Who asked about lightening and disconnecting TV aerials?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

charles formulated on Wednesday :

Just enough for the slightest of tickles..

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Martin Brown has brought this to us :

Lots of volts, but very little actual current. One of my party tricks was to stick a finger close to the EHT and draw out a long arc.

[tony sayer]

In article <sk6l5t$vge$ [e-mail], Harry Bloomfield <?.?@harrym1byt.plus.com> scribeth thus

With your finger or holding an insulated screwdriver?....

[tony sayer]

In article [e-mail]>, charles [e-mail]> scribeth thus

Can't see for the life of me how that would "attract" a lightning discharge more than any other aerial unless there were just a lot of those fitted in the area?...

[tony sayer]

Years ago we had some supposed TV repairers AKA as Cowboys do away with the aerial isolator panel and by pass it so that if the TV twin flex was arse about tit connected than the aerial was at 240 volts full mains!..

Great fun if you were a rigger! imagine grabbing hold of the aerial and your earthed roof ladder tied to the two or three section ladder on a damp lawn..

Always told the riggers to brush the back of their hand on the mast to see if there was that sort of mains "Fuzz" before putting your hand round to grip it. Any fuzz then stop work, unplug the TV and call one the engineers out right away, no messing!...

[tony sayer]

In article <sk6brh$81u$ [e-mail], Harry Bloomfield <?.?@harrym1byt.plus.com> scribeth thus

Church conductor can't have been much cop!, sure it had one and Mr Pikey hadn't nicked it as it does happen!...

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

tony sayer explained :

Finger!

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

tony sayer has brought this to us :

I went down to take a look, it had completely blasted away. It was a 'elluva thump at 2am, I was fast asleep and shot in the air - left the bed.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

tony sayer has brought this to us :

They didn't atract the lightening, rather it was simply the electrical field around it which caused the damage, the static charge.

The conventional TV antenna forms a folded dipole - so the screen and the inner are connected together, so not much voltage can develope between them.

This type of antenna is not folded, so no actual connection between the screen and the inner, so any voltage which appears across it, will also be across the TV's tuner.

[Martin Brown]

Plaster was likely damp enough to generate steam then. You should see what a direct hit that goes inside a tree does to it.

Had one close enough ~100m to me during the summer that there was a sharp spark from my modem line before the power went out and big bang arrived. Amazingly nothing was fried here. Neighbours lost mains alarm clocks, the odd computer and modems though. I was lucky that time.

I was sure mine would be dead since I saw a fat calorific spark jump from it to ground. So much for line protection OTOH maybe it worked!

[Peter Able]

Oh no they didn't. At that time there were plenty of universal TVs with the Belling-Lee bolted directly to the chassis. Likewise your second sentence.

PA

[tony sayer]

In article <sk6qpq$e09$ [e-mail], Harry Bloomfield <?.?@harrym1byt.plus.com> scribeth thus

Now lets see a demo off say a 25 kV rail line system;)....

[tony sayer]

Can you name any sets that did that, and what years were they in service?...

[Peter Able]

No, I just got given TVs - just about all of them universal - in the 50s and 60s I could strip for components. The Belling-Lee sockets were bolted using PK screws - to the chassis.

PA

[williamwright]

A tenant with mental health problems connected mains to the TV socket. His wallplate wasn't an isolated one thanks to the landlord sending an electrician to replace it after the tenant had smashed it. It all came to my attention when the system stopped working. The head end was in another tenant's loft (WRONG WRONG WRONG) and was powered via a thin flex to a 13A outlet in the heating duct. No earth bonding. The earth conductor in the flex had got very hot and had melted the whole length of the flex. Eventually this had shorted the cable out so the fuse in the plug top had blown. It was alarming because the joists were scorched and a bag of Christmas decorations had been on fire. Luckily the fire had burnt out. The house had a young family in it.

Bill

[williamwright]

I don't remember any tellys that didn't have isolating caps in the aerial socket.

Bill

[williamwright]

The only use I found for them came from the fact that for V Pol use they could help with ghosting. H Pol; no.

Bill

[tony sayer]

In article <sk6ria$tqd$ [e-mail], Harry Bloomfield <?.?@harrym1byt.plus.com> scribeth thus

Don't think I've ever see a static discharge cause a problem nearby lightning strikes yes, but not otherwise...

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

tony sayer explained :

You have never felt the build up of static energy, during a thunderstorm?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

tony sayer used his keyboard to write :

The essential difference, is the amount of current behind it.