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Now folks I guarantee ya that you don’t need to have five (5) metallic projections on a lightning rod …… just to insure that iffen the bolt of lightning misses the center post it will surely hit one of the other four (4) laterally protruding posts.But, if you assume it was a “catch-all” lightning rod …… then it’s a bad design because those four (4) laterally protruding posts should have been evenly spaced around the center post and not just on one side of it.Me thinks it’s a directional antenna that can be rotated toward the source of the incoming radio frequency. Which is absolutely necessary if mounted on a ship/boat.