Abstract/Summary

Point discharge sensors have been used for a long period of time, but are still not fully understood. The data collected by one of these sensors has been investigated along with electric field data in an attempt to parameterise the sensor. It was found that the sensor was best described by an equation with terms dependent on the atmospheric electric field and the first derivative of this electric field, with respect to time. This behaviour implies that both electrostatic and electrodynamic processes are important to the operation of the sensor. The inclusion of the electrodynamic term means that although this sensor is able to detect electrical disturbances, it is more difficult to recover the precise nature of the electric field using this sensor.