While we're on the subject of huge amounts of static electricity, I've
posted this before but it is important [see text]: Precipitation static
... rain, snow, and even dust ... can kill your radio, and it will do it
with no rumble, flashes, sparks, and crashes. On the panadapter, it
will look like very low grass on the baseline. In the cans, it may
sound like very faint "frying" or may not sound at all. Each flake,
drop, or dust particle carries a minuscule charge which it deposits on
the antenna. However, there are gazillions of them. Most front ends
these days have an FET as the first stage, and the gate acts like a tiny
capacitor, charged incrementally by each little minuscule charge coming
down the coax. Eventually, if the precip lasts long enough, the gate
will charge to the failure point. You won't see or hear it coming but
you can discern this when you suddenly don't hear anything.
Some current transceivers have a bleed across the antenna jack [100K-ish
resistor or maybe an RF choke]. I "believe" Elecraft rigs do, but I've
never checked. Years ago, at the dawn of the transistor age, I learned
to wire a PL259 with a 100K 1/2 W resistor shorting it, put a coax Tee
on the antenna jack, connect the antenna to one arm, and put the PL259
on the other.
Back around 2010 or so, four of us were activating Alpine County CA
during the CQP. We were at about 8,500 ft AMSL, and it began to snow
[of course, with wind too]. Barely perceptible grass on the
ICOM<mumble> panadapter. Suddenly, it got very quiet. So we replaced
it with the spare, and it met the same fate.
73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
PS The combined longevity of the 4 of us in ham radio was something
around 200 years. You'd have thought one of us would have remembered.
Gene Robinson wrote on 8/24/2022 1:54 PM:
Working at Collins in the 60’s we had a lab with no windows but we did have 18
foot vertical antennas on the roof.
We would have NE2 neon bulbs connected to the RF coax feed lines and when
thunderstorms were within 5 miles they would start to flash.
We all then went out to the parking lot and rolled up our windows.
The rain and lightning would arrive about 10 to 15 minutes latter.
The break down and flash voltage for a NE2 is 90 volts! Keep those antennas
disconnected when not in use.
Gene N5LDX
Sent from my iPhone
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