Lightning Strike Alert Pager
By Rocky Thompson on May 1st, 2007
Not that it’ll do you any good, but the StrikeAlert is a lightning detector that’ll let you know how far away lightning is touching down. It would be useful for kids’ baseball games, but it’s not like you’re going to start building lightning rods if you’re in the backcountry. I suppose you could use it to let you know that you should be heading for high ground (or low ground, I guess I’m not really sure what you’re supposed to do), and it would let you know how quickly the storm is approaching since it uses different alerts from 40 miles, 12-24 miles, 6-12 miles, and within 6 miles. The StrikeAlert costs about $90 and runs for 100 hours on two AAA batteries.
via Funniest Gadgets
got one of these issued to me in the military. We used to use a lot of electrically initiated explosives and would cancel all ops when lightning was within 5 miles. It also flashes a LED sequence to tell you if the storm is coming or going, and also flashes when lightning actually strikes. Great tool for any activity made even more hazardous my lightning, but other than that, it makes me look like a 1980’s superstar with this badboy clipped to my belt.
[...] Motorola created a technology that puts a solar charging panel beneath cell phone (or any) LCD screen allowing you to charge your phone for summit calls between games of Minesweeper. Their competitors at Nokia will have a backpacker phone that comes with a lightning detector. Not sure if it’s part of the “Always be Prepared†Scouting motto to carry a cell phone? Ask the Scoutmaster (he says stick with signal mirrors and whistles). By Rocky Thompson [...]