At 12:18 PM 7/12/2006, Gary Schafer wrote:
>If the shield of a coax cable carries a lightning strike about half of the
>energy gets transferred to the center conductor of the cable and propagates
>down the cable just like a radio signal would. This includes the propagation
>delay caused by the velocity factor of the coax.
No. Coax acts as a nearly ideal common mode choke for signal injected end to
end.
The only component of that common mode signal that shows up between center and
shield is the part below about 1 kHz, where the common mode choke behavior
kicks
in (see Ott for a proof of this).
Now, if there is an antenna connected to the coax, the lightning will induce
some
voltage between the center conductor and the shield, just like any other EM
field
would, and THAT signal will propagate down the coax just like any other signal
induced on the antenna.
And, of course, when the center conductor of the coax vaporizes or the
dielectric
melts, all bets are off. :)
I also agree that for lightning protection, cable running in conduit should be
bonded at both ends so that the conduit doesn't choke the discharge.
73,
Jim Brown K9YC
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