The gods are angry with me ...

[Todd Wiedemann]

Hi all -

Just thought I'd fill you in on the past 36 hours in my world ...

Wednesday night, 11:45 pm. Lose power, I'm sure due to the powerful storms we had.

Thursday morning, 8:30am. Still no power. Go to work (late). Wife calls cell phone, power is back. Whew.

8:45 am. Wife calls office. 27" TV doesn't turn on. Neither does the 1st Gen Sony satellite box. Hmmm. Breaker ? Nope. Have her check downstairs (the home theater room). Mits powers up. Not the ReplayTV. The Panny HD box powers up. Hmm. Something fishy.

So, the long and short of it is that I lost almost all of my gear save for the Mits and Panny box. 2 sat receivers, ReplayTV, VCR, Playstation, 2 A/V receivers, 27" Sony Tube set, garage door opener.

Yeah, homeowners insurance will take care of it, but I still feel like my topic says, someone, somewhere is angry with me.

The stuff was all on surge protectors, too.

Needless to say, I'll be buying one of those BIG Monster surge protection units.

Anyone else have an experience like this ?

Thanks for listening.

Todd.

[Steve Mann]

 

Originally posted by Todd Wiedemann:
Hi all



Anyone else have an experience like this ?

Man, do I feel your pain. That downright sucks. And scary too... I've been so busy, I haven't had a chance to go downstairs to the theater since the storms. You've got me so concerned, I'm actually going to run home at lunch and fire up everything to make sure it's all okay.

I hope your replacement efforts go as uneventful as possible.



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Steve M. Mann
Mits 65908
Panasonic TU-HDS20
Sony SAT-T60
My Home Theater
My Young DVD Collection

[Steve Mann]

 

Originally posted by Steve Mann:
You've got me so concerned, I'm actually going to run home at lunch and fire up everything to make sure it's all okay.

Whew! All is well at home. Sorry the same wasn't the case for you, Todd.

[ReesR]

Gosh!

I am so sorry about your loss.  After reading your posting I felt my previous posting was so insignificant in comparison.

You may not think of it this way but this might be a blessing in disquise.  You now have an opportunity to maybe improve your system.  Not everyone has that chance.  (I hope he believes me when I say I am trying to cheer him up)

It is making me wonder if I need a good power suppressor as well.

Again, sorry for your loss.  But don't give up.




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Rees Roberts
Racine, WI
reesr@wi.net

HDTV Receiver:  Sony KD-34XBR2
Bi-directional Yagi Antenna at 30 feet

[Matt Heebner]

I too am sorry for your loss. I have never had something like that (knock HARD on wood)happen to me. I am glad that your homeowners ins. will cover all. I even took out special riders for all my electronics stuff. That way I am covered no matter what. I guess if there was a bright side to this....it would be that you can upgrade all your stuff.
I think I am going to have to consider a bigger surge protector...but if lightning struck a power line near your house, no surge protector in the world can stop that kind of current.

Matt

[Gregg Lengling]

Now if the insurance company doesn't collect the broken stuff and just pays you for the replacements send it over to me.  I could use a project..fixing it all.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
glengling@ameritech.net

[RickNeff]

I'm also sorry to hear about your loss.  I long time ago, I had a PC and laser that was fried during a thunderstorm.  Actually, the PC was fried, even though it was on a UPS because the laser printer couldn't be on the UPS.  The surge came through the parallel port.

Fortunately, other than that, I haven't had the misfortune of having electronics zapped.  Homeowners insurance covered my system thus allowing me to upgrade a bit.

So, as was mentioned, maybe you'll get the chance to upgrade as well! (Maybe not a 'silver lining' but more of a 'bronze lining'   )

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[This message has been edited by RickNeff (edited 08-23-2002).]

[MesaV]

Sorry to hear about your loss.  I'm in Connecticut right now, but haven't had any of my kids check out my stuff.  I do have the Monster Power HTS 3500 and the Panamax MAX 5300 and they were tripping off in the storms we had two weeks ago.  I'll know for sure Sunday.

[kjnorman]

 

Originally posted by Todd Wiedemann:
Anyone else have an experience like this ?

Consider this a blessing.  Now is the time to upgrade....

The only reason that I have a Toshiba 50 inch HDTV monitor is that my previous TV (a Sony 41in widescreen PAL/NTSC widescreen set that I brought over from England) died after an a couple of days of electrical storms in 2001.

