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From: Philip (no email)
Date: Sun May 13 2007 - 11:58:13 EDT
>What has your experience been with the "Lightning Master"? WM has it for
>about $90 which doesn't seem like a lot even if it keeps just a couple of
>circuit boards from getting fried. If you are saying that you have gone
>10 years without any lighting damage, I'm gonna pick one up.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Phil McGovern
>s/V "Sunshine" PDQ 36 LRC
Hi Phil,
In addition what I have said, I have seen similar equipment installed on
draw bridges and antenna towers. You might have a look around.
I bought one for Oryoki. Just bolt it to the top of the mast.
Here is the blurb from their add:
Lightning master static dissipaters lower the exposure to a direct
lightning strike by controlling the conditions which trigger direct strikes
(i.e. They reduce the buildup of static ground charge and retard the
formation of the ion streamers" which complete the path for a lightning
strike.
The dissipater employs the point-discharge principal to continually leak
off the lightning causing ground potential in low amperage dissipation over
a long period of time instead of the short duration, high amperage
discharge occurring with a lightning strike.
This is the same technology from the same manufacturer which is
successfully employed to protect commercial broadcast and television towers
from direct lightning strikes.
We do not claim that this product is 100% effective in preventing a
lightning strike. At the present collective level of understanding of the
lightning phenomenon, no one can make that claim. This product, however,
does control the causes of lightning strikes and thereby reduces the
incidence of direct strikes.
Defender
http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|328|303332&id=71254 sells it
for 84 bucks.
Over priced for what it is, cheap for what it does.
I had a aluminum lightening rod too. Its tip was above the height of the
VHF antenna, and I had to sharpen it every couple of years.The Lightening
Master likewise showed a bit of wear. Many of the strands of wire were
shortened and showed signs similar to having been burned off. (Ion
dissipation is hard on pointy things. )
Had a big cable lead from the bottom of the mast in a straight line to a
Dyna Plate. As I wrote earlier, there were many times preceding and during
a lightning storm that I could hear the popping and snapping sounds coming
from up top.
One moonless night when returning to Fort Myers from Honduras we sailed
through an electrical storm the likes of which I had never seen. Thick
vertical columns filled with electrical discharges came into existence,
flashed with rippling incandescent fire, then disappeared back into the
darkness. Jagged bolts of blue and white danced upon the sea around us.
Thunder rolled. The air so clean my lungs could not get their fill of it.
During the hours we sailed through this pin ball machine seascape I could
hear a constant crackle from the masthead. It was my opinion that something
was working.
You need not believe in this system for it to do its job; belief however
will provide peace of mind. I may have been that I was just lucky. It may
have been that our dog Cleo, who got her back up and barked at lightning,
kept it at bay. Who can tell what caused an event not to have happened?
Chaos reigns. YMMV.
Philip
>On 5/11/07, Philip <<mailto:> > wrote:
>I am a believer in the Lightening Master, an over priced SS brush.
>
>It dissipates the charge built up on the boat through hundreds of tiny SS
>wires there by making your boat blend in to the electrical background.
>
>In the silence before a storm I could hear the little zaps from up top the
>mast. After 10 years many of the fine wires were considerably worn down.
>Phil
>
>At 02:45 PM 5/11/2007, Norm of Bandersnatch wrote:
>>Lightning does NOT like to turn corners, it wants to get to ground as
>>easily as possible. Make your path to ground as much a straight line as
>>possible.
>>
>>I
>
>Philip & Marilyn Lange
> AE4OV & KD4JRC,
> ORYOKI
>Witness 35 Catamaran
>
>
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