Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!news.larc.nasa.gov!grissom.larc.nasa.gov!kludge
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: New Year's Eve idiocy: Plus Hawaiian Hurricanes!
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.140555.12371@news.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 12 Feb 91 14:05:55 GMT
References: <4655@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> <2525.2796c1e3@verifone.com>
Sender: news@news.larc.nasa.gov (USENET Network News)
Reply-To: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey)
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center
Lines: 27

In article <2525.2796c1e3@verifone.com> ed_l1@verifone.com writes:
>In Hawaii, during hurricane Iwa in ('82?), we had high winds, lightning, 
>rain, and every once in a while a huge, no _*HUGE*_ green flash that lit
>up the entire island (I live on the windward side, they were coming over
>the mountains!)!  Later, the media informed us that they were, "transformer
>explosions," whatever THAT is....  And yes, we lost our electricity, for
>about a week. :-(
>
>I think, also, that I heard somewhere that there is a lot of ionization 
>in the air during intense storms... could relate to your situation.

  I was working for a commercial radio station in Waipahu at the time.  The
power went off early in the evening and from all indication it wasn't going
to come back on.  I tried to start the Studebaker Cyclone generator that
we had as a backup, which began squirting oil when it was turned over.  (By
this time KGU was the only station on the air.  K-59 did manage to get on
the air the next morning as I recall.)  So, since the power showed no signs
of coming back on in my lifetime, I decided to disonnect our (AM) antenna.
I unbolted the line from the transmitter and was preparing to ground it.
I left the cable in the air, and went searching for the grounding straps,
when a white spark a good foot long jumped from the end of the cable to the
side of the transmitter, melting the cable connector.  There was no bolt
sighted hitting the antenna, so I assume this discharge was entirely caused
by ionization, or by inductive pickup.  (Stations in Hawaii don't use 
lightning arrestors because there is never any lightning there.... at least
they didn't at the time, but I know of at least one that does now).
--scott