"BDK" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
"Krypsis" wrote in message
u...
On 13/06/2010 10:26 PM, Brian Gregory [UK] wrote:
wrote in message
...
Never heard of such a thing. I use insulators at each end, and in the
old days I used a neon bulb or a 12V tail light bulb as a bleed off.
I
went to gas discharge tube arrestors a long time ago. The 12V bulb
made
a really nice light show on winter days when the wind was really
going.

What kind of buld exactly is a "12V tail light bulb"?


An automotive 12 volt, 5 watt bulb (globe) with (usually) a bayonet
fitting. You can get bulbs that have dual filaments, one filament for
tail
lights, the other for brake or indicator lights. The brake/indicator
light
filament has a higher wattage rating (21 - 25 Watts) so the bayonet
typically has staggered locating pins. This prevents the higher wattage
rating being used as the tail light filament.

http://www.eziautoparts.com.au/light...or-globes.html

New technology is seeing the incandescent bulbs being superseded by LED
arrays.

Krypsis

But that would most definitely not light from the static electricity
induced
in an antenna wire on a stormy night and would shunt away much of the
wanted
signal anyway.

Wanna bet? And the signal loss was minimal on the huge antenna I used it
on. Actually, that was a bonus as the signal level on that antenna was
really too much for all my receivers. The local AMBC station was so
strong here anyway, I needed a BC killer filter plus 10 or 20DB
attenuation to keep from hearing it in the background all the time. I
was kind of happy when it came apart and I had to redo it, and I
basically cut it in half, size wise. I still had more than enough
antenna for ute listening. When I cut the size down, I went to the gas
discharge tube type arrestors, one for each receiver.


So I think BDK must mean something else.

Nope.


Either that or he's making it up as he goes.

Nope again, I got woke up several times when I forgot to flip the short
out switch before I went to bed. When it's really cold out, and the wind
blows, there's enough voltage to light up a bulb pretty brightly on
peaks. It had to be really cold, and really windy for it to light up. In
a lit up room, it wasn't very bright, but in the middle of the night, it
was hard to miss.


No way was the static lighting up a 12V 5W filament bulb.

You might conceivably seen something if there was a lightening strike
closeby.

Or maybe the filament was actually open circuit and you were seeing some
kind of gas discharge.


BTW, I didn't use any kind of matching transformer, I had no use for any
more signal strength than I had already with just a straight coax
hookup. I'm very close to a river and once the eclectic company replaced
the bad transformer that was driving me crazy for years, it's a pretty
quiet area, RF wise.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.