The funny thing was, was that it took a couple of days for a set to die.  It suddenly stopped when my wife was watching it (on a fine day, two days later).  I tried to get it fixed but the Sony dealer said that it looked like the power circuits had been fried - probably due to a surge.  

I called my insurance agent and they were more than helpful (American Family).  Their attitude is that with power surge damage their policy is to replace the unit rather than fix the power supplies, as they often find more damage (like in the tuners etc) which quickly add up to more than the replacement cost of a new set.  We agreed a price for the old set (which was pretty good) and then went out to select a new TV.  

We ending up getting the Tosh as it was the largest screen size (with good picture) for the smallest volumetric space taken up by the TV.  The cost to me for the large set was a mere $300.      

I wanted to get a 57in but it would just not fit into my house at the time.  Ironically, now that I have moved to a new house in WFB, the TV looks too small.  I'd like to get a 65in now!  Guess I am hoping that in a year's time, we'll have another electrical storm; this time taking the amp and DVD player with it as well      I could do with an upgrade....

Well it is a pain.  But they will all be replaced.  Possibly upgraded.

Good luck.

Kerry.

 

[This message has been edited by kjnorman (edited 08-25-2002).]

[MesaV]

All my stuff is working fine.  One of my kids lost a TV, Air Conditioner, and an electric range...

[Mike Sheahan]

A lady came into the place I work, and told me more than half the people on her street lost their garagedoor openers in that storm.

That sounded really wierd to me, untill I saw you lost yours too.

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Mits 65819
Hughes E86
My HT Page

[Pat]

FWIW, I live just a half-dozen blocks from Todd, and suffered no damage, no power outage.  Home theater is on one of those Monster boxes, computers and other TVs are stand alone, but were off at the time, if that matters.

Regarding the National Electrical Code requiring a ground wire -- as somebody else said, no reasonable sized wire is going to withstand a lightning stroke.  My understanding has been that the ground is merely to handle static charge from the action of wind.

[Todd Wiedemann]

Well, with big thanks to Gregg, I'm now in replacement mode.

The insurance co. wants to spend zero dollars, as I expected, but I'm slowly convincing my adjustor to go my way.

Thanks for the support here too. Seeing as how this stuff is my only hobby, I've been a bit down lately, but I'm starting to feel better about it as upgrades are nice.

[Gregg Lengling]

Regards Pat's comment that he feels that the NEC grounding requirements are for static discharge.  I'm sorry you are wrong, while you are correct that a direct lightning hit is going to get you anyway there are many reasons for the ground wire.

When there is a near strike, lightning sends feelers out looking for a return path.  If you actually watch a storm closely you will actually see small pre-strokes, these are looking for the best ground return.  The ground wire will dissapate any charge on your antenna or mounting structure making it less attractive to lightning.  Also without the ground all these discharges, including corona discharge from a near strike, will route the charge path down your ground wire.  You ground wire will represent a better return path for the lightning charge than you equipment ground.  Without the ground wire the charge has no place to go but towards your equipment and through it to the ground in the electrical system.  This is where 99% of damage occurs, and normally it will be evidenced by power supply failures and front stage failure on receivers (or LNB failures/preamp failures).

I own towers for a living (you know these tall radio towers and cellular towers), and we invest a ton of money to protect the equipment in the shelters from lightning damage.  One tower I have in the north end of the Village of Germantown had lots of damage back in 1990.  In 1991 we invested in a new grounding system with protective devices on all Coaxial Cables and the Electrical Service.  We also install a device called a lightning counter.  It actually counts the number of direct strokes the tower has withstood.  We have 10 direct hits counted in the past 11 years, the only failure has been 1 circuit breaker and 1 coaxial protector (these protectors cost about $100 each, but protect about 25K worth of equipment).  Rather cheap insurance.

So when it comes to talking about lightning protection I know what I'm talking about.  I've actually given talks to a number of organizations (engineering groups, ham clubs ect) on proper grounding and lightning abatement techniques.  So I guess you could call me an expert (don't like to blow my own horn, but I've done tons of research on this topic).

So guys and gals protect yourself and your toys and do it right.  A couple dollars can save you a lot of pain and anguish.  Unless you like to drive your insurance company nuts and upgrade your equipment all the time.



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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
glengling@ameritech.net