"Jan Panteltje" wrote in message
news:1127995252.258b64b688137be451b5886a887f3197@t eranews...
On a sunny day (Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:47:27 GMT) it happened james
wrote in
:

+Hi Frank.
+
+Begs the question what the hell are you saving that toasted plastic
for,
+you pack-rat?
****

It would probably make a nice conversation piece.

You ougt to see what lightning does to a commercial FM antenna. One of
the elements was just a nub of molten copper.
That reminds me... of a fireball!
I had just placed a FM antenna (simple dipole, year was 1961 or 1962 or
there
about) on our common roof (flat roof) for a neighbor.
I went to my place at the other side of the building, and it started
thundering and raining.
Went back and told him to disconnect that antenna.
When to my room, and had the window open, trees in front of the house,
first
floor, fascinating that lightning...
A flash, bang.. nothing. Then a moment later this big round ball, dimly
lighting up, maybe 30 cm (12 inches) in diameter slowly lowered itself in
front of my window.
No heat radiated from it... It then hung perfectly still for a moment.
For a moment I had this fear that it would enter the room.... then it
slowly
sank out of view and I heard a loud bang.
Next morning me and the downstairs neighbor went to look at the remains of
his radio antenna he had tied between 2 trees.
Only the ends of the copper wire were still around the trees.
Good thing he had disconnected too.
Now do we deduce from this that erecting an antenna draws lighting
effects?
The FM antenna was still OK, how a ball lightning is created nobody seems
to
know for sure.
But I have seen one! Beautiful!
Mysterious too...

Almost like there was awareness in it....

It is VERY cool I have seen it too and thinking about it makes my hair
prickly!

Chad