Once again, this subject (as well as lightning) proves the veracity
of the saying we in the dog show world have used for eons (or at
least a couple of decades):
Those who think they know everything really tork off those of us who do.
The problem is figuring out into which group the postulant belongs.
Keep it simple, folks. All antenna systems (which include feedlines,
connectors, etc.) follow Gooch's Law: The RF gotta go somewhere.
Besides, it's amazing what a few milliwatts will do! As long as the
antenna tuner (I mean transmitter fooler) can transform, why worry
about a 3:1 VSWR into a few hundred feet of RG8?
The height of a tower has nothing to do with protection zones. The
150' (or 50 metres [for those who insist on using that antiquated and
ridiculous system devised by the French instead of the totally logical
English system - I ask you, would you rather inflate your tires to 50 PSI
or 1.2 kPa {kilopascals}?]) rolling ball concept will help conceptualize
this zone. And it is in the 96% effective area as the step leader could
be somewhat less than the aforementioned distance. Objects theoretically
within this protection zone which get struck probably were victims of one
of the two laws governing lightning. The first is that the step leader was
extremely shorter than the normal 150'; the streamer from it was stronger;
or the lightning strike was one of those weird ones which travel "parallel" to
the ground rather than in a more vertical plane. The second is that lightning
is like Calvinball (from Calvin & Hobbes): "The only rule is that there are no
rules, and they can be changed at any time."
Well, at least one other person knows that the correct abbreviation for
gigahertz is gHz. According to the IEEE, all multipliers should
be lower case with the exception of M for mega (because of the m [lower case]
for milli). Yep, all those hams operating on 14 mHz are out of band!
With all due respect to Mr Hertz, lets go back to cycles per second; while we're
at it mhos are certainly more logical than siemens (and less likely to
titillate the
immature amongst us). And whilst on the Luddite bandwagon, let's get rid of all
the phone subbands - CW only! (Yes, Virginia, look it up; the phone portions are
the sub-bands.)
73,
Bob AA0CY
This is what happens when I'm deprived of operating in Field Day.
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