How does it detect the strikes that are over miles of ocean if it's all based on a circuit board connected to the internet like that?
I'm going to copy/paste a chunk from section 3.3 that explains some of this better than I could. If you have any questions beyond that I might be able to answer them. What I'd wager is happening is something along the lines of the following. Lightning strikes over the ocean and emits a radio signal at c (speed of light). This travels however far with a dissipating amplitude and reaches multiple receivers in different locations. These receivers have an amplifier that increase the signal to a usable level, records the data of the radio signal and whatever else it picks up. All receivers that pick up the given lightning strike from over the ocean have their data compiled and used to triangulate the location of that strike using the hyperbolic method that I quoted above.The TOA lightning location technique is based on the computations of
hyperbolic curves. The emitted radio signal of a lightning discharge is traveling through the air with the speed of light. This is approximately 300000 kilometers per second, or equivalently, 300 meters per microsecond. Each received signal gets a time stamp. Let
t_A (s) be the time stamp for signal s from station A. Time stamp t_A (s) is the Coordinated Universal Time (abbreviated UTC) in microseconds with an accuracy of +/- 1 microsecond. The difference of two time stamps for the same signal received by two different stations and the positions of these two stations define a hyperbolic curve.