Boltek LD-250 Long Range Detection Kit

The Boltek LD-250 Lightning Detector puts a live lightning map on your laptop or desktop computer. Within milliseconds of a lightning strike the detector beeps and your computer displays the strike location. The LD-250’s direction-finding antenna measures lightning strike direction while the LD-250’s receiver estimates distance from received signal strength. Advanced signal processing in software improves distance accuracy, reducing the effects of strike-to-strike variations in strike energy.

The LD-250 can warn of both close and severe thunderstorms. If a storm is detected closer than a preset distance or the strike rate exceeds a preset limit, the LD-250 sounds its internal alarm and activates the computers alarm tone or WAV file notification. Both the Close Storm and Severe Storm alarm statuses are indicated on the LD-250’s front panel. Front panel pushbuttons allow both the Strike tone and Alarm tones to be enabled or disabled.

Strike rates, both Close Strikes / Minute and Total Strikes / Minute are shown for the previous hour on the Strike Rate Trend Graph letting you easily see if storms are increasing in severity or dying off.

A custom vector map will allow you to zoom into the region of interest. Zoom out to the maximum range of 750 miles (1500 miles across) or zoom in as close as 15 miles to see only the nearby storms.

The LD-250 connects to your computer’s USB or RS232 (COM) port making it suitable for use with both laptop and desktop computers. The LD-250 will even detect lightning when your computer is turned off. When the LD-250 starts beeping or the Strike light starts flashing you can turn on your computer to see where the storms are located.

LD-250 data is live! You are actually detecting the lightning strikes themselves. There are no on-line or recurring charges of any kind.

The LD-250 uses a small active antenna to receive the radio signals from lightning strikes. These signals are the crackling you hear on an AM radio during a thunderstorm. The direction-finding antenna is able to tell which direction the signal is coming from. The LD-250 measures the strength of the received signals internally to estimate distance.

The LD-250’s antenna is a small white housing that can be mounted indoors or outdoors with the included pole mount hardware.