lightning hit!

[Bill, KD0HG]

Got home from work and was sitting on porch with storm moving in. Black clouds, much thunder.Then it happened.. My tower took a direct hit while I was some 100 feet away.

The sound was immediate after the flash. A loud CRACK! Like shorting out a fully charged 100uF cap with a screwdriver but ear-ringing louder.

The apparent damage:

My internet router is dead. Power supply also gone.

Still use a CRT and got magnetized, with a screen in garish reds and blues. Office computer OK.

The 600 ohm balanced line up to my zepp was melted off the wire antenna and is now dangling down the side of the tower. QRT on 75 for now.

Pictures later.

Bill
Sent via Blackberry

[WA3VJB]

"Oh, and I'm here to tell about it."

That's the best part.


I can see you are getting some stuff in the area.

Here's what it looked like at about the time you posted.  (3:05 your time) The radar shot one frame earlier (15 minutes) had just dropped out of the scrolll or I would have had that one for you.  It was much more orange and surly (those are meteorological terms).

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Got home from work and was sitting on porch with storm moving in. Black clouds, much thunder.Then it happened.. My tower took a direct hit while I was some 100 feet away.

It's the Radio Gods getting even for that crack about the glass ether in your other thread, Bill. 

We've got more storms passing through here now. Fortunately not directly overhead(yet). When 'JN was here in early July during the big heat, we had some naaaasty storms pass over us. Lightning with instant BANGs and a *click* heard in the garage during each discharge. NOT fun.

Had similar damage to yours a couple years back with a direct or near-direct hit. Took out a phone, cable/internet splitter, and some other lightweight, disposable gear. The tube gear survived just fine.

[K7EDL]

 a friend who is an engineer for a power company had a lightning strike two miles from his house, I don't remember all the details but it took out the TV, refrigerator and just about everything else electronic in his house. He thought he was protected. Hopefully everything else in your house is OK.

73

Eric

[W2VW]

I suggest moving to New Jersey.

[K3ZS]

I had a direct hit a few years ago.  Be sure to check everything.   I had a controller in my oil furnqace get fried, did not notice it until the following winter.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Wow. New router and back online. Internet connection is via a wireless provider using 5.8 GHz Motorola microwave shot for 5 miles.

The Motorola gear is on the tower, it serves some 50 area customers in addition to this house. My connection to the internet gear is via a 75' run of direct burial CAT-5 out to the tower.

Well, after the hit the 100bT port out at the tower got fried as did my router and NIC in the house. Just replaced both.

The TV preamp out on the tower is gone, my next repair.

My double extended zepp for 75 is on the ground, burned into several pieces of #12 copperweld.

And the electric fence charger out by the barn was torched. But, lucky me, everything else survived. No damage to boatanchors, I credit this mostly to the burial of the three runs of Heliax and CAT-5 between the house and tower.

That was the darndest thing I ever experienced, some 100 feet from where the bolt hit. Incredible "CRAACK!" and simultaneous flash, then I could hear the thunder echoing off a nearby hill.

More work to do yet..

Bill

[W3GMS]

Bill,
Its very likely due to the E.O.S. (electrical over stress) that thing will likely fail over the next 6 months or so.  I had a similar experience here about 25 years ago and I thought I had found all the problems but as time went by other things just started to crap out.  My repeater system was a good example.  Had it back up and running in a few weeks but the individual component failures over the next 6 months were extensive.  Most active devices ultimately needed replaced. 

I wish you the best and hope the problems are not lingering ones. 

Joe, W3GMS   

[K9PNP]

That was the darndest thing I ever experienced, some 100 feet from where the bolt hit. Incredible "CRAACK!" and simultaneous flash, then I could hear the thunder echoing off a nearby hill.

I can identify with your situation.  About 20 years ago was in a Field Artillery Tactical Operations Center located about 100 meters outside an artillery impact area during live fire exercise.  Fast moving little storm moved over the area and a tree got struck about 50 meters from the TOC.  Everybody was on the ground; thought it was a 155 mm round out of safe.  Finally figured out it was something else when there was no shrapnel coming through the trees.  Woke everybody up.  Decimated the tree.

Glad you survived the hit.

[Bill, KD0HG]

All of that survived. Absolutely nothing in the House was harmed.

FWIW, there's a solid-state surge protector in the home load center, too.

None of the bostanchor gear harmed.

But the home router, and NIC for the office computer got fried. Had to replace both today.

My double-extened Zepp for 75 made of #12 Copperweld. Burnt into at least 3 pieces and on the ground. Haven t even looked at the 9:1 matching balun for it.

Damage might have been worse if I hadn't put a ring ground around the house foundation.

Now, I'm tomorrow on the phone with Winegard. All of our TV is off-air digital. Still some 40 channels of crap, not willing to pay another $100/month for satellite TV.

Just put another charger on the livestock fence.

We are culturally deprived, I guess.

Bill

[John K5PRO]

What kind of livestock do you have?

[n1bnc]

When I used to live in Magnolia, a suburb of Gloucester, MA, the pine tree that held my 20m delta loop was hit. It had a BN86 box at the apex (no balun, just used it as a connection point) and all that was left was about a foot of wire (18g) and a piece of the box. What was left of the RG59 coax was melted down until the coax was running along the ground. It was attached to the station at the time, and all I lost in the station was a fuse to the Heathkit SB301. However, alarm system parts in the house did not do so well. I considered myself quite lucky.