[Elecraft] Antenna static charge precautions - any tips?

[Richard Fjeld]

Good demo.  To that cause, I'd like to share a true experience that happened 
to me as part of a group of Explorer Scouts on Field Day one year.  I was an 
advisor, and had installed a ground rod, and connected a coax switch to it 
so that we could ground our antennas if weather threatened. The switch was 
inside a shelter.

The sky above us was clear blue and sunny.  Off to the west were black 
clouds and lightning that was moving our way.  I told the scouts to connect 
the antenna coax plugs to the coax switch.  As we attempted to connect the 
first one from a dipole, we drew a steady blue arc to the shell of the 
switch. It was quite a gap, too.  It was blue sky and sunny in our half of 
the sky. Yet, the static build up from the storm caused enough voltage to 
arc that much.  That was hard to believe.

As a footnote, I made the mistake of holding the coax switch with one hand, 
while holding the PL259 with the other hand.  It was like touching the tip 
of a spark plug.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "stan levandowski" <sjl219 at optonline.net>
Cc: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2012 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Antenna static charge precautions - any tips?


> Short but interesting demo of antenna static discharge - good motivation
> -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSpZ-ffacA  - (BTW, I've heard the
> FT-817 has a 22K resistor installed but don't know that for sure)
> On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 9:28 AM, hawley, charles j jr wrote:
>
>> Which begs the question...why isn't a 100K across the antenna jack in
>> the original design?
>> BTW, I use a choke across the antenna leads.
>>
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