Lost some gear in last night's storm

[Doug Mohr]

Last night I had a lightning strike that took out some gear.

I lost a Cisco 2611 router, Cisco 3750 Switch, a few cables, a VOIP router, a network card in the firewall, and most of the other gear locked up.

I can't figure out where it came from. The wireless Internet access receiver on the roof has a #6 wire from the mast to dual ground rods and the electricity is cleaned through a whole-house surge suppressor and the equipment is on a UPS.

The only thing that isn't bonded to earth is the home automation antenna, but that is in the basement ceiling in the center of the house.

So currently I have no Internet access and no phones.


:bang:

[LoadStar]

Well, at least the stuff was on a UPS... most UPS's that I've seen warranty anything hooked up to them, so you shouldn't have a problem replacing the equipment. Consider it nature's way of giving you a free equipment upgrade.

[techguy1975]

D'oh!  :bang:

[jkane]

Ahhhh..... The famous myth that grounding will actually prevent lightning strikes from damaging anything.

Lightning has a mind of it's own.  It does not follow any rules you set up for it like requiring it to follow the path with the least resistance.  It is actually an intellegent life form and will seek out the most expensive piece of hardware in your home and attack it.

Seriously, lightning does not have to follow the path you give it to ground.  Sometimes it does, but not very often.  Hence the mounds and mounds of discussions about this topic.

[waterhead]

I heard that lightning can acually enter your house through the ground (correct me if I'm wrong). If lightning strikes the ground near your house, it can travel to your ground rods and enter through there.

Paul

[tazman]

Ahhhh..... The famous myth that grounding will actually prevent lightning strikes from damaging anything.

Lightning has a mind of it's own.  It does not follow any rules you set up for it like requiring it to follow the path with the least resistance.  It is actually an intellegent life form and will seek out the most expensive piece of hardware in your home and attack it.

Seriously, lightning does not have to follow the path you give it to ground.  Sometimes it does, but not very often.  Hence the mounds and mounds of discussions about this topic.

I've also had my doubts.  But when it comes time for replacement you need to consider what your insurer thinks you should have, whether it actualy works or not.  As far as the wireless internet goes I have a CAT-5 inline surge suppressor on mine.  As well as all the other grounding requirements.  Whether they do any good or not, I hope I never find out.

[Doug Mohr]

OK. New gear is in place. All systems are back online.  I had mild data corruption on several servers, nothing that couldn't be repaired or restored, but there was another casuality. A power supply bit the dust Monday night, I assume it was damaged Sunday.

As for the grounding helping or not, There are lightning rods about every 8 feet on the roof of the US Bank Builiding all tied in with what looks like #4 wire and that end of the wireless gear (same model gear I have at home) has never suffered any damage during storms in the three years it has been up there.

I think I may actually remove the ground wire from the mast and install a lightning rod about 5 feet away from the wireless antenna. I'll put a new #10 wire from the antenna mast to ground just to add a little extra protection.

Doug

[jkane]

You need to move your gear to the US Bank building that hasn't been hit instead.   Glug2  :wave:

[Doug Mohr]

You need to move your gear to the US Bank building that hasn't been hit instead.   Glug2  :wave:

The cost of rack space there is insane. Plus it is not climate controlled or protected from dust.

For the millons of dollars of equipment up there, its amazing how archaic the environment is. Next time I'm up there, I take a few photos of the equipment room. It is basically an old maintainence room that they have put racks in...

Besides, I can't show it off to friends up there since you cannot bring guests with you to the USBC roof.  

[Gregg Lengling]

The cost of rack space there is insane. Plus it is not climate controlled or protected from dust.

For the millons of dollars of equipment up there, its amazing how archaic the environment is. Next time I'm up there, I take a few photos of the equipment room. It is basically an old maintainence room that they have put racks in...

Besides, I can't show it off to friends up there since you cannot bring guests with you to the USBC roof.  

I used to rent space on that roof before I sold my business.....3 rack spaces and 3 antennas was $3600.00 per month....ouch...good thing I had 12k coming in from the system up there each month. Glug2

[techguy1975]

The cost of rack space there is insane. Plus it is not climate controlled or protected from dust.

For the millons of dollars of equipment up there, its amazing how archaic the environment is. Next time I'm up there, I take a few photos of the equipment room. It is basically an old maintainence room that they have put racks in...

Besides, I can't show it off to friends up there since you cannot bring guests with you to the USBC roof.  

What kind of stuff is up there?  Is it just mostly paging & 2-way stuff?

[Gregg Lengling]

What kind of stuff is up there?  Is it just mostly paging & 2-way stuff?

That's about right.....there are 2 equipment rooms..1 in the West Penthouse (East penthouse is standby generators and and HVAC), and 1 room on the 41st floor, which is also a mechanicals floor.

Lots of paging, Two-Way, Microwave and spreadspectrum stuff.  The Milwaukee County Sheriff's 800 system is up there (on the 41st, they were right by my 800mhz equipment).  There is TV station equipment (mainly remote microwave feeds) and other equipment.  It's not actually as crowded as it was in the late 80's and early to late 90's when PAGING was really hot....lot's of Paging companies have gone belly up and all the 800 trunking systems (commercial) such as mine and Motorola's are gone as Nextel bought us all out for our licenses so they could use the frequencies for their Quasi-Mobile Phone Service.(Yeah how many of you knew that Nextel was NOT a Cellular Phone Company, they are actually a Specialized Mobile Radio Carrier).

 :OnAir: