Lightning Detector using RadLog

Lightning detection is probably a little off topic for a site that relates to detection of ionizing radiation. I find there is more than one way to use RadLog...

I have been using RadLog to record pulses from a lightning detector. Last night we had our first electrical storm for the season. Not a big storm, just some lightning here and there. RadLog produced a nice graph showing the results, image attached.

I am running two detectors on a Windows7 computer, one for lightning and one for radiation. This is working fine for me, thanks to mw0uzo's suggestion to use different Windows users, one for each instance of RadMon.

My lightning detector is based on a circuit found at http://www.techlib.com/electronics/lightningnew.htm#Magnetic
The pick-up coil is a roll (494 feet, 150 meter) of #34 enameled copper wire purchased on eBay. I put a small ferrite rod in the center of the wire spool. Resonance is about 10kHz.

I will put my background radiation detector back on the Radmon map once I get through a few other things. Looking at radon in my home at the moment. Also need to make a waterproof housing for a Geiger Muller tube to be outdoors. Have one on our truck that has held up for more than a year and several rough off pavement trips. That is a STS-6 cased in PVC pipe, mounted close to the ground on the bottom of our truck. I expected it to break on our first trip, but it did not. Traveling off pavement in Utah, USA, one can definitely tell when one is near an old uranium mine. Readings went from about 60-80CPM to 2000CPM or more (failed to write it down) when parked on mine tailings! We did not camp there... Also interesting to see how the background radiation increases steadily as we drive west from Wisconsin to Utah. Background then dropped again as we traveled farther west into California.

siriusly, Chuck

I have used Radlog to log UV radiation. It is a very good app. Nice work Dan!

Interesting graphs showing lightning activity vs radiation. Rain arrived as the lightning peak. Radiation shows a small bump when the rain started. SBM-20 GM tube is mounted in a thin wall pvc pipe outside on a painted wood wall, about 20 cm above a roof. Lightning detector is indoors, a small coil of wire resonating about 15KHz.

Hi guys, been some time since I been on. Was reading thru the forum to see whats been up lately and any new changes. I was tickled when I saw this posting and about using it for lightning counts. Funny, I had thought about doing the same thing a couple of years ago. It is a bit off the main purpose but this would be cool to do. I'm into lightning detection here where I live and hadn't gotten around to running another radmon app and hook it into my lightning detection system which just sends a pulse allowing current to flow lighting a LED, easy task to use it with radmon and a optical IC. Hum

Hey Chuck, nice plot of the two plots. You beat me to it, lol. I have lightning detectors here at the homestead and thought the same thing you did. Nice how you have the 2 plots in same image area. Are you uploading this somewhere on the web?I would like to try this as well. Oh, you mentioned something about putting you detector outside. I have a GMC-200 outside. Where on the forums area, I think I have photos of how I enclosed mine from the elements. I'm using one of them temp/hum sensor shields and its mounted inside it. Been like this for a few years now and still running. Do you have images of the coil setup you made for the lightning pickup? Frank