Lightening Strike and multiple problems

[DRATIFK]

Ok 6:30Am Sunday here in Rochester NY My house gets hit with Lightening. The kids are crying the fire alarm is blaring and its chaos. But we all survived. The fire dept comes and goes over the house no damage as far as they can tell.

Then I start finding all the problems. Computer with weird message keyboard failure (eventually had to reformat the HD). The clock in the living is working but the time is upside down (never heard of this before). The Scanner is dead. The wireless modem is dead, the Sunrocket phone box is dead. My security company was here fixing the 4 burnt out fire detectors ($1000 bill).

Now to the DISH 622. No damage to the dish but I lost all HD channels the SD channels are there but only after the reboot.
I see 129 and 119 but nothing else. Guide data gone and all timers erased. Previous recorded shows still there. The dish guy is fixing it now but what do you think happened?

I no longer have the sunrocket service connected to the receiver since the adapter was lost but waiting for a new adapter. The guide data comes from the dish right?? Not the phone line. HOw long can I go without the phoneline?

I had about $20,000 in electronics so I guess I'm pretty lucky overall. Did file a claim with the insurance company though.

The Dish 622 Receiver has a expensive monster surge protector but i guess the charge came through the Coax and/or phone line. Anyway to check to see if the modem on the unit is fried without phone service?

[Cold Irons]

Lightening strikes can be very strange. Keep track of your electronics - one experience with a strike on a sailboat, electronics worked OK for a few days after the strike, but slowly deteriorated & eventually lost pretty much all of them (GPS, fishfinder, VHF radio, etc.) Don't know what the physics are, but apparently impacted the wiring/circuitry so that it was not immediate.

At the house - got my PC once via the phone line - not the AC power. Same deal - big UPS/Surge, but the dial-up modem had visible black marks!

[LtMunst]

Now to the DISH 622. No damage to the dish but I lost all HD channels the SD channels are there but only after the reboot.
I see 129 and 119 but nothing else. Guide data gone and all timers erased. Previous recorded shows still there. The dish guy is fixing it now but what do you think happened?



The 622 may not be damaged at all. It could be the LNB or switch that got fried.

[DRATIFK]

The 622 may not be damaged at all. It could be the LNB or switch that got fried.


Well you are right they just replaced the Dp44 Switch and all is back on track. Except I'm worried the modem on the 622 is fried. I won't know untill I get the new sunrocket adapter and hook up my phone again.

Untill then I can atleast enjoy my HD Shows again. The Lnb was ok but the service people said the Dish needed to be repositioned. Lightening sure is strange. So many problems but no real site of damage on the house itself. Not sure what I can do to protect myself in the future. I do already have surge protectors. Gonna have an electrician come through and check out the electrical sysytem. Also I was told to have a home inspector do a one over on the house to make sure there is no damage on the roof that I can't see.

Still finding things that didn't make it. My Surveillance camera power adapter and my wife's cell phone are shot also.

[mikeyinokc]

Watch anything with electronic circuit boards. I have had two lightening strikes in the past 8 years. In addition to taking out some of the more common electronics, one took out the ice maker in the fridge, one took out the circuit board on the central heat and air system.

Lightening does take strange paths through the house. My insurance company was very good to me both times.

Good luck.

[mungaman]

Well you are right they just replaced the Dp44 Switch and all is back on track. Except I'm worried the modem on the 622 is fried. I won't know untill I get the new sunrocket adapter and hook up my phone again.

Untill then I can atleast enjoy my HD Shows again. The Lnb was ok but the service people said the Dish needed to be repositioned. Lightening sure is strange. So many problems but no real site of damage on the house itself. Not sure what I can do to protect myself in the future. I do already have surge protectors. Gonna have an electrician come through and check out the electrical sysytem. Also I was told to have a home inspector do a one over on the house to make sure there is no damage on the roof that I can't see.

Still finding things that didn't make it. My Surveillance camera power adapter and my wife's cell phone are shot also.


if the modem is shot and the installer left you a copy with an 1800 number at the top, give that number a call, and explain that a technician was just out and you have determined that the modem on your 622 is dead. they'll try and get someone back out there ASAP or send a replacement reciever.

[robert koerner]

One time, lightning struck near a house I lived in.

It shot out of electrical out lets.

We lost the submergible water pump, rotator control box, mast mounted antenna amplifier, and telephone ans machine on the first floor.

In the basement, we found two dead mice, near electrical outlets, and one side of my headphones blown; they were sitting on a desk that had my ham radio gear on it.

