[R-390] Tube receivers and long wire antennas

[Bill Levy]

Brad and Group
In the period of 1973-5 I ran 700 feet of wire between two 40 foot surplus 
signal corp poles. I was in Africa and the big game used to walk around the 
guy ropes. Elephants were very respectful.
The long wire was on an L network feeding an early Ten Tec and the last 
Hallicrafter Safari FPM300. Both solid state.

When not in use I would remove the long wire from the L network and ground 
it to my station ground. Nothing more complicated than that.

Never had a problem, survived lots of storms.

73 all,
Bill N2WL


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Huff" <huffb at avalon.net>
To: <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 12:20 AM
Subject: [R-390] Tube receivers and long wire antennas


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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