[AReU] Lightning Predictor

[Bob Haynes]

I would like to buy an instrument that will detect lightning within about 20
miles of my home - not further away.  

I do not want to have it sounding off when storms are further away.

Perhaps you know of a lightning detector on the market which I could buy
that makes a  pleasant tone when nearby lightning is present.

Maybe you know of something simple I could build such a detector.  I said
simple.  No surface mount parts.  Few, if any dental tools.  I like easy
projects.  

 

Of course one way to know if there is lightning in the area is for me to
turn on an AM radio.  I could tune it to where there are no stations and
listen for static crashes, but someone I love would not like the crackling
noise.

  

Maybe there is a way I can use an AM radio with an earphone jack that
disconnects the speaker, and somehow turn the static crashes into a pleasant
tone.

I do not want to walk around all day with my Walkman radio and earphones.
Something that sits on the table top and sounds a tone is the goal.  

Your suggestions are welcome.  

 

I saw a lightning detector once that I really liked.  It was a metal box
about four or five inches across that had a meter on the front that would
jump a little or a lot, depending on how powerful the signal from the
lightning was.  I remember there was a knob or two on the front.  Perhaps
one of the knobs controlled volume.  

When a strong enough spike from lightning was received, a sonalert would
sound off.  Some lightning strikes made little, less loud beeps, and strong,
nearby strikes made louder beeps.  I remember the sonalert started at good
volume with each strike, and tapered lower until it went silent again over a
period of a few seconds.  

I am trying to figure out how that one worked, and my theory is that there
was a simple radio receiver, tuned between stations that would instantly
charge a capacitor when there was a strong lightning signal.  The capacitor
would discharge into the sonalert, which would decrease in volume as the
sonalert used up the stored energy in the capacitor.  This lightning
detector had an antenna inside a one inch PVC pipe about two feet long, and
I think there were two wires connecting the metal box to the antenna - this
looked like speaker wire to me.  There may or may not have also been another
pair of speaker wires to make a long ground for the box.  

Does this lightning detector sound familiar to you?

 

About ten years ago I spent too much on a Strike Alert Model LD-1000 made by
Outdoors Technologies, Inc.  It is the size of a pager, and has a belt clip.
It looks a lot like a pager.  On the top of the lightning detector is one
light for power, and three lights that represent the distance of the
lightning - 24 to 40 miles, 17 to 24, 6 to 20, and 0-6 miles.  It is powered
by two AA cells.  I never liked it.  This unit did not sound an alert, and
sometimes I could hear the thunder and it would register that it was further
away than timing the flash to boom interval would indicate.  

 

Any recommendation would be appreciated.  I like to know ONLY when lightning
is close, so that I should be disconnecting antennas.  

 

Thanks & 73,

 

Bob WB4AKA