"Tom Donaly" wrote in message
om...
Dave wrote:
Jim Kelley wrote:



Tom Donaly wrote:


Where's the experimental evidence, Cecil?



Ever heard of Ben Franklin? :-)

73, ac6xg


Every winter here in New England we run numerous experiments, every time
I walk across the living room and touch a metal door knob.

The US military has an ESD specification of 25 KV @ 5 KOhms from a
healthy capacitor as a simulator.

Electro static discharge on antennas has been around for years. It is
real!

Dry Climate and Wind are all that's needed. Now, is the Physics at the
air molecule level [Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc.], ionized Oxygen or Nitrogen
atoms, charged dust particle level [that just begs the issue ... how did
the dust get charged?], Van De Graff level, etc.? Who knows?

But, the antenna ESD is a very REAL effect. You can hypothesize the
cause all day. To solve the problem at the system level, I added an ESD
bleed into my antenna switches.

I'm going to filter this thread to the circular file.


No one said ESD didn't exist. But you hit the nail on the head so far
as wind caused ESD, "Who knows?" I don't, and neither does Cecil,
although he thinks he does.
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH

i thought it came from distant thunderstorms?

and if wind blows an ELF system around, it does get noisier. i believe
that's due to physical movement of the antenna system.

Gravity

Yuri Blanarovich wrote:


You got it slightly wrong.
We mostly relate cases based on our experiments, which are repeatable and
unbelievers could easily duplicate them and see with their own
eyes/ears/whatever instead of "theorizing" here why "it can't be".
On insulting Tom, why don't you look up the threads and see who is insulting
first, pontificating and parading his "theories" on the web pages and if
questioned or debunked, takes of after wives, brings Dr. Phil, etc..
Interesting that bunch of baloney on his web site gets pass and is
proclaimed as gospel by his worshippers, while debunking gets attacked and
smacked with personal comments about .... Are you drinking the same Koolaid?
Shield is the antenna, riiiiight! Current along the loading coil is always
the same, riiiight!

73 Yuri da BUm



PLONK!

And I've never plonked anyone else here before. You are very special.

tom
K0TAR

Yuri Blanarovich wrote:
We mostly relate cases based on our experiments, which are repeatable and
unbelievers could easily duplicate them and see with their own
eyes/ears/whatever instead of "theorizing" here why "it can't be".

http://www.esda.org/basics/part1.cfm

I'm beginning to believe that anyone who is incapable of
understanding the considerable body of human knowledge
concerning the physics of electrostatic discharge, which
includes charged particles in the air around us, is
simply suffering from an inadequate IQ level. I won't
mention any names but would you agree that those emperors
have no clothes. :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

gravity wrote:

"Tom Donaly" wrote in message
om...

Dave wrote:

Jim Kelley wrote:



Tom Donaly wrote:



Where's the experimental evidence, Cecil?



Ever heard of Ben Franklin? :-)

73, ac6xg


Every winter here in New England we run numerous experiments, every time
I walk across the living room and touch a metal door knob.

The US military has an ESD specification of 25 KV @ 5 KOhms from a
healthy capacitor as a simulator.

Electro static discharge on antennas has been around for years. It is

real!

Dry Climate and Wind are all that's needed. Now, is the Physics at the
air molecule level [Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc.], ionized Oxygen or Nitrogen
atoms, charged dust particle level [that just begs the issue ... how did
the dust get charged?], Van De Graff level, etc.? Who knows?

But, the antenna ESD is a very REAL effect. You can hypothesize the
cause all day. To solve the problem at the system level, I added an ESD
bleed into my antenna switches.

I'm going to filter this thread to the circular file.


No one said ESD didn't exist. But you hit the nail on the head so far
as wind caused ESD, "Who knows?" I don't, and neither does Cecil,
although he thinks he does.
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH


i thought it came from distant thunderstorms?

and if wind blows an ELF system around, it does get noisier. i believe
that's due to physical movement of the antenna system.

Gravity



You could be right, who knows? Certainly not the people who
are afraid to experiment.
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH

Cecil Moore wrote:

Dave wrote:

Electro static discharge on antennas has been around for years. It is
real!


Here's some interesting quotes from:

http://www.esda.org/basics/part1.cfm

"Virtually all materials, including water and dirt particles in the air,
can be triboelectrically charged."

"When a conductive material becomes charged, the charge (i.e., the
deficiency or excess of electrons) will be uniformly distributed across
the surface of the material. If the charged conductive material makes
contact with another conductive material, the electrons will transfer
between the materials quite easily. If the second conductor is attached
to an earth grounding point, the electrons will flow to ground and the
excess charge on the conductor will be "neutralized."

"Electrostatic charge can be created triboelectrically on conductors the
same way it is created on insulators. As long as the conductor is
isolated from other conductors or ground, the static charge will remain
on the conductor. If the conductor is grounded the charge will easily go
to ground. Or, if the charged conductor contacts or nears another
conductor, the charge will flow between the two conductors."

So, you've discovered the triboelectric effect. You're now up to
Thales of Miletus.
73,
Tom Donaly, KA6RUH

Tom Donaly wrote:
"There`s no such thing as a clear-skycharged-particle problem, either in
the Arizona desert or anywhere else."

I believe there is from countless observations at AM broadcast stations
I`ve worked in over a period of many years.

The insulators used to break up the guy-wires flash over with "bangs" on
certain clear windy days. This might be no problem except it becomes so
severe at times that it overloads the transmitter, taking it off the air
momentarily.

Flash-overs of the guy insulators occurs in S.E. Texas where the
humidity is often very high by most standards. Each guy has many
insulators in its length and double insulators at the guy attachment
point to the tower.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

Tom Donaly wrote:
You could be right, who knows? Certainly not the people who
are afraid to experiment.

Why re-invent the wheel when all you have to do is read
this web page from the Electrostatic Discharge Association
to know what is old hat to most competent engineers?

http://www.esda.org/basics/part1.cfm
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Tom Donaly wrote:
So, you've discovered the triboelectric effect.

Sorry, it was discovered before I was born.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Richard Harrison wrote:
Flash-overs of the guy insulators occurs in S.E. Texas where the
humidity is often very high by most standards.

http://www.esda.org/basics/part1.cfm

Take a look at Table 2 where humidity is taken into account.
The static voltages at low relative humidity are magnitudes
higher than the voltages at high relative humidity. It certainly
can happen at high humidity but low humidity makes the problem
magnitudes worse.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

Gene Fuller wrote:
Do you suppose corona cares whether the air molecules themselves are
charged or whether the unbalanced charge is held on these highly
electrified dust particles?

Corona requires an ionized path through the air with
a sustained current of 100 uA per cm^2. What you are
calling corona is not corona. If a charged particle
is not in the act of discharging, by definition it
cannot be corona. On a clear dusty day, where is the
ionized glowing path through the air that necessarily
accompanies corona?

What W8JI has previously been describing is the electric
fairweather field, not corona. Please see:

http://www.colutron.com/products/cosmos.html
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp