[time-nuts] Best location for a GPS antenna...?

[Randy D. Hunt]

On 4/12/2012 5:06 PM, Mark Spencer wrote:
> I was a guest in a home that lost power due to a lightning strike on the power pole across the street.   Once the power company replaced the transformer on the pole the power came back on and as far as I know there was no lasting damage to any of the electronics in the house.  I was sleeping in the bedroom that was closest to the pole that was hit and the flash woke me up.   None of my electronic gear (laptop, cell phone, black berry etc) that was plugged in seemed any worse for wear.  I was lucky.
> This was in a lightning prone area and and I believe the owners had surge suppressors on their electronics.
>
> I realize all lightning strikes will be different but my experience was similar to the ones outlined by Bob.
>
> ------------------------------
> On Thu, 12 Apr, 2012 7:54 PM EDT Bob Camp wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> In the same area of "what I have seen". I used to live in a neighborhood where strikes were quite common. It was a rare summer month that there was not one or more hits in the neighborhood. Nobody's house burned down. They (I) did not loose every electronic device within 100' or 1000' of the strike. The thing *least* likely to be bothered turned out to be stuff with receivers in them (radios and the like).
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> On Apr 12, 2012, at 6:58 PM, EB4APL wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have a personal reference:  In the Deep Space tracking facility where I used to work some 20 years ago it was very common to have minicomputers damaged by strikes in the antenna.  This antenna was located about 1000' from the control room and there were an elaborate grounding system both in the antenna (mainly intended to protect from lightning) and in the control room, but we got TTL chips damaged very often during thunderstorms.  The common believe was the high currents induced in the ground cabling caused  voltage spikes inside the computer cabinets enough to fry the chips.  I don't remember failures in the receivers, transmitters or other subsystems, but minicomputers were the usual targets, one or two chips each time.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ignacio, EB4APL
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/04/2012 23:21, Bob Camp wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Do you have a reference for 100' distant strikes routinely destroying
>>> receivers?
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
>>> Behalf Of Chris Albertson
>>> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 3:25 PM
>>> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Best location for a GPS antenna...?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Randy D. Hunt
>>> <randy_hunt960 at yahoo.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 4/12/2012 1:10 AM, Heinzmann, Stefan (ALC NetworX GmbH) wrote:
>>>>
>>>> What about mounting the antenna on the side of the metal pole, with the
>>>> top of the pole extending a foot or more above the antenna?
>>>>
>>> Typically when a receiver or other radio is destroyed it was NOT because of
>>> a direct strike.  A strike within maybe 100 feet is enough.  There is a
>>> _huge_ EMP field around the strike.  The field will induce large currents
>>> in any nearby conductors.   Even if the strike is to bare Earth many feet
>>> from the antenna the potential of the earth is raised by say 1,000 volts so
>>> now anything connected between ground the power has 1KV across it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Chris Albertson
>>> Redondo Beach, California
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
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>>
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I lived in a 2-story townhouse a lot of years ago and experienced a 
strike in an oak tree about 2 blocks away.  It was a spring storm that 
turned black.  When the lightning hit the tree, it made a flash that 
looked liked it hit the building where i lived. The boom shook 
everything.  The next day it was discovered that the strike blew off a 
limb that was about a foot and a half in diameter and scattered it for 
about a block and a half damaging cars and buildings.  anyway, I came to 
a new respect for lightning.

Randy