On 7/24/2013 1:20 AM, Grant Saviers wrote:
My sailboat was at the wharf, plugged into shore power when a
thunderstorm passed by about a 1/4 mile away. Each lightning flash was
accompanied with an arc over SNAP in the 120v outlets. Scary how much
voltage that takes. My exposed lead keel in salt water was tied to the
shore power grounding lead. Concluding I was the best local power grid
ground, I quickly disconnected from shore power.
Grant KZ1W
Many years ago our old house was made up of three individual houses
fitted together to make one decent looking home of reasonable size. It
had been modernized a few times so it looked much like most farm homes
of that era. The age was evident in the basement where the floors above
may have been nice looking hardwood, but were resting on rough hewn logs
still containing most of the bark. Age was evident in the attic where
the knob and tube wiring meant "be careful" The wire had originally had
insulation which was a fabric like material, but most of that had long
ago fallen off.
Not exactly very tight in a strong wind either.
One year we were taking a lot of lightening damage. Eventually they
found the neutral was not connected at the pole.
I would have thought there would have been other obvious problems as the
house was on a sand hill with the sand being generally dry, so the
ground probably wasn't. Apparently that several hundred feet of
disconnected neutral weas good for a lot of induced voltage. Wonder it
didn't burn down.
73
Roger (K8RI)
On 7/23/2013 6:38 PM, Spencer wrote:
I did some maintenance on a steel boat. The utility company had
connected the ground to
the hull when connected to shore power. There was serious corrosion
problems. I measured
the ground wire current with a amp-probe, 3 amps. I disconnected the
ground and the problem went away.
Your tower might be the ground connection for the electric utility
company. The waveform is
distorted and has a DC component that will cause big problems and a
nice place for current flow
during a lightning strike.
Spencer
W1GAK
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