[FADCA] Watch the Blue Light

[Chuck Hast]

On 6/17/05, bud thompson <budt at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> I received this note from Phil Bankston - my next door neighbor who has
> experienced this location for longer than anyone in the neighborhood.
> 
> "I know the strike you are speaking about.  It wasn't a direct hit, but it
> was a damned close one.  I happened to be looking out my front window, and
> it was extremely close.  I checked all my electrical and electronic stuff.
> No problems, but that is because I have more lightening protectors than
> anyone in Deltona.   Good ones -not from Wal-Mart.
> 
>  When I first came here in '78 I had just gotten my first quality stereo and
> accessories in when  a strike hit a tree just across the canal from me.
> Over the next three months all my new appliances went to hell.  Only my
> stereo was undamaged.  The reason, a set of quality arrestors was installed
> on it.  The doggoned stuff cost me more that my refrigerator!"
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chuck Hast" <wchast at gmail.com>
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >Was the blue light BEFORE the actual discharge or was it the
> >discharge, if it was
> >dark enough you may have seen the leader that forms before the actual
> >high current
> >discharge takes place, if you are near or on one end of it this is
> >sort of like the last
> >view a fly has of a dragon fly bearing down on it... You see it and
> >then you are caught
> >up in it...
> 
> From Phil's report I'd say I did not see the leader - I had figured what I
> saw was some manifestation of the Polyphasor(s) discharge since I felt it
> was right in the room with me!

Still may have been the leader, parts of it radiate out in all directions,
believe me I have seen it from a unusual vantage point, up on a tower
on top of a mountain where the electrical activity was in the undercast
below me. A strike took place about 1/2 mile DOWN the mountain
below the undercast (I was in clear sky above it) but the st. elmos's 
fire was so strong that you could see it in broad daylight, when the
discharge took place it all turned to sparks and fire all over everything.
I did not suffer any burns but all of the hair was burned off my arms.
I was lucky in that I had my safety belt on and locked, because I did
turn loose of the tower when it happened. Now we know that when there
is a discharge out the bottom ot the cloud there are strange things that
happen on the top side too. I knew that 20 years ago!!!

Oh and by the way, that st. elmos fire sounded like a climbing whistle like
sound until the discharge took place at which time it turned to crackley
sounds...
> 
> > Did you go and check your coax for perforations in the
> >underground
> >part? Is the coax in some sort of pipe or is it just buried? the
> >discharge may have
> >popped holes in the insulation...
> 
> The five coax lines are buried in aluminum down spout tubing.  I'd have to
> dig it all up to inspect it.  If/when I determine an unacceptable VSWR, I
> can isolate the underground part from the run that goes up the tower.  At
> the base of the tower I have another single point ground plate where all
> coax lines go through the plate via coax barrels/ feed throughs.  That also
> helps those surges that are on the braid find a shorter path to ground than
> to come into the house to do so!  I've been tempted to add another set of
> Polyphasors at that point as well!
> 
Old airplane trick, on the side of the plate that is where the coax goes
into the ground add a 90' elbow and give each coax as tight a turn as
the product specs will allow, that will create a inductive point that will
encourage the discharge to go through the plate and to ground rather
than down the coax and punch through the sheath, or to the far end for
more funnies.
-- 
Chuck Hast 
To paraphrase my flight instructor;
"the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going
out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn
and twisted metal."