Lol so yea, kinda hard to have conductivity without tethering the balloons,so yes they will be tethered. Lol this thread really went off on a tangent. Planning on having the setup in the country unmonitored,will be triggered via gsm. I won't be doing it anywhere rural bc I don't want to electrify water lines or blow any electronics. Buckets will be full of silica,and grounded with a copper pipe thru the bottom. Copper wire to tether to the balloons. The base with the buckets will be a ways off from all the electronics and where the balloons will inflate,and I'll have a mechanism that holds onto the tether during inflation,so when released, the balloons will be pulled off to the side as far away from the circuitry as I distanced the buckets.do a Google image search of fulgerite,stuff looks pretty cool. Thought it would be fun to try making. sorry it took me so long to get back here