Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit. About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a hit on a tree next to the wire. Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire. Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
On 2012-07-08, at 9:34 AM, Tom W8JI wrote: Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) Hi Tom, Are you sure you weren't the victim of ...copper nappers, possibly...?! There was a report in a Toronto paper the other day where some cell tower used by emergency forces of some kind in that city was knocked off the air for several hours---thieves had snipped as much copper wiring that they could see, for re-sale to the scrap metal market... That answers your last question, i.e. wire is NOT getting any cheaper---not by that stretch of the imagination! Hi Hi ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
Hi All, I forgot to mention: Toronto metal-nappers have also taken to brazenly stealing park statues markers that are made of bronze, too... About a month, or two, ago, one such thief was found dead---electrocuted---at a power sub-station site: he was in the process of attempting to hijack copper buss bars, or ground wire, when he accidentally met his maker in that great big scrap metal collection place up in the sky... ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
In 1972 I was living in a basement apartment in Dearborn, Michigan.The landlady was very kind, and allowed a 67 foot dipole, fed with ladder line to be run between 2 trees over the house. One day there were thunderstorms predicted, and I disconnected the ladder line from my Johnson Matchbox, and went to work. When I got home, a friend who lived in an upstairs apartment next door, met me in the driveway.She told me that there had been a FLASH over my house in the afternoon.I looked for my antenna, and it was GONE, totally! The support ropes and end insulators were hanging in the trees, and the ladder line was on the ground in another neighbor's driveway. The antenna?Never found a trace of it, and I looked for a long time! OH, the neighbor who saw the flash, said that her stereo system stopped working at the same time! Don K8MFO In a message dated 7/8/2012 9:34:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, w...@w8ji.com writes: I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit. About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a hit on a tree next to the wire. Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire. Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
The feed point of my inverted L was blown apart and the copper inside the insulation (both the L and horizontal elevated radial) was reduced to a black, brittle mess from a lightning strike and an adjacent neighbor's TV was reduced to a melted pile of plastic. My antenna is suspended between a couple of 80' pine trees on my small lot. There were (still visible) also char marks on a tree that was used as a support for the elevated radial. The radial was about 6 from the tree. Mike WA5POK -Original Message- From: Eddy Swynar Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 8:47 AM To: Tom W8JI Cc: Topband@contesting.com Subject: Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish On 2012-07-08, at 9:34 AM, Tom W8JI wrote: Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) Hi Tom, Are you sure you weren't the victim of ...copper nappers, possibly...?! There was a report in a Toronto paper the other day where some cell tower used by emergency forces of some kind in that city was knocked off the air for several hours---thieves had snipped as much copper wiring that they could see, for re-sale to the scrap metal market... That answers your last question, i.e. wire is NOT getting any cheaper---not by that stretch of the imagination! Hi Hi ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
I had an 80 half wave inverted L, up 67 out 70 feet, made of #12, strung with great difficulty between two tall trees, that really worked well. The vertical came down to my tractor shed from the western tree and went through the wall with insulation to an tank circuit tuner on the inside wall. In a lightning storm all the #12 from the outside of the tractor shed to 3/4 of the way to the eastern tree just simply evaporated. There were no obvious char marks anywhere, and the tuning network was unharmed. If it could to that to #12, doing it to #17 would be easy. Not that I have any technical explanation for what happened, just that it happened. 73, Guy. On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 10:11 AM, mikefur...@att.net wrote: The feed point of my inverted L was blown apart and the copper inside the insulation (both the L and horizontal elevated radial) was reduced to a black, brittle mess from a lightning strike and an adjacent neighbor's TV was reduced to a melted pile of plastic. My antenna is suspended between a couple of 80' pine trees on my small lot. There were (still visible) also char marks on a tree that was used as a support for the elevated radial. The radial was about 6 from the tree. Mike WA5POK -Original Message- From: Eddy Swynar Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 8:47 AM To: Tom W8JI Cc: Topband@contesting.com Subject: Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish On 2012-07-08, at 9:34 AM, Tom W8JI wrote: Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) Hi Tom, Are you sure you weren't the victim of ...copper nappers, possibly...?! There was a report in a Toronto paper the other day where some cell tower used by emergency forces of some kind in that city was knocked off the air for several hours---thieves had snipped as much copper wiring that they could see, for re-sale to the scrap metal market... That answers your last question, i.e. wire is NOT getting any cheaper---not by that stretch of the imagination! Hi Hi ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
Are you sure you weren't the victim of ...copper nappers, possibly...?! No, it was lightning. Here are pictures from an earlier event: http://www.w8ji.com/lightning_strikes.htm Now the problem is making wires vanish for long lengths, hundreds of feet!!! This problem seems to be getting worse. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
