Look out..... hams starting to use Broadcast techniques. This has been done in matching networks at the base of AM radio station towers for years. The static drain choke is made to look like an infinite inductance. With about 1.5 ohms on average at DC. This will get rid of static voltages much quicker than a 4meg ohm carbon resistor will. Dont be fooled this will not take a massive zap. Its usually the first to blow...if there has been a close by hit. This will make your vertical sound quieter. It shorts any static to ground much faster than the trickle of a bleed resistor. If we are talking lightning protection you still need spark gaps with super heavy strap directly to heavy earth spikes and several of them. What this will do is get rid of the static biuld up that ENCOURAGES or ATTACKS the attention of the big zap. Everyone forgets this.... get rid of the voltage that attracts the attention in the first place equalls less like hood of a hit. Cheers all
I like the idea of this much more than bleeder resistors. Appreciate you calling my attention to this alternative and it's advantages. Inductor makes perfect sense.
Static whilst operating in the Canadian Arctic was tremendous, especially in winter during a snow storm with high winds. Could have used that many moons ago!. Great vid.
This is good practice on any antenna that does not have DC ground. heavy rain and or snow can build up a static charge. this can give you noise in your receive and can damage connected radio gear. you can even get a shock off it. I am in NY/USA and with our heavy snow /rain this is a must with any antenna with out a DC ground. AM radio stations use this below tower to ground rod. the outher method is ground the tower direct at bottom and bring up feed line up from bottom a bit and capacitor connect . like a gamma match on some HF antenna's but on a larger scale . that coil you made will also help with some EMP like a near buy lightning strike that can induce a voltage on antenna. that coil takes it to ground. you could even wind with DX 10 wire to make the coil but will be longer. the last one I made for the DX commander I sprayed Flex Seal over the whole coil to weather proof it. went threw a NY winter just fine. now a coax surge protector before coax goes inside is a great idea as well. ground rod at that point as well. look at what DX commander did in that metal box out side before coax came in. send the surge to ground before it enters the home or ham shack. bond all ground rods together out side . 73's
I remember some 40 years ago I had a long wire and I was in bed and aware of a bluish flash of light. It was raining and I watched sparks jumping off the end of my long wire onto the wall. I forget what distance but I wasn't going to touch it. No thunder but statically charged rain. G4GHB.
An inexpensive 2-inch paintbrush with soft natural hair bristles will knock that dust off perfectly with just a few swipes. I keep one in my tool drawer.
Nice work. I made a couple of smaller ones wound on 31 ferrite beads to dc ground my 600 ohm ladder line fed loop antenna. There were literally arcs coming off of that antenna to my spark gap that I had rigged up on it before! I didn't have a meter like that but I used my Rig Expert AA55 to make sure that the impedance was way higher than any frequency that I would have tuned between 160-10 meters. It was somewhere around 2k ohms at 1.8 MHz and 550 ohms up around 28 MHz Seems to work fine. If any RF is going to ground it sure isn't noticeable. On 160 my previously wound coils got warmed up. These seem to be doing fine. 73, KF0BBU
Nice one Mike.. I am about to do the same (as we discussed) but I am fascinated to know how much current might go up the spout depending on weather.. Part 2..!?? LOL
Interesting. I was looking at kite antennas a few weeks ago, and it was recommended to use a 750k to 1M bleed resistor to ground. Using an inductor to filter the wigglies seems like a more RF appropriate solution. Also, it's handle a lot more current than a 2watt resistor if the unmentionable bad thing did ever happen... not that I'd give 1mm copper long to live in that situation either I suppose.
Great video Mike, thanks for sharing your knowledge. Would a high value resistor to ground do similarly, bleeding off any static charge? During a lightning strike I'd imagine that the insulation disappear in an instant, fusing the coils together for another instant or two and perhaps, as a worst case the copper gets blasted all over the garden / backyard.
Great video I’m going to add one to my 12.4 before contest season Would the same size work on the dx commander signature 12.4 or does the coil need to be bigger ?
Great video, Mike! Wondering what the inductance would be of the wire while still on the spool it came on? Would it work for a static discharge coil, right out of the box?
But surely grounding the screen isn’t going to remove static picked up on the wire antenna, just like the ground doesn’t remove the wanted part of the signal. Where as adding the inductor across will encourage lower unwanted content to ground ?
