[Spooks] Sorry about the newbie question

[Ernie Rice]

I have never in 45 + years in the hobby had even a close strike.
All antennas are shunted to ground and all equipment into a common ground and shunted to the ground 3 8 foot copper rods in the ground

Ernie

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 22, 2014, at 17:53, Joe Green via Spooks <spooks at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
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> Hi Justin,
> What part of the country are you in? If you are subject to numerous nearby strikes, some caution may be in order. 
> Typically, a very short wire antenna such as yours that is probably no more than 20' above the ground will not be prone to lightning strikes unless as mentioned, you live in an area with frequent electrical storms such as parts of Florida. If you wind up expanding your array in the future, lightning protection may be called for.
> As a precaution, in the event of a nearby thunderstorm, you most definitely will want to disconnect your antenna from your radio and move the connector away from anything that may ground. Just remember, lightning will generally take the path of least resistance so don't afford it the opportunity. And, lightning can strike from clouds as far as 20 miles distant.
> I'm not sure of your exact antenna design. As further protection, you may wish to have the end attached to the tree connected to the tree via an insulator. In other words, tie a dacron cord to the tree, attach a plastic or ceramic insulator to the cord, connect your wire antenna to the other end of the insulator. If you have one of the roll up type antennas that come with some shortwaves, you may be able to just tie another dacron cord to the insulator and then clip the antenna to that.
> Anyway, hope this is of some help.
> 
> Joe
> N6JPG
> 
> 
> On Sunday, June 22, 2014 1:37 PM, Justin Solonynka <jsolony at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> If this is totally against the rules for me to ask a newbie question 
> here, I apologize and please ignore.
> 
> I just got interested in Numbers Stations (as a math teacher, I love 
> numbers and codes, and when I played some recordings I found online for 
> my students, they were totally creeped out - which was a bonus).
> 
> I got myself a Tecsun PL-600.  I'll be really excited if I ever get to 
> hear a Numbers Station live -- at this point I'm just interested in 
> hearing stations from around the world, and particularly folk music of 
> other countries.
> 
> The Tecsun PL-600 came with an antenna, maybe 20 feet long(?).  My 
> office is on the second floor of my house.  I've run the antenna out my 
> window and attached it to a tree, diagonally from my house.
> 
> My incredibly newbie question is: Do I need to worry about lightning?  
> As long as I keep the antenna unplugged from the radio during a 
> lightning storm, will I be OK?  Obviously I haven't done anything to 
> "ground" my antenna, but all it amounts to is a wire running from my 
> window to a tree, about 12 feet off the ground. There are much taller 
> trees all around the house.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!  Justin
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