Text 1662, 61 rader
Skriven 2014-10-01 08:16:58 av Mike Luther (1:117/100.0)
   Kommentar till text 1659 av Daryl Stout (1:19/33)
Ärende: Electronics
===================
Hi Daryl ..

 DS>   And, with the shakiness of my hands, due to the nervous system damage
 DS> from 2 indirect lightning strikes, I never could've drawn a diagram.

 DS> Daryl, WX1DER

Considering your post I'm a LOT luckier than you about lightning strikes.

Although the detailed data isn't around me here, I've been involved in
TWENTY-NINE lightning strikes!  I got my original W(N)5WQN call in 1952 here in
College Station, Texas where Dad came to work at Texas A&M in 1936.  Although I
didn't design them, one of my mentors, Dr. George Huebner, W5GDK, did, I built
the first color radar in the whole USA and also the first lightning strike
sferics research system while I was still in high school here at A&M
Consolidated high school.  I got to study how lighning was formed, was really a
radio wave issue and not electricity as such from research data at the EE
department of Texxas A&M.  My first real close lightning strike personally was
in my second auto at I think 16 years of age when I was going up over the hill
on Dexter Street next to A&M Consolidated School!  At the top of the hill,
lightning hit my car on the roof and hopped from the left front wheel over the
tire to the ground, blowing up my tire!  I was sorta shocked!  More interesting
when I told the young girl that I was with at dancing school at Texas A&M about
it, she vanished from the dance school and never would speak with me again! 
They had a huge ranch out near Navasota, Texas and her dad had been killed by a
lightning strike that hit him directly when he was riding his horse rounding up
their cows.

In general here, my airplane has been hit six times directly, the Texas A&M
Research Vessel Hidalgo of which I was the marine radio telegraph operator
designing the original hurricane radio reporting stuff long before there was
even sattelite communications was hit eight times directly while I was on it at
sea.  Twice, while I was in Houston during those years when I was walking on
Main Street, lightning hit the power lines less than a block from me and a
number of people were whopped on the ground there.  Not me, luckily.  In those
years I also became the Chief Engineer for WTAW radio here and the 256 foot
tower was directly hit MANY times a year.  As well as the power lines that fed
the station directly that I managed to design absolutely correct lighting
ground special systems that stopped the damage to the station equipment there.

Our family bought our rural property out in Kurten, Texas where I did huge
design work for my experimental ham radio antenna operations where my only real
interest was really heavily involved with 40 meter CW work. To my
understanding, I am the only ham radio operator in the world who has ever
applied orignally for their first DXCC club award with three hundred initial 40
Meter CW country QSL's only!  My antenna farm out there is still hit an average
of at least twice a year directly by lighning strikes!  And from my very decent
design and protection work that I was able to effect in the first years of the
1970's I have never lost even one device of any kind to a lightning strike
there.

Though the initial work was also an issue when a direct hit about two AM in the
morning blew me out of my bed in my bedroom on to the floor and left me with
the strangest taste in my mouth I have ever known...

Mike Luther N117C from Fido Net 117 and also still W5WQN and still a very
faithful 40 Meter CW fan


---
 * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)