Posted: 9/3/2013 4:44:07 AM EDT
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On the house, we'll call it a direct hit, although it could have been much worse...
Had a dipole running over and across the top of the house. From a tall aluminum mast from the rear, over to my one and only tree in the front yard. Apparently, that front half of the dipole and the tree were directly impacted. The wire was blown in half and I haven't yet found the portion that connected to the tree. The tree has the bark stripped down typical of a lighting strike. So, my one and only tree is not going to die.... great... The coaxial cable ran from the mast under the door... it arced and left a huge scorch mark on the door... burned a nice hole in the carpet. All the house phones, the alarm system, my xbox, cable modem, router and three computers are fried... anything hardwired into the network looks like it got hit through the ethernet cables.. Radios were off and unplugged, so should be fine, although I haven't verified that yet. Haven't gone through everything yet... but like I said... could have been much worse... The wife is blaming the strike on my antenna... my story is the antenna helped shelter and redirect !! Worst part? lost my xbox !! 
Will post a few pictures after while The ARRL insurance program, through the Hayes Company - I think - does have the option to add computers to your list of insured items, in addition to your radios... which I did... think I listed two... so, we'll find out how this program actually works more to follow... |
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Radios were off and unplugged, so should be fine, although I haven't verified that yet. Haven't gone through everything yet... but like I said... could have been much worse... Sorry for your stuff, but, you're right. Could have been much worse. Another reason for me to continue unplugging radios from AC, antennas, and computers when not in use.
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Went by the house during lunch... upstairs air conditioner is out..., no phones, no cable tv, no internet... what kind of a personal hell is this? No cable TV and no Internet !!
Found a few shingle pcs in the yard... gotta have the roof checked out as well , although I think the roof damage is probably from the dipole being snapped, not the strike itself... The HVAC repair guy was there and was trying to sell me a $700 transformer - which is out as well - before he can tell me what is wrong with the unit itself... I didn't handle that meeting very well.... I'm trying to get the air handler evaluated and I'm getting an expensive sales pitch on a freek'n transformer.... The best I can determine, all of the phone lines are pretty much fried... expect to find the same with the cat5 cable... This is turning out to be a boat load of fun....  
Phone jack in kitchen 
where coax came in under the door 
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Telephone repairman just left the house.... started at the side of the house, where the lines coming in.... nothing...
Goes out to the little green box at the street... lifts off the cover... stairs at it for 5 seconds of so, puts the cover back on... Pile of melted wire at the street.... 
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Took a lightning hit a couple years ago.
Anything low voltage such as landline phones, network cables and attached hardware, as well as the satellite TV system was fried. Anything connected to a wall wart fried the wall wart and in most cases fried the unit attached to it. I feel I got away lucky as it didn't hit the HVAC unit nor the ham shack. You got it worse than I did. My only suggestion is to get in touch with the insurance company and start on the claim. My hit wasn't nearly as bad as yours and I was out $2000. |
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We had a strike a few feet from the outside breaker box few years back. Fried everything on a 220 in the house and a few electronic devices. Worst was the melted wires in the foundation supplied power to the kitchen island. They were welded together in the conduit. Had to cut the foundation to run new wires.. Insurance bought us new dryer, cooktop, oven, water heater, dishwasher, etc... Since we didn't have a big burn mark across the house, insurance was hesitant to pay. I brought in a master electrician who wrote us up a nice evaluation explaining that no other condition could have caused the damage. Insurance Co. was good to us after that. |
As many others have said, I got hit many years ago - on my birthday!!  Came home from work and found a bunch of stuff dead. It apparently came in on the aerial phone line, jumped to the power line through the answering machine, went into the common plug in strip, went and fried the TV, VCR, stereo (amp only, left tuner and phonograph). It left the house on the TV coax cable, went 100 feet underground, entered another building and destroyed a coax splitter in the other building and stopped there. Weird stuff.
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As many others have said, I got hit many years ago - on my birthday!! Came home from work and found a bunch of stuff dead. It apparently came in on the aerial phone line, jumped to the power line through the answering machine, went into the common plug in strip, went and fried the TV, VCR, stereo (amp only, left tuner and phonograph). It left the house on the TV coax cable, went 100 feet underground, entered another building and destroyed a coax splitter in the other building and stopped there. Weird stuff.The phone likes actually seem to be a common entry point even a near strike seems to couple to the phone lines. My parents had a strike come straight down their chimney and crack the firebox open |
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The phone likes actually seem to be a common entry point even a near strike seems to couple to the phone lines. Oour phones got hit a few years back. Ran to the basement due to a tornado nearby. Heard a pop in the basement, and thunder right after. At that time, the phone was hooked to a ground wire in the basement, and that's the pop we heard. Ended up nuking a few switches, computer, router, WAP, and modem. Ended up putting in a phone/LAN/coax UPS unit. Insurance covered everything minus the deductible. ($1000, but I had a computer add on umbrella, so the deductible was only $200 iirc) |
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That's a pretty good hit, you're lucky you didn't have a fire!
We had a 25' Oak tree at work get hit a few years back and a 2" wide strip of bark from 3/4 of the way to the top, down to the base was blown off just like you said. The force of sap and water instantly vaporizing is pretty powerful. The bark strip was launched into the side of a building 40' away. I wonder how far it would have went if the building wasn't there. ETA: Half the tree instantly died and they cut the whole thing down a week later. Time to get my surge protection back in order. I've let a few loose ends accumulate over the past year that leave me vulnerable at the moment. Of course we're in a drought again here and it's so dry that I have to worry more about static shock than lightning at the moment. |
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Sorry to hear about this. Lightning can do weird things. We had a tree 100 yards away struck by lightning. Half the bark was missing. I heard a loud snap I my shack and then the thunder. It was loud, very loud. My HF rig was connected to the coax but suffered no damage thanks to Polyphaser coax protector and a single grounding rod. I still don't know what made that noise in the shack. Everything was grounded to a single point grounding strip, including a desktop PC.
It sucks for you to be without an AC. Maybe a cheap window 120VAC unit will help until you can get your central AC fixed? A small window AC can be purchased for under $100. It's better than nothing. Good luck to you my friend. |
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Sorry to hear about this. Lightning can do weird things. We had a tree 100 yards away struck by lightning. Half the bark was missing. I heard a loud snap I my shack and then the thunder. It was loud, very loud. My HF rig was connected to the coax but suffered no damage thanks to Polyphaser coax protector and a single grounding rod. I still don't know what made that noise in the shack. Everything was grounded to a single point grounding strip, including a desktop PC. It sucks for you to be without an AC. Maybe a cheap window 120VAC unit will help until you can get your central AC fixed? A small window AC can be purchased for under $100. It's better than nothing. Good luck to you my friend. The noise was likely an induced current in cabling/wires in your shack. I've had my power pole hit 4 times in the past 10 years, and had the same thing happen -- a loud snap -- when the strike happened. One time it roasted my ethernet hub, all other times things have been OK. One of the strikes the snap was preceded by a high pitched whine that decreased in tone until the strike -- sort of a "deeeeeee oooooooo SNAP BOOM.: Thankfully no directs here, but the BOL had one that made the highest solar panel on the roof look... interesting. |
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Spoke with the guy who handles insurance claims through the ARRL policies.... easy process, easy to work with... said 95% of his claims are lightning stikes.
He also said that regardless of the surge protectors in place, when lighting strikes this close, they are of little use... fries all the low voltage stuff and most things connected to it... For those who didn't know, you can add computers to your ARRL policy... I listed two, but i did not give them enough value... something is better than nothing... ARRL insurance is cheap !! Make sure you are current and put a couple of computers on the policy !! |
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Repercussions --
The lightning struck a tree in my front yard... very near this tree is the service boxes for both cable TV and telephones... lightning damaged both boxes and I am pretty confident that was the source of the damage in my house.... power surge came in through the phone and cable lines.... So, not only was I impacted, but four or five of the neighboring houses were also impacted. This tree in my front yard was the end of my dipole. Most of my neighbors knew it and had asked questions about my antenna over time... so, what I am hearing now is that the impacted neighbors are blaming the lightning strike on my antenna... In their mind, it is my fault that they lost internet, cable and phones for almost a week... Right now, I have the mast and antenna down for re-work and repair... but, If I put it back up right away, I might have a neighborhood revolt on my hands... Looking for some options for a crank up mast / tower, so I can make this less obvious and less of an issue in the minds of the neighbors... Leaning towards an alumatower T-135 that I can conceal under my rear deck (comes of the second story)... won't be seen at all when retracted... will eliminate the appearance of a lightning rod to the neighbors.. Any other crank up type options I need to evaluate ?? |
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Oour phones got hit a few years back. Ran to the basement due to a tornado nearby. Heard a pop in the basement, and thunder right after. At that time, the phone was hooked to a ground wire in the basement, and that's the pop we heard. Ended up nuking a few switches, computer, router, WAP, and modem. Ended up putting in a phone/LAN/coax UPS unit. Insurance covered everything minus the deductible. ($1000, but I had a computer add on umbrella, so the deductible was only $200 iirc) Quoted:
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The phone likes actually seem to be a common entry point even a near strike seems to couple to the phone lines. Oour phones got hit a few years back. Ran to the basement due to a tornado nearby. Heard a pop in the basement, and thunder right after. At that time, the phone was hooked to a ground wire in the basement, and that's the pop we heard. Ended up nuking a few switches, computer, router, WAP, and modem. Ended up putting in a phone/LAN/coax UPS unit. Insurance covered everything minus the deductible. ($1000, but I had a computer add on umbrella, so the deductible was only $200 iirc) As a kid I used to laugh at people that would tell you to get off the phone, there's a storm out. Now, not so much. |
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--- Snip --- As a kid I used to laugh at people that would tell you to get off the phone, there's a storm out. Now, not so much. Back when I was a Bench Tech (in the modem days) I saw a bunch of computers come through where the strike came in the phone line. I even had it happen to me on a near strike. |
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Of course mobs of neighbors with pitchforks and torches won't care about science and logic.  Remind them that this was just a show of force. The next time they blaspheme your immortal ways, you will make sure the antenna of death is pointed upon them. Or in other words, "What would Piccolo do?". 
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OP....What was your station ground ? I got hit a few years ago. I got really lucky. My HF and dualbander were OK. HF was unplugged....FT-7900 was scanning on an indoor antenna Network LAN cards in both PC's were fried. no other damage, radio's, TV's ect all OK.... All my stuff is tied to single point ground. Dipole and balun were cooked.... 
I sent these pics to LDG...they replied " AWESOME !" and sent me a new BALUN LOLOL |
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Got a quote from the Alumatower folks today.... ouch...
But, I think this is the right solution and my SFO, err... wife, isn't going to kill me over it...
8 week lead time, so, will have it here just in time for the weather to cool down some.... Neighbors won't even know it there... until I decide to use it
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Got a quote from the Alumatower folks today.... ouch... But, I think this is the right solution and my SFO, err... wife, isn't going to kill me over it...
8 week lead time, so, will have it here just in time for the weather to cool down some.... Neighbors won't even know it there... until I decide to use it Let your neighbors know that you will be offline for a while and they can talk freely on their cell phones without you being able to listen in. Hint that you can also hear them because their TV speaker pretty much acts like a microphone. |
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Let your neighbors know that you will be offline for a while and they can talk freely on their cell phones without you being able to listen in. Hint that you can also hear them because their TV speaker pretty much acts like a microphone. Quoted:
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Got a quote from the Alumatower folks today.... ouch... But, I think this is the right solution and my SFO, err... wife, isn't going to kill me over it...
8 week lead time, so, will have it here just in time for the weather to cool down some.... Neighbors won't even know it there... until I decide to use it Let your neighbors know that you will be offline for a while and they can talk freely on their cell phones without you being able to listen in. Hint that you can also hear them because their TV speaker pretty much acts like a microphone. Remember the old cordless phones..... With a good receiver they could be heard for a few miles. |
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Remember the old cordless phones..... With a good receiver they could be heard for a few miles. Quoted:
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Got a quote from the Alumatower folks today.... ouch... But, I think this is the right solution and my SFO, err... wife, isn't going to kill me over it...
8 week lead time, so, will have it here just in time for the weather to cool down some.... Neighbors won't even know it there... until I decide to use it Let your neighbors know that you will be offline for a while and they can talk freely on their cell phones without you being able to listen in. Hint that you can also hear them because their TV speaker pretty much acts like a microphone. Remember the old cordless phones..... With a good receiver they could be heard for a few miles. Oh yeah.... my dad may or may not have beat my ass over that.....
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I knew a ham back in 93 whn i was a newb
He said when he moved in, he wanted to order a pizza but had no Dialtone installed at his new house yet He took the DTMF mic off his kenwood 2 meter and put it on his TS-680, tuned to 49mhz and called dominos Ive wonder for all these years if he was pulling my leg LOLOL |
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Lighting is a weird creature.
I was working in my shop a month ago and it was struck by lightning when I was in it. Thought the world was ending. All my tools and incandescant lights were fine. Took out all of my 55 watt CFLs ($$$), and a couple battery chargers. I found blown fuses in each of them. Had a Yaesu HT and a Baofeng ht both plugged into the same outlets as the chargers and they seem fine. My shop is in an old barn, with lightning rods on the top. I would have loved to seen a video of what it looked like when it was hit. Only evidence on the outside was a few melted shingles alongside a metal roof edging piece. |
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I knew a ham back in 93 whn i was a newb He said when he moved in, he wanted to order a pizza but had no Dialtone installed at his new house yet He took the DTMF mic off his kenwood 2 meter and put it on his TS-680, tuned to 49mhz and called dominos Ive wonder for all these years if he was pulling my leg LOLOL Well.... it's not entirely impossible but it's improbable. The 680 does have 6m and will probably transmit around 49 mhz with the proper diodes removed, but I'm not sure how he'd signal a base station to go off-hook. If there was a base station that would do it easily then it should work, but as I recall most handsets transmitted a tone burst to make the base station go off-hook. |