Arnold Harding - KQ6 2025/07/14 11:35
Seeing all of these reminds me of a video I once saw of a large/tall crane with the boom up at maybe 30° from vertical with the cable dangling about 4' above the ground, and a fairly large arc going from the end of the cable to ground. The tractor part was on the ground, so...
There was an AM radio station less than 1/4 mile away, and the boom/cable/ground made a big loop antenna.
So don't forget about other sources of RF getting picked up by your antenna before connecting that cable to the VNA.
Arnold, KQ6DI
> On 07/14/2025 7:56 AM PDT Don Latham AJ7LL <djl@montana.com> wrote:
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> It can be measured but the source impedance is about 10^14 ohms. Usually measured with an instrument called a field mill. Antennas are usually charged due to this field by a process called triboelectric charging.
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> From: "Chuck Kelsey via groups.io" <wb2edv=gmail.com@groups.io>
> To: "NanoVNAV2" <NanoVNAV2@groups.io>
> Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2025 12:06:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [nanovnav2] Static Protection
>
> OK, I recently read something about this. The potential at about 6' above ground is around 250 volts. How can one actually measure this? Or can't you?
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> Yes, I've seen a spark generated across an antenna connector where the antenna isn't DC grounded. It seemed to only happen on dry, windy days however.
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> Chuck
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> On 7/12/2025 3:39 PM, W4JDY1953_G via groups.io wrote:
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> > This is called sferics as we studied it in 1960-1972.
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> > 200 V/m as one goes up into the atmosphere; but of little concern to amateur radio operators with proper grounding scheme.
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> > Precaution we to use a 2.2M resist in parallel with aNE-2 neon bulb connected to the antenna lead and to ground. A cheap but effective sferics bleeder.
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> > Joseph D. Yuna (LCDR USN/ret.)
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> > W4JDY / EM79XR
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> --
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> Don Latham
> PO Box 404,
> Frenchtown, MT, 59846
> 406-626-4304
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>