[geeks] high-dollar surge supressors

[wa2egp at att.net]

> If you don't know, lightening travels from the ground DOWN once a path
> has been created from the ground UP. So the Franklin method of lightening
> rods, dosen't just draw lightening to them, it creates it.

Lightning rods dissipates the charge making the object they are on
a less likely target.  They do not draw lightning to them.
> 
> >From the time I put up my antenna farm untilthe time I took it down, I
> no longer had any lightening problems. The antennas were made by
> Cushcraft and therefore for lightening purposes, one huge grounded
> array, which disapated the charge long before it became lightening.

Antennas make very nice lightning rods.

> Except for the bedroom rigs, all the wires came down the side of the house
> to the basement, where I had 2 6' ground rods in parallel and a bunch of
> gas tube lightening supressors.

Good things to put in to keep any discharges, no matter how small, from 
going in the electronics of the radios.  Even a small discharge can
burn a winding on the antenna coil in a receiver.

> Before I had the array up I was constantly having lightening problems,
> and in one big strike, lost 2 modems, a keyboard, some serial cards, and
> a keyboard. Some were plugged into the the phone line, one modem and
> keyboard were not plugged into anything. :-(

Looks like the phone lines need to be "lightning" proofed.  Can get some
really high induced voltages on any wires.  A few years ago, some poor kid
got zorched while talking to his girlfriend from a pay phone during a
thunderstorm.  (Now you know why I like cordless phones.) 

One problem with lightning is that it has a very fast rise time and will
act like RF leading to some unpredictable results.

Bob