[BC] AM transmitter lightning sensitivity issue

[Gregory Muir]

Another anecdote.

Some time in the past I worked designing telescopes and instrumentation for 
solar research.  I had the opportunity of working with a electronics 
engineer who never neglected anything of curiosity.  One time when visiting 
a observatory site in the mountains of New Mexico he noticed a tree that had 
been struck by lightning.  If you have ever noticed, the lightning nearly 
always follows a spiral path down the trunk of the tree, the spiral pattern 
caused by the influence of the intense magnetic field on the arc.  By 
measuring the spacing of the turns down the trunk and folding in a few other 
factors, he would always calculate the current (I) level of the strike.  I 
was fascinated by that man.

Greg


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Mathis" <thebeaver32 at gmail.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: [BC] AM transmitter lightning sensitivity issue


> Ah HA! So THAT's what those things are! I've wondered.
>
> Related to the subject, lightning hit a tree right behind my house today.
> Blew the tree apart, bark and wood fragments showered down all over my 
> back
> yard.  While looking around outside, I even found a red-headed woodpecker 
> on
> the ground, obviously cooked. He must have been either in or on the tree
> when the lightning hit. Inside my house, it got one TV, my telephone, my
> Internet router, and my computer. Also several light bulbs, including a
> couple of CF's. Here's a different one, when I went to get water for 
> coffee,
> the water has full of mud and rust. I finally figured, that when the
> lightning hit the phone and cable wires, they are grounded to the cold 
> water
> pipe on the back of my house, and enough electricity entered that pipe to
> knock loose a bunch of scale and corrosion.
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Jerry Mathis
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