[R-390] Tube receivers and long wire antennas

[Buzz]

I had the proverbial "bolt out of the blue" hit the power line behind my house
from a storm about 10 miles away.  I normally disconnect my antennas and pull
the line cords, but I thought that it'd be a while before the storm reached us
so I hadn't disconnected anything.  All of the receivers/transmitters, both tube
and solid state, were fine.  The computers were fine except for the modem
boards.  Both of them had cinders where the input resistors had been.
I credit the good results to a lucky day.

Buzz



On Sun, 22 May 2005 23:20:30 -0500, you wrote:
>I recently put up a long wire antenna approx 125' long and was amazed at the
static buildup and arcover as I started to put a coax connector on the end of
the feedline during a storm. I am told that the static during a snowstorm is
amazing as well. Now to my question for the group-The arc between the center
conductor and the ragged end of the just cut braid was probably a kilovolt or so
during that storm, a storm that was a couple of miles away. Now I don't intend
to leave the antenna hooked up to the radio when it is not in use but I'm still
concerned about front end damage while I'm using it. What does one do about
this? I don't know if an in line lightning arrester would do the trick or
possibly a neon bulb from the center conductor to ground or both. The schematic
shows a neon bulb across the unbalanced input but nothing across the balanced
one. I don't think that a solid state rig would survive. I've asked a few
vendors of antenna supplies about this and they don't have an
>answer, since I didn't invent the long wire antenna I'm sure someone has dealt
with this before. Any help would be appreciated.-Brad
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