Only once in a beverage, but have seen it many times on telephone drop wires from the pole to a home, the two copper clad steel wires would be evaporated and just the rubber insulation left hanging in the air._ _Merv K9FD/KH6 I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit. About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a hit on a tree next to the wire. Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire. Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK . ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
A few years back in Houston, lightening hit the 90' pine tree my full size Carolina windom was attached to. The tree died and all the 14 gauge copperweld vanished back to the balun and line isolators which exploded and the RG8 which looped down to the roof was welded to the aluminum roof! The third of the windom beyond the balun I still have, though here in west Texas the trees are too short to use that antenna any more! In high school in 1968 my 80 mtr dipole disappeared under similar circumstances in Ohio. That's when I learned to always disconnect! Buzz N5UR On Jul 8, 2012, at 1:59 PM, Eddy Swynar wrote: Hi All, I forgot to mention: Toronto metal-nappers have also taken to brazenly stealing park statues markers that are made of bronze, too... About a month, or two, ago, one such thief was found dead---electrocuted---at a power sub-station site: he was in the process of attempting to hijack copper buss bars, or ground wire, when he accidentally met his maker in that great big scrap metal collection place up in the sky... ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
A few years back in Houston, lightening hit the 90' pine tree my full size Carolina windom was attached to. The tree died and all the 14 gauge copperweld vanished back to the balun and line isolators which exploded and the RG8 which looped down to the roof was welded to the aluminum roof! The third of the windom beyond the balun I still have, though here in west Texas the trees are too short to use that antenna any more! In high school in 1968 my 80 mtr dipole disappeared under similar circumstances in Ohio. That's when I learned to always disconnect! Buzz N5UR On Jul 8, 2012, at 1:59 PM, Eddy Swynar wrote: Hi All, I forgot to mention: Toronto metal-nappers have also taken to brazenly stealing park statues markers that are made of bronze, too... About a month, or two, ago, one such thief was found dead---electrocuted---at a power sub-station site: he was in the process of attempting to hijack copper buss bars, or ground wire, when he accidentally met his maker in that great big scrap metal collection place up in the sky... ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
Tom, When I was a young-un (in 1966) I had an old school beverage antenna suspended between a 40 ft pole and an 80 ft tree some 150 ft away, as with many antennas in those days it was made of whatever wire I could find and in this case it was ground wire used by the telephone company ... #6 I believe and it was a real task keeping this thing up due to its weight alone. In those days I just disconnected the antenna from the radios and grounded it, also tied to the ground was a brute force AC line filter that helped clean up and regulate my ostensibly 120 v mains. One day we had a bag storm.. you know one of the real gut busters with lottsa lightening sideways rain and the whole deal. Needless to say it hit my antenna somewhere in the middle and I found it laying in the yard after the storm. A friend (wa3kgc) and I went out and grabbed the melted ends and attempted to pull it together and low and behold whouldnt you know it it was short about 40 ft. Now this damn wire was as big as my finger.. how could this be. Well we took the antenna down and measured it ... added enough wire to bring it back to the correct length and put it back up in the air. WHen I went into the basement I found the brute force filter had also exploded and since it was in a metal case there were chards of metal that had gone through the rafters in my basement and the filter had totally gone. Luckily I had the forsight to disconnect the radios and they were safe. I have seen antennas destroyed several times since that time (not mine however) and have observed one interesting fact, antennas with a higher impedance seem to be hit more than lower inpedance ones.. better than a 2 to one margin I would say. Jim WA3MEJ Message: 5 Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 09:34:27 -0400 From: Tom W8JI w...@w8ji.com Subject: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish To: Topband@contesting.com Message-ID: C03E04344D964684815C90E9E0D1B22C@tom0c1d32a93f0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit. About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a hit on a tree next to the wire. Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire. Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
On 2012-07-08, at 11:01 AM, Tom W8JI wrote: Here are pictures from an earlier event: http://www.w8ji.com/lightning_strikes.htm Wow...!!! ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
Re: Topband: Lightning makes antennas vanish
Hi Tom, I have (unfortunately!) had this happen twice here where the Beverage wire literally melted in two from a nearby tree hit. I've never had the wire vaporize but definitely surprised by the melted burned ends where it came apart. Needless to say, the Beverage and the feed end and terminating resistor at the other did vaporize ! 73 Joel W5ZN On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Tom W8JI w...@w8ji.com wrote: I've never experienced this before a year or so ago, when I had a Beverage antenna melt in two from a nearby tree getting hit. About a month ago I had about 300 feet of a Beverage just vanish from a hit on a tree next to the wire. Now it happened again this week, and long stretches of two Beverages just vanished. This is cad plated #17 electric fence wire. Anyone else have this happen? My copperweld #14, that clearly has arc pitting where it passed over other wires, shows no damage other than the arc pits. The cad-steel fence wire must get so hot it just vaporizes. I can't even find any pieces of it. Since the 1960's or 70's, this is the very first time I've seen this happen. Are thunderstorms more violent now, or is wire cheaper? :-) I'm not fixing my antennas until October or November. 73 Tom ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK -- 73 Joel W5ZN www.w5zn.org ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