Forcing us to have receivers plugged into the phone line is a horrible idea. Many times the shortest path for a lightning surge is across a circuit board to the telephone line from the AC line.

[Donp]

Here is a related question. When my Dish 500 was installed many moons ago the installer did not ground the onput line fron the dish to the reciever. The wildblue installer, a different person, grounded his dish in two places before it got into the house. Should the Dishnetwork installer have grounded the E* stuff too?

[DonLandis]

Lightning damage comes in two forms Direct Hit and static discharge. Yours sounds like a direct hit for sure, with minor damage. I know it doesn't sound minor to you but in many direct hits, homes are destroyed, trees get uprooted and split in two and fall onto houses. You were very lucky.

The other is known as the silent destroyer. Stuff like a modem in a computer just fails after a thunderstorm. Static discharge can usually be protected against with good grounding that meets local codes. Plus having all your sensitive electronics on surge protectors with grounded receptacles. With that protection you should be home safe. Unfortunately there is little you can do to prevent a direct hit if it is your unlucky day. The static discharge protection/ grounding will help but will not prevent it from happening. eg how do you ground that big oak tree? The good thing is direct hits are far less frequent than static discharge damage on unprotected electronics. How many people have everything they own properly grounded and surge protected? I have done great due diligence here but I would admit, there are a number of electronics in the house not protected. Stuff like you mentioned, clocks, CD player in the living room etc. Only the expensive stuff here is adequately protected for static discharge.

[Richard King]

Many moons ago one of my c-band customers had a lightning strike at the dish (a 10' mesh dish). The LNB inside the nosecone cover exploded. The nosecone split in two. The multicore cable running to the house was fused into a molten mass and some of it popped out of the ground. The receiver inside the house was fried. The television was fried. And for some reason the customer's convection oven was fried. Lightning is totally unpredictable once it finds its way into the house.

[DonLandis]

Hey Richard... I am also one of the few direct hit club members. Back when I lived in NY, I had a 120ft tower for my Ham radio antennas. It ran up alongside the house and I was foolish enough not to have the tower grounded properly. I think I had a 3/4 x 3 ft pipe driven into the ground and hose clamp strapped to one leg of the tower base. Not exactly code. :) Anyway when it got hit the tower's base section exploded out of the ground and the fell between my house and the neighbor's house. It burned the siding from the roof top to the ground but I was lucky as it didn't burn through and the rest of the house. I ran outside and had a garden hose and got it out before it spread. My wife called the firedept and they arrived about 15 minutes later. I'm sure if it would have gotten beyond that the FD would have been too late to save the house. I was lucky! Guess what? NO damage to anything inside, nothing. Go figure.

[LtMunst]

And don't forget.... stay out of the shower and off the phone during a T-storm. Some think it is an old wives tale, but people really do get killed that way..especially if the house is not properly grounded.

[robert koerner]

Both of my owner's manuals, 510 and 522, state, and have pictures of the antenna (system) electrically connected to earthen ground.

My dish has a 10 gauge wire connected to a grounding block; coax is connected to the block; the block is connect with 10 gauge, solid conductor, to a metal electrical outlet on my roof (for a swamp cooler). The electrical outlet is connect to earthen ground for AC.

10 gauge wire will evaporate if hit by lightening.

I do not have expertise to suggest how your dish system should be grounded. But, it certainly seems like a good practice to have a way for a surge to dissipate, other than down your coaxial cable, into your house.

[robert koerner]

Here we go:http://ekb.dbstalk.com/7

Info and grounding and why it should be to one earthen ground.

[Stewart Vernon]

And don't forget.... stay out of the shower and off the phone during a T-storm. Some think it is an old wives tale, but people really do get killed that way..especially if the house is not properly grounded.

Shower yes... phones also yes... but not if you are talking on a cordless or cellular phone.

Only way you get killed/hurt by a lightning strike when on a cordless/cellular phone is if you are struck... which of course would happen whether you were on the phone or not if you were standing in the wrong place!

On a related note... I'm also amazed at the number of folks who worry about watching TV during a storm... they will turn off the TV but leave it plugged in. If you unplug it, fine then you are protecting it... but if you leave it plugged in the wall you might as well be watching it!

[manicd]

And don't forget.... stay out of the shower and off the phone during a T-storm. Some think it is an old wives tale, but people really do get killed that way..especially if the house is not properly grounded.


They did an episode of Mythbusters on that very "old wives tale". They proved it espicially about not being grounded.

[mplsjeffm]

afterreading this, I'm glad I use a wierless phone jack to the 622 box