"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
Dave,

Check out http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lightning/2.html
There are a few errors, but the essence is there. You'll have current in
the hundreds of thousands of Amperes. Nothing is sacred. Anything can be
fried (or spared). My neighbor's house was hit probably 10 or 15 years
ago;
she showed me the light bulb that the bolt left/entered into. There is a
nice hole (no sharp edges, very round and smooth edges) in the bulb. It
burned out motors in her house. Quite a mess. She felt her hair stand on
edge when she was lying down on her couch and the bolt struck. Not
pleasant.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim

A friend of mine had his tower struck by lightning about that long ago too.
The tower was right next to the house and a chain link fence that circled
the yard and was grounded quite well. The lightning hit the tower, went into
the aluminum siding (which got loosened up badly along certain areas), made
a beatiful arc of 3 inches or so between the siding and where the fence post
for the yard started. When it ran along the fence, it blew off all the post
caps and welded the gate and car gate shut. It blew a hole 2 feet deep and 1
foot wide in the ground where it stopped in the corner of the yard. In the
house was even more fun. It killed most everything plugged in, even blowing
the plugs out of the sockets completely along a couple circuits. I lived in
the same town and thought a bomb had gone off. It was an early Sunday morn
and even miles away was wakened in a hurry. I got over there about 20
minutes after the fact and was surprised to see the hole in the corner of
the yard still smoking just a wee bit. There was even a bit of that glass
that lightning makes (i forget the name). Needless to say, they thought a
plane hit the house or something.
Makes you wonder how many house fires were started by aluminum siding,
antennae, and lightning.