Many are hit by nearly every passing thunderstorm.
Towers take lightning bolts. They don`t always if ever discharge the
earth and atmosphere in their area to eliminate hits. They do seem to
divert strikes in their vicinity and offer some protection to their
surroundings.

I`ve spent years in broadcast plants and seen many lightning strikes. If
you build it they will come.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

Saw a program on lightning a year or so back that described the mechanism
involved in setting up a lightning strike. Every raised object in a fairly
large area below an accumulating cloud charge
sends up a stepped "leader"of opposing charge, all these "leaders"
advance in steps that also zig and zag randomly upward. If I remember
correctly the charge in the cloud is also sending out
multiple feelers in a zig zag process. When one of the clouds
feelers completes a circuit by meeting a leader from the ground
the circuit completes and all hell breaks loose. It's all relatively random
and the leader from a golfers head may just connect before the leader from a
much taller tree or tower connects. if he's a lucky golfer the taller stuff
will make the connection. I've seen weather service warnings lately
indicating that anything within a 25 mile radius of a stormclouds center has
a chance of winning the electrical
lottery. When I see lightning as I'm mowing my 7 acres here in southern
Oklahoma, I now shut down and make for the house.If I have an inkling we're
gonna see weather I bag the terminal end of my various coax connections
before the weather starts and coil them outside away from the house

Harold
KD5SAK

"Harold Burton" wrote in message
...

"Richard Harrison" wrote in message
...
Height is shown to attract lightning bolts to grounded towers used for
various purposes. Many are hit by nearly every passing thunderstorm.
Towers take lightning bolts. They don`t always if ever discharge the
earth and atmosphere in their area to eliminate hits. They do seem to
divert strikes in their vicinity and offer some protection to their
surroundings.

I`ve spent years in broadcast plants and seen many lightning strikes. If
you build it they will come.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

Saw a program on lightning a year or so back that described the mechanism
involved in setting up a lightning strike. Every raised object in a fairly
large area below an accumulating cloud charge
sends up a stepped "leader"of opposing charge, all these "leaders"
advance in steps that also zig and zag randomly upward.

If I remember correctly

you don't.

there are exceptions, but in most of the cloud-ground lightning the 'stepped
leader' starts down from the cloud. it progresses downward in 50-100m steps
bringing charge down from the cloud with it as it progresses (most often
negative charge). as it gets closer to the ground it attracts the opposite
(usually positive) charge under it, when the field strength is high enough
streamers start up from the ground and connect with the stepped leader and
the bolt that you see is triggered. streamers from the ground are normally
not stepped, they are a single breakdown between the ground (or some other
object) and the downward leader usually no more than about 100m long. the
final attachment point for the stroke depends on which streamer coming up
connects to the leader coming down first.

Richard Harrison wrote:

ml wrote:
"wouldn`t my antenna then become the "best" ground or path of least
resistance and thusly ""attract"" the lightning."

That seems right and conductivity does not have to be high. Ben Franklin
found the conductivity of twine sufficient. He drained charge from the
atmosphere by placing fis kite high.

Height is shown to attract lightning bolts to grounded towers used for
various purposes. Many are hit by nearly every passing thunderstorm.
Towers take lightning bolts. They don`t always if ever discharge the
earth and atmosphere in their area to eliminate hits. They do seem to
divert strikes in their vicinity and offer some protection to their
surroundings.

I`ve spent years in broadcast plants and seen many lightning strikes. If
you build it they will come.

I went on a tour of a TV station tower site last year, and they had a
lightning suppression system that had a number of rods with a lot of
fine metal (wires?) hanging off the ends - they looked a bit like a
cheerleaders pom-pom. The individual rods hung from the sides of that
tower at various heights on the tower. Height was either 1000 or 1200
foot IIRC.

The station engineer noted that although it was still a noisy place
when a storm was approaching, it was no where as exciting as it used to be!

And yes, it did protect the area around the tower.

I was very impressed with the mechanics of a large tower, such as the
huge suspended weight/pulley system on the guy wires, The strange
elevator that takes people up to do maintenance on the tower and guy
wires, the icefall protection structures (the engineer lost a car
once), and of course the foot thick solid copper jacket coax!

- Mike KB3EIA -

"Mike Coslo" wrote

/snip/

I went on a tour of a TV station tower site last year, and they had a
lightning suppression system that had a number of rods with a lot of
fine metal (wires?) hanging off the ends - they looked a bit like a
cheerleaders pom-pom. The individual rods hung from the sides of that
tower at various heights on the tower. Height was either 1000 or 1200
foot IIRC.

And yes, it did protect the area around the tower.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Mike,

The IEEE has nearly succeeded in quashing once and for all, the last ditch
efforts of a desperate group of snake-oil salesmen pushing Early Streamer
Emission (ESE) and Charge Transfer System (CTS) phony-science. The latest
trick of these junk-science purveyors was to hire corrupt Russian scientists
to publish "findings" that the ESE/CTS systems worked. Every other lightning
expert in the world has rung-in on this already, and the theory is totally
discredited, and without merit.

That didn't stop some engineers at various plants and stations around the
world from trying the systems those CTS snake oil salesmen pushed. The
system you described on that tower is CTS. And it never worked, anywhere.
Anyone who still defends it today is too embarrassed to admit they paid
upwards of 10x the cost of proven Franklin-rod lightning systems, for a
totally discredited design that leaves them dangerously exposed to damage
from lightning (if it was the only protection system).

Jack Painter
Virginia Beach, Virginia