Other topics included were ADSL, HDSL and VDSL protection issues by Ernie Gallo from Bellcore. As historical data on lightning flash density increases, the long term value of the LDN service will become even more valuable in development of lightning protection systems based upon a predicted susceptibility of a given site or structure to lightning damage. Of course, his objective was to correlate soil conductivity with moisture content to aid in farming. Although ufer type grounds have been around for many years, the presentation by Lucent and SAE Grounding provided an interesting concept a concrete encased electrode with a high percentage of graphite particulate intermixed with the cement mix creates a distributed capacitive coupling to earth ground resulting in a lower surge impedance to lightning wave fronts, according to the vendor. The latest problem concerns the basic power service to the PCS equipment.
Most fault current is returned through the earth.
NESC has not commented on this yet. PEG would like to point out that topics selected for presentation at the Annual Meeting are based upon the overall audience. PEG tries to have something for everyone, but obviously cannot cover topics at a level suited for a given individual. Please remember that our group is extremely diverse with regard to electrical protection experience. R. Bruce Melton, Jr.