A VHF LIGHTNING DIRECTION-FINDER AND THE PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

A VHF Lightning direction-finder has been successfully tested. The three antennas which receive VHF impulses emitted by a lightning discharge are placed on the vertices of a right-angled isosceles triangle with perpendicular sides 120 meters in length. The direction of arrival of received VHF impulses is calculated from the differences in the time of arrival at the antennas. The time-interval measurements are made with two high-resolution (10 nsec) digital time-interval counters along with a digital printer to record the data. The paper discribes the construction of the instrument and the preliminary results of the observations. conducted in Pingliang, Gansu. The results of observation are compared with radar data and show good agreement.