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  • Lightning has struck!

    This morning we had the worst thunderstorm in 15 years!

    Two lightning bolts struck simultaneous.

    One of the bolts struck a Pine in the forest behind the house across our street.

    The bolt gouged out a big chunk of the tree.

    That bolt moved to the electric wires feeding all the hoses on that side of the street and effectively killed the electric feed and everything that was not shielded.

    From the house nearest ours it moved alongside the phone lines and killed on of our modems, one analogue cordless phone and the base station to our two other digital cordless phones (and possibly one of the two cordless phones) and lastly our ?phone number shower? (I don?t know the exact English name for the device).

    The other lightning bolt struck the neighbourhoods big satellite dish feeding the television cable and possibly also killed most of the TV sets and VCR?s connected to it.

    We were not connected to it because it was too expensive at the time it was new (10 years ago).

    When the first bolts started to rain down (I counted 20 flashes under an hour) I was ripping the phone and electric cords out of the wall in my room.

    And when I was a meter or so from the digital phones in our main corridor the ac adaptors blew in a display worthy an approval from ILM (Industrial Light and Magic).

    I rushed past (There was no reason to yank the cords since I was pretty sure it wouldn?t matter anymore) and ripped out the cords under my mothers computer desk.

    But I was to late, the computer and printer was OK but the modem was literally burned.

    On my way back to my room I removed the antenna cord from our digital terrestrial receiver.

    At the time I thought it was broken as well because of all the blue sparks flying from everything metallic?.

    I could smell ozone!

    The most important survived: My Modem!

    In reality we were lucky since the lighting only travelled in to our house through the phone cord!

    I can only vouch for the past 15 year but my father has talked to my grandfather and he says that a lightning bolt hasn?t stuck nearer than a mile from us in 50 years time!
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

  • #2
    ARGHH!

    My connect speed witch has been a steady 52kbps is now a steady 45.3 kbps!

    It is probably the phone lines that is busted!

    The modem was disconected before the lighning struck!!

    This is @£$?!"#¤%&
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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    • #3
      Just count yourself lucky that you didn't get a direct hit.
      I've got a weather station on our roof and luckily the day before I just fitted an opto isolater to the com port on my pc. There was a big flash and bang outside the Max temp displayed suddenly was 630c for the day. The consol had crashed so i had lost the data stored there but at least the pc was safe. Threw.
      Chief Lemon Buyer no more Linux sucks but not as much
      Weather nut and sad git.

      My Weather Page

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      • #4
        Explore all of the advanced power management products we offer and start protecting your home from surges, spikes, and faulty power conditions today.


        Probably the best surge protectors out there.. they insure up to $5,000,000 worth of connected equipment if it is destroyed by lightning and you are properly connected though their surge protectors. I have two of them in line before you even get to my UPS ;o)

        They also make dedicated products for phone systems, cable, etc.

        Unfortunately, I don't know if they have any products for the European market..

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        • #5
          URRRG!

          I have phoned my telco company (Telia - hope they burn in hell) and they say:

          Well there is nothing wrong with our line....

          I have run an line quality check on it and it is in great shape!


          But it still only connects at 45.3!

          Hoppefully it will be better tommorow!
          If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

          Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Lightning has struck!

            Originally posted by Technoid
            ...and lastly our ?phone number shower? (I don?t know the exact English name for the device)...
            I think the device you're talking about is commonly called CallerID or Call Display over here
            Lady, people aren't chocolates. Do you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. But I don't find them half as annoying as I find naive, bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine. -- Dr. Perry Cox

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Technoid
              URRRG!

              I have phoned my telco company (Telia - hope they burn in hell) and they say:

              Well there is nothing wrong with our line....

              I have run an line quality check on it and it is in great shape!


              But it still only connects at 45.3!

              Hehe, unless they've changed policy recently, the largest phone company in Denmark won't do anything if you can connect at at least 9600 bps on an analog line!
              "That's right fool! Now I'm a flying talking donkey!"

              P4 2.66, 512 mb PC2700, ATI Radeon 9000, Seagate Barracude IV 80 gb, Acer Al 732 17" TFT

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              • #8
                You won't belive it!

                My damn serialport had reset it self to 9600 bps instead of 115200bps!!!

                My speed is up to 50.6 kbps and thats usualy happens 1 out of 10 times!

                Everything is great again!

                BTW:

                Thanks agallag!


                There is currently only one house on the row across the street that has gotthen the power back

                KvHagedorn, doesn't surgesupressors on phone lines mess with conect speeds?


                CHHAS, Back in the 80'tis Telia (then under the name "The swedish Royale phone company" and was a state monopoly) changed policy so local calls had a time rate.
                Erlier (before those evil things called modems came in to the picture) the local calls had only cost one marker!

                And ofcourse in the past 10 years Telia has secretly (in public ) succesfully tried to hinder the alternative (read less expensive) means of internet connections!

                at 12 skr an hour (aprox 1,2$) they are making huge profits!
                Because they own the distribution net every other telco has to pay them!
                If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                Comment


                • #9
                  KvHagedorn, doesn't surgesupressors on phone lines mess with conect speeds?
                  Doesn't seem to be a problem on my 56k dialup, but I will be getting dsl by the end of the month (I hope) and will let you know then. Anyone else have inteference from surge protectors on phone lines?

                  I am actually getting a better surge protector than I have now. The new unit has punch downs on either side.. with the new cat6 wire I ran, I will have no breaks from the service box to the protector, then directly into the dsl modem. If the surge protector causes any problems, I'll just run straight in to the modem.

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                  • #10
                    I run my DSL line into a (relatively) cheap Belkin surge protector, and I notice zero drop in line speed.

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                    • #11
                      The serialports in my parents computer also whent "POP"!

                      So I have just ordered a New Motherboard and a Thunderbird 1.33Ghz! :d

                      The Thunderbird is for me!

                      My parents can have my Duron 700!

                      And the insurance is paying most of it!
                      If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                      Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hehe. That's pretty cool, technoid!
                        "..so much for subtlety.."

                        System specs:
                        Gainward Ti4600
                        AMD Athlon XP2100+ (o.c. to 1845MHz)

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Technoid
                          The serialports in my parents computer also whent "POP"!

                          So I have just ordered a New Motherboard and a Thunderbird