@@justmejonboy hi, inside the 49:1 transformer the coil around the toroid is a DC short, this means both the centre core and the screen of the coax are connected together via 2 or 3 turns of the coil that is wrapped around the toroid so by grounding the counterpose/screen will also DC ground the driven element
Nice video Mike - nice to see, always look forward to them, but I guess as lockdown is far behind us and normality returns, there is less time to make videos? Question - I note this is for Anti-static, not improving the SWR. So were the tests at the end of the video just to show that SWR had not changed. Your 20m band from one end to the other has excellent SWR - is that raw, or through a tuner? My DX Commander is excellent but I have never managed a new flat SWR from 14.000 to 14300 ! Mark.
Hi Mark, yep just for the static and that’s as it comes direct from the DXCommander, the 20M band is flat for me, I do have the DXC fully populated 80 to 10 ??
Hi..I love onl swl..I have radios for listening shortwave ..but my longwire antenna is dangerous for me..One of my radios was damaged because of static..I read a lot things for discharge but I cant decide..what sholud I do? A resistor? A coil? A ne2 bulb? Maybe all of them? Please help me..thanks
Nice video, wonder if you noticed any difference in the noise level. I tried one a while ago, but couldn't really find any difference to anything, but I did find putting lots of ferrite clamps on the coax at ant and shack end helped reduce the noise. But I do use a separate rx ant when txing on the verts. 73 brian.
@@mike-M0MSN hi, I very sorry if my question offended you mike, it was a genuine question, as i think you mentioned the coil could reduce noise. and therefore I am not sure why you had to offend me, by calling me crazy. I do try to be the best person I can on the radio, maybe because of my age and illness that I get things wrong sometimes. Again I apologise if I have offended you, it was not my intention, and I will not make comments on your page again. best wishes brian zl3xdj.
@@brianfields4479 hi Brian I am so sorry, I believe you may have misunderstood my comment, I was point you towards a post or comment left by a subscriber called Crazy Ham. I was NOT calling you a crazy ham. 😂😂👍
Static could mess up your fancy ATU too. You'd be better doing it at the base of the antenna like Mike does here before it gets to anything valuable. I have a small 3MOhm resistor between my antenna and ground terminals on the ATU.
Thanks for sharing Mike. What are your thoughts on using an inductor, rather than a bleed resistor? Towards the end of this splendid film th-cam.com/video/2sSqzLPMb4s/w-d-xo.html they demonstrate that you may actually be frightening the lightning away with your recent enhancement.
Tesla proposed that, as the setup deionises the air around the antenna making lightning strikes less likely, the same principle use on church spires. The resistor has a higher resistance and therefore a higher build up of static is required to overcome this resistance.
Look out..... hams starting to use Broadcast techniques. This has been done in matching networks at the base of AM radio station towers for years. The static drain choke is made to look like an infinite inductance. With about 1.5 ohms on average at DC.
This will get rid of static voltages much quicker than a 4meg ohm carbon resistor will. Dont be fooled this will not take a massive zap. Its usually the first to blow...if there has been a close by hit. This will make your vertical sound quieter. It shorts any static to ground much faster than the trickle of a bleed resistor.
If we are talking lightning protection you still need spark gaps with super heavy strap directly to heavy earth spikes and several of them. What this will do is get rid of the static biuld up that ENCOURAGES or ATTACKS the attention of the big zap. Everyone forgets this.... get rid of the voltage that attracts the attention in the first place equalls less like hood of a hit.
Cheers all
Nice one Peter
I like the idea of this much more than bleeder resistors. Appreciate you calling my attention to this alternative and it's advantages. Inductor makes perfect sense.
Static whilst operating in the Canadian Arctic was tremendous, especially in winter during a snow storm with high winds. Could have used that many moons ago!. Great vid.
