[Kenwood] Lightning protection wire antennas WA8OPR

[Fern]

Now if your antennas are fed with a balun, you will not have this static build up problem.
I used to have a mosley which was direct fed with coax and had a lot of static build up.
I installed a 1:1 balun at the feed point and that fixed that problem.
73 from Fern   VE7GZ
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth G. Gordon" <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>
To: <kenwood at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Kenwood] Lightning protection wire antennas WA8OPR


> On 14 May 2014 at 14:39, Fred wrote:
> 
>> > I would reiterate the ARRL '75 Antenna Handbook, along with numerous 
>> > editions of the "West Coast" Handbook, both - have a methodology of 
>> > pointed elements outside, with a gap, significantly smaller than the 
>> > 2.5" that use heavy copper to have the lightning jump the much smaller 
>> > gap to the piece that is grounded.
> 
> If you would re-read that article very carefully, you will find that the purpose of 
> such a spark-plug device is to leak off static build-up on the antenna, and 
> only secondarily is its purpose to help with lightning strokes.
> 
> If you have lived in any area where the wind causes either dust storms or 
> blowing snow, you will soon find out that those can cause the build-up of 
> tremendous static voltages on any antenna. That voltage easily reaches well 
> over 100K volts in very short order. I have experienced that many times.
> 
> The spark-plug or spark-gap devices are specifically meant to drain those 
> voltages before they can damage any component in the receiver or 
> transmitter.
> 
> In point of fact, an RF choke between each antenna lead and ground would 
> work better, IMHO.
> 
> Ken W7EKB
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