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Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning Protection

To: "N4KH Jim" <n4kh@comcast.net>, <K8RI-on-TowerTalk@tm.net>, <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning Protection
From: "Patrick Greenlee" <patrick_g@windstream.net>
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2013 16:23:16 -0500
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Ditto from mast head VHF antenna on my sailboat. Tick - tick - tick. I discovered it was an intermittent arc at the chassis mounted SO-239 between the center conductor and shield. I unscrewed the coax and shorted the center to shield.. No lightning in sight and no thunder heard, just static electricity in the air. Only experienced that one afternoon when arriving at Catalina Island from San Diego. Mast head antenna was a shunt fed half dipole I shared between a 2m rig and a Marine Band VHF rig via a 1 in 2 out coax switch.

Patrick AF5CK

-----Original Message----- From: N4KH Jim
Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2013 8:09 AM
To: K8RI-on-TowerTalk@tm.net ; towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Lightning Protection

I remember back when I was a novice class op I kept hearing a tick tick tick pop sound sometimes. Finally figured out it was coming from somewhere inside my DX60B transmitter whenever a thunderstorm was approaching, even when quite a distance away. It was the arcing as you describe from voltage/static buildup on my dipole antenna, probably inside the tvi filter unit on the transmitter. It never did any damage to that old tube transmitter that I could tell but after that i learned to always disconnect my antennas.
Jim



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