Some of the e-mails in this thread exhibit some disregard for the fact that the shield side of a coax cable feedline is as much a part of the antenna as the center conductor. Simply disconnecting the coax from the rig doesn't necessarily prevent it from drawing hundreds of amps of Megavolt electricity from following that shield to a convenient ground nearby. If for instance you disconnect a diple with RG-8 feedline and simply drop the PL-259 on the lawn. you'll most likely save the rig but not necessarily the lawn. or anything attached to the antenna. Likewise, unplugging a feed line at the back of the rig and dropping the cable on the floor may be too close to the nearest outlet or a lamp cord to prevent an arc-over to the rest of the system. Nothings going to stop lighting that just traversed several thousand feet of atmosphere from "ignoring" 1/2 an inch of carpet, etc. Most of us have been very lucky. My first experience with lightning discharge was listening to my Viking Ranger during a particularly windy night in Golden Colorado as the static buildup jumped from the plate to the cathode of the 6146B tube. I did a hasty removal of the ant feedline and spent the rest of the night wondering where the static was going at that time.
Last interesting experience was with what I believe is called dry lightning - no clouds around for miles. Atop Diablo Peak on Santa Cruz Island 24 years ago this week, I was setting up for the annual UHF contest. First job was to assemble antennas. The previous night we (the assembled contest team) observed a rather impressive lightning display from a storm near San Diego, about 200 miles away. That morning about 8 am it was clear and gentle breeze with evidence of T C activity about 80 miles to the North East of us over the San Gabriel Mountains. As we assembled the antennas, mainly sliding 1/8" Alum welding rods through various boom holes, we suddenly noticed a melodic humming like a multitude of tuning forks vibrating around us. The next thing we knew as we hastily dropped what we were doing was all the vegetation, mainly a fine grass that grows about 10 " tall and all very dry this time of year, was standing on end as if reaching for the sky and shaking violently with a very noisy crackling sound..Note, this is not a golf course turf, but a rocky mountain top of the coast of So Cal. We were moving very fast to get off the top and down the cliff side about 1000 ft to the west, where there is a small cave carved in the cliff side. No sooner had we cramped ourselves into this minor cavity than a slight warm breeze came up and an instant later we heard a tremendous crack-bang that we knew was a lightning strike. We didn't know where it struck and we decided to keep our heads down for about 1/2 hour before peeking out and over the edge of the embankment. When we emerged and hiked back up the hill, it was just another pleasant clear day to behold. We never could figure where the strike took place and there were several 50 + ft towers up there. None of our gear was disturbed or anything else we could see including our 220 / 6 M repeater system. Never got over the nervous feeling of lighting from a clear sky. Later that afternoon Thunder storms ravaged many stations while we were in contact with them. Wayne N6NB was Mobile on Mt Pinos and rode out the core of one TC. Pt Mugu NAS 30 Mi to th NE of us had a record rainfall that flooded the base with 3 ft deep runoff. And we remained dry through it all. It's an annual thing to have the Monsoon flow to the SE of here but about once every 10 years it sweeps through with very unpredictable conditions. 73 all - Al WA6VNN ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
