On Jun 14, 3:39*pm, "Brian Gregory [UK]" wrote:
"BDK" wrote in message

...



In article ,
says...
"Krypsis" wrote in message
.au...
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...l-and-indicato....

New technology is seeing the incandescent bulbs being superseded by LED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

Would you notice a Flashlight spotted on you
for a second from 50 Feet away when a nearby
Lightning Strike lit-up the Sky during that same
second --- nah


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.