This is good practice on any antenna that does not have DC ground. heavy rain and or snow can build up a static charge. this can give you noise in your receive and can damage connected radio gear. you can even get a shock off it. I am in NY/USA and with our heavy snow /rain this is a must with any antenna with out a DC ground. AM radio stations use this below tower to ground rod. the outher method is ground the tower direct at bottom and bring up feed line up from bottom a bit and capacitor connect . like a gamma match on some HF antenna's but on a larger scale . that coil you made will also help with some EMP like a near buy lightning strike that can induce a voltage on antenna. that coil takes it to ground. you could even wind with DX 10 wire to make the coil but will be longer. the last one I made for the DX commander I sprayed Flex Seal over the whole coil to weather proof it. went threw a NY winter just fine. now a coax surge protector before coax goes inside is a great idea as well. ground rod at that point as well. look at what DX commander did in that metal box out side before coax came in. send the surge to ground before it enters the home or ham shack. bond all ground rods together out side . 73's
"How much dust?" -- a lot...looks like my rigs! 😀 Thanks for posting this...73! de WX0V
I remember some 40 years ago I had a long wire and I was in bed and aware of a bluish flash of light. It was raining and I watched sparks jumping off the end of my long wire onto the wall. I forget what distance but I wasn't going to touch it. No thunder but statically charged rain.
G4GHB.
An inexpensive 2-inch paintbrush with soft natural hair bristles will knock that dust off perfectly with just a few swipes. I keep one in my tool drawer.
Yes just after I made the video, the cleaning brush came out lol
Hi Mike, great work, I have a Hustler 6BTV, shall have to give this a go. Cheers
Nice work. I made a couple of smaller ones wound on 31 ferrite beads to dc ground my 600 ohm ladder line fed loop antenna. There were literally arcs coming off of that antenna to my spark gap that I had rigged up on it before! I didn't have a meter like that but I used my Rig Expert AA55 to make sure that the impedance was way higher than any frequency that I would have tuned between 160-10 meters. It was somewhere around 2k ohms at 1.8 MHz and 550 ohms up around 28 MHz Seems to work fine. If any RF is going to ground it sure isn't noticeable. On 160 my previously wound coils got warmed up. These seem to be doing fine. 73, KF0BBU
Great to hear and see your channel is still active. Looking forward to a winter/stuck in the house projects.
Work has kept me away from the hobby a lot more than I wanted, but every now and then I get the opportunity to make something 🙂🍌🍌
Nice one Mike.. I am about to do the same (as we discussed) but I am fascinated to know how much current might go up the spout depending on weather.. Part 2..!?? LOL
Well you have peaked my interest I will have measure it now!
Very nice. This is used by other vertical antenna manufacturers. I believe will be useful for dipoles and yagis also
Interesting. I was looking at kite antennas a few weeks ago, and it was recommended to use a 750k to 1M bleed resistor to ground. Using an inductor to filter the wigglies seems like a more RF appropriate solution. Also, it's handle a lot more current than a 2watt resistor if the unmentionable bad thing did ever happen... not that I'd give 1mm copper long to live in that situation either I suppose.
😱🥓💥
Arts & Craft beautifully done by MØMSN 💯👍🙋♂
Thank you.
An RFC to bleed the noise off the antenna. Bleedin' good idea.
😂🤣
I just bridged the two plates with a 10 MegOhm - 1/4w resistor
Yep that also works
Thank you for sharing 👍
Great video Mike, thanks for sharing your knowledge. Would a high value resistor to ground do similarly, bleeding off any static charge?
During a lightning strike I'd imagine that the insulation disappear in an instant, fusing the coils together for another instant or two and perhaps, as a worst case the copper gets blasted all over the garden / backyard.
Let’s hope we will never find out😱
What AWG wire did you use? I presume that's just normal enamel coated magnet wire? Never heard it called shellac coating before is why I ask.
not sure of AWG it is 1.2mm
Great video I’m going to add one to my 12.4 before contest season Would the same size work on the dx commander signature 12.4 or does the coil need to be bigger ?
Great video, Mike! Wondering what the inductance would be of the wire while still on the spool it came on? Would it work for a static discharge coil, right out of the box?
too late now.. :(
Hi Mike think this could also be used on the HWEF antenna!
Thank for the great video
Yep, but there is no need you simply ground the EFHW on the screen side of the coax, job done.
But surely grounding the screen isn’t going to remove static picked up on the wire antenna, just like the ground doesn’t remove the wanted part of the signal. Where as adding the inductor across will encourage lower unwanted content to ground ?
