Measuring static electricity potential ?

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Good day.
An antenna on top of a non-conductive very tall pole/tower connected to a high impedance DC voltmeter referenced to soil ground should or not show the electric field potential ? As in measuring the charge of air/clouds like before a lightning storm ?
Or how to determine if there is a voltage charge building up ? What instrument is used for such ? Electrostatic meters ? What commercial devices on the market do it other than field mills * ?

Static electricity in the atmosphere ceases to be static when a lightning bolt flows; right ?

* ---> Page 7 at https://cdn.knmi.nl/knmi/pdf/bibliotheek/knmipubIR/IR2013-01.pdf
 

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Believe I've seen instruments like this for ESD surveys (looking for charge "hot spots"). But not to MV range, maybe tens of kV.

Getting the front end "zeroed" and then reading voltage across distance would be the trick I guess. Suppose you made two nonconductive arms with "RX plates" at the ends, hinge in the middle with DMM there to each. Close to short (zero), open for the distance and read the voltage before it bleeds out at Cwhatever*Rmeter. You might need to be quick, and about that cal factor what with assembly & meter C dividing ....
 

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'Atmospheric electricity' is reportedly a real phenomenon. To gather enough current to turn on a neon bulb I imagine you'd need to install several feet of bare copper wire at the top of the pole. Voltage buildup might be sufficient to drive the tiny Amperes needed for a neon bulb.

Cheap static charge detector built from fet. Explore the website to see numerous articles about static charge including how it compares to current electricity.

pe2bz.philpem.me.uk/Comm01/-%20-%20Ion-Photon-RF/-%20-%20Static-Ion/E-105-Simple-1-Fet---------/CHARGD~1.HTM
 

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Thank you sir. That link should work well enough for detection even not quantitative, and cannot be faster to build. Perhaps will make it with 2 mosfets instead of jfets, one for each static polarity.
 

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