Dan Robinson
Wondered if anyone has done any experimenting with thunderstorm EF (electric fields).
Field mills are devices used to measure the electric field in the vicinity of thunderstorms, and as far as I know are not instruments that are yet within price range of a chaser's budget. They are used in places like triggered lightning research facilities to determine the optimal charge level for rocket launch. I got to thinking how a field mill might be a nice safety device for the chaser, given the rising number of strike incidents among chasers and spotters. What the device could do is detect rapidly rising EF and sound an alarm to the chaser that a strike could be imminent.
I got an email from someone several years ago that said they had some fluorescent light tubes outside, leaning against a tree in their backyard one night during a thunderstorm. He said during an intense part of the storm, the tubes would glow progressively brighter until a cloud-to-ground bolt discharged nearby, at which point they would darken. The process would repeat several times, the tubes visibly illuminating until a lightning discharge occured.
It is already well known that fluorescent tubes respond to electric fields and ESDs, as they are often used in Tesla coil and Van De Graaff demonstrations. But, I'm not aware of any documented tests using them in actual thunderstorm situations. I have been meaning to build some sort of test rig using fluorescent tubes to take out into the field to see if this could actually work.
At its simplest, a detector could be a small flourescent tube wrapped in opaque tape (black electrical tape), with a photosensor pressed up against the bulb. The light sensor circuit could be fine-tuned to sound an alarm if the bulb brightness reaches a set level. Then, you just pad the tube somehow to prevent shock damage, ground one end to your vehicle frame, and put a tall antenna on the other end.
I was curious if anyone had done any of their own research on storm EF with field mills or other devices.
Dan
Field mills are devices used to measure the electric field in the vicinity of thunderstorms, and as far as I know are not instruments that are yet within price range of a chaser's budget. They are used in places like triggered lightning research facilities to determine the optimal charge level for rocket launch. I got to thinking how a field mill might be a nice safety device for the chaser, given the rising number of strike incidents among chasers and spotters. What the device could do is detect rapidly rising EF and sound an alarm to the chaser that a strike could be imminent.
I got an email from someone several years ago that said they had some fluorescent light tubes outside, leaning against a tree in their backyard one night during a thunderstorm. He said during an intense part of the storm, the tubes would glow progressively brighter until a cloud-to-ground bolt discharged nearby, at which point they would darken. The process would repeat several times, the tubes visibly illuminating until a lightning discharge occured.
It is already well known that fluorescent tubes respond to electric fields and ESDs, as they are often used in Tesla coil and Van De Graaff demonstrations. But, I'm not aware of any documented tests using them in actual thunderstorm situations. I have been meaning to build some sort of test rig using fluorescent tubes to take out into the field to see if this could actually work.
At its simplest, a detector could be a small flourescent tube wrapped in opaque tape (black electrical tape), with a photosensor pressed up against the bulb. The light sensor circuit could be fine-tuned to sound an alarm if the bulb brightness reaches a set level. Then, you just pad the tube somehow to prevent shock damage, ground one end to your vehicle frame, and put a tall antenna on the other end.
I was curious if anyone had done any of their own research on storm EF with field mills or other devices.
Dan
