Handlebar Entertainment

Ron Hardin said:

More entertainment for the handlebars, a lightning detector

One rainy ride many years ago, I passed a power transformer mere seconds
before it got hit by lightning. Scary as [censored]! Almost fell over, it was
so loud. I didn't need a detector to detect it, that's for sure!

I'll stick to the old-fashioned method for detecting lightning--looking
at the sky and watching for bright flashes of light.

My eyes detect lightning.

Ron Hardin said:

More entertainment for the handlebars, a lightning detector
http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/products/5530.html
for $59. I don't know if it detects lightning (I imagine it does)
but it alerts you to odd things like electric fences, pickup trucks
with unsuppressed ignition and faulty power insulators, categorizing
each by signal strength (0-6 miles, 6-12 miles, 12-24 miles, or
24-48 miles).

If your in the USA or Canada, a far better investment, is a Weather
Radio, this monitors a special set of frequencies used by NOAA (USA) and
Environment Canada that will alert you to potential severe weather.
Most radios now use a system called SAME (implemented in the USA, coming
real soon now in Canada - hopefully before next thunderstorm season ),
where you can have the radio alert you in specific areas, smaller then
the broadcast area. An older alerting system used a 1050Hz tone to
alert of a potential warning, but that would alert you to anything in
the transmitters area, and some of those areas are quite large.

W

Ron Hardin said:

More entertainment for the handlebars, a lightning detector
http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/products/5530.html
for $59. I don't know if it detects lightning (I imagine it does)
but it alerts you to odd things like electric fences, pickup trucks
with unsuppressed ignition and faulty power insulators, categorizing
each by signal strength (0-6 miles, 6-12 miles, 12-24 miles, or
24-48 miles).

Clip it on a brake cable.

You get an LED and an audible alarm (4 to 1 beeps) for each.

I imagine it works at UHF and bases it all on signal strength of
the vertical electric field, using an internal dipole, but that's
just a guess. (It wouldn't work day/night at low frequencies,
so it must be high.) Anyway you can, in addition to listening
and watching as the miles go by, speculate how it's designed by
how it detects a thousand other things that are not lightning.

There's supposed to be a chance of thunderstorms tomorrow in Ohio
so maybe I can check that it detects what it's in fact supposed to
detect.

Oh it also detects a strobe taillight if I walk around back of the
bicycle.

The electric fences are the most interesting though, since you get
an alarm a second at a regular rhythm.

Previous entertainment, an airspeed indicator
http://www.celestaire.com/catalog/products/3806.html
though I see they've raised their price from $79 to $99 in the last
year.

There's always room for more trinkets on the handlebars.

Well, the thunderstorms have come through for a few days, and it works
pretty well. It's sort of interesting.

It detects a lot of strikes that you can barely see at night, so it's
pretty sensitive.

Putting it in the kitchen window, it's pretty reliable at reporting
system approaching, here, and departing, by the coding of 1 2 3 or 4
beeps for a strike. If you hear only 4's, you can bike to the store.
You go by the majority.

So if there's thunderstorms around, it's pretty good. You have to learn
what counts as occasional alarms, which are other odd electrical events
like lights being switched on, or as noted above, various sources of
electrical disturbance along a bike route.

In the bedroom window it warns of stuff coming at night well before you
see flashes, how frequent they are telling you that it's not just
the refrigerator cycling on.

--
Ron Hardin
[email hidden]

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Ron Hardin said:

If you hear only 4's, you can bike to the store.

1's, I should have typed.
--
Ron Hardin
[email hidden]

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.