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The Boltek LD-250 Lightning Detector

The LD-250 uses a direction-finding antenna to receive and locate the radio signals produced by lightning. The output from the antenna is fed into a standalone receiver and depending on the strength of the received signal a calculation is then made by the software to determine approximately how far the strike is away. The LD-250 connects to the PC via an RS-232 serial cable.

The combination of direction and distance allows the strike to be plotted onto a radar-like screen. The receiver location being at the centre of the screen with distance increasing outwards from the centre.

Depending upon the height of the antenna it is possible to detect lightning strikes up to 300 miles away. Exceptionally fierce storms could push this distance up to 350 miles.

NexStorm Software from Astrogenic provides the screen data. Unlike the Stormtracker PCI card, the LD-250 cannot differentiate between varying forms of lightning however it can take a GPS input and be used mobile for Storm Chasing.

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