Re: Natural streamer :)

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Justin Hays by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pyrotrons2000-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Hi Scot,

> I looked over to my left and saw a streamer growing off the top of 
> a metal lamp post frame. It started about 1' in length and 
> increased to about 9' in about 2 seconds. and you guessed it .... 
> lightning struck ...   blew the cap off of the pole and all the 
> lights down the street went out. Darn near hurt myself trying to 
> jump away from the window while in the car...   ( kinda funny now 
> that you think of it )

That is the #1 coolest thing that I have ever heard of. I sometimes
come into contact with people that climb towers for a living, and
every time I ask them what happens up there during a storm?

Streamers. Lots of streamers, always. Snapping, crackling, discharges
all over the place, with a continous hiss of ion wind. I'm going to
climb a tower someday to witness this, strapped in or not!

> kinda makes me wonder if mini streamers form on the grounded object

> our coils go for....

They do, although the discharge from a Tesla Coil is entirely
different than that of a pre-lightning discharge. TC output is a
damped ringdown at 50kHz (big) to 1.5Mhz (tiny) AC. Pre-lighting
"streamer" discharges are pure, genuine DC from a massive capacitor.

> Scot D

Take care, thanks for sharing Scot.

Justin Hays
KC5PNP
Email: justin-at-hvguy-dot-com
Website: www.hvguy-dot-com

__