@@justmejonboy hi, inside the 49:1 transformer the coil around the toroid is a DC short, this means both the centre core and the screen of the coax are connected together via 2 or 3 turns of the coil that is wrapped around the toroid so by grounding the counterpose/screen will also DC ground the driven element
Nice video Mike - nice to see, always look forward to them, but I guess as lockdown is far behind us and normality returns, there is less time to make videos? Question - I note this is for Anti-static, not improving the SWR. So were the tests at the end of the video just to show that SWR had not changed. Your 20m band from one end to the other has excellent SWR - is that raw, or through a tuner? My DX Commander is excellent but I have never managed a new flat SWR from 14.000 to 14300 ! Mark.
Hi Mark, yep just for the static and that’s as it comes direct from the DXCommander, the 20M band is flat for me, I do have the DXC fully populated 80 to 10 ??
@@mike-M0MSN ah thx. I have 40 to 10m . I think it's time to review my swr, mission for weekend!
Hi..I love onl swl..I have radios for listening shortwave ..but my longwire antenna is dangerous for me..One of my radios was damaged because of static..I read a lot things for discharge but I cant decide..what sholud I do? A resistor? A coil? A ne2 bulb? Maybe all of them? Please help me..thanks
Nice video, wonder if you noticed any difference in the noise level.
I tried one a while ago, but couldn't really find any difference to anything, but I did find putting lots of ferrite clamps on the coax at ant and shack end helped reduce the noise. But I do use a separate rx ant when txing on the verts.
73 brian.
See comment by Crazy Ham. 👍👍
@@mike-M0MSN hi, I very sorry if my question offended you mike, it was a genuine question, as i think you mentioned the coil could reduce noise. and therefore I am not sure why you had to offend me, by calling me crazy. I do try to be the best person I can on the radio, maybe because of my age and illness that I get things wrong sometimes. Again I apologise if I have offended you, it was not my intention, and I will not make comments on your page again. best wishes brian zl3xdj.
Mike’s referring to the comment higher up the comment list up made by Crazy Ham. This answers your question 👍🏻
@@brianfields4479 hi Brian I am so sorry, I believe you may have misunderstood my comment, I was point you towards a post or comment left by a subscriber called Crazy Ham. I was NOT calling you a crazy ham. 😂😂👍
Very impressed Mike, this is something i want to build for my Dxc, did you leave it lying on the ground as in the video permanently or move it.
At the moment it is lying but I intend to put it on a little stand. Maybe 3d printed just to keep it off the wet grass.
I'm only a m7 but can I ask ,I have my radio ,atu earthed to a 8ft copper rod,wouldn't that earth the static charge to ground?
Yep, but only because it passes via an ATU, unless it has a [ var capacitor - inductor - var capacitor ] configuration,
Static could mess up your fancy ATU too. You'd be better doing it at the base of the antenna like Mike does here before it gets to anything valuable.
I have a small 3MOhm resistor between my antenna and ground terminals on the ATU.
Hi Mike would this work on my inverted L for 80m and 40m? Mark 2w0jmk
Yep.🙂
@@mike-M0MSN Thanks. Great videos by the way. Keep up the good work
Just wondering how this would work on an end fed antenna, I might give it a try.
There is no need to use a coil with a EFHW, just ground the counterpose fixing or the coax shield/screen
How many micro-henrys were you hoping for? What’s the goal value?
300-400uH
Nice video. Did you have any success in reduction of external noise once fitted.
No, see comment by CrazyHam.
Hi Mike, sorry if I missed it but did you really ground it? Are your Counterpoises grounded? 73 de LZ5RG
Yes, the radials are in the ground so I guess they’re grounded, but hey, knocking in an earth stake is quick and makes sure the job is a good.
Will it work for 27 MHz?
Yep
hi Mike, wouldn't high value resistor allow you to achieve the same result (100k, maybe 1M Ohm)?
Yes, but depending on the resistance, the static charge would take longer to dissipate
Thanks for sharing Mike.
What are your thoughts on using an inductor, rather than a bleed resistor?
Towards the end of this splendid film th-cam.com/video/2sSqzLPMb4s/w-d-xo.html they demonstrate that you may actually be frightening the lightning away with your recent enhancement.
Tesla proposed that, as the setup deionises the air around the antenna making lightning strikes less likely, the same principle use on church spires. The resistor has a higher resistance and therefore a higher build up of static is required to overcome this resistance.
Your wife must love you very much for the free use of the kitchen... Erm... Is it free? :)