Re: Glass breaks, thunderstorms and HA (was Re: Help with 7 Circuit Project?)

["Robert L Bass" <robertlbass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> While it's likely the thunder would be directional
> and generate large "pulses" from each microphone,
> some would be louder than others.  It would be
> interesting to mount microphones on all four
> corners of the roof and feed them into a digital
> multi-track recorder and the superimpose the
> wave forms to see if they correlated with my own
> estimates of the direction.

It depends a lot on the proximity of the strike.  Distant, "rolling thunder"
(apologies to Paul Schrader) is composed of a primary sound followed by a
long series of echoes from terrain nearer the strike than the listener.
Closer strikes are easier to locate but not always.  Sound waves may be less
than ideal for localizing because they reflect off of and bend around solid
objects.

If you really want an accurate picture of the lightning situation, buy a
storm scope.  Better ones will display direction and distance of strikes.
Interfacing the scope to your security system may be a bit of a challenge,
but if you're willing to install a system of microphones on the corners of
the house, it shouldn't be much harder to deal with the scope.  Cost may be
a bit of a factor.  Strikefinder models range from ~$3800 up.  :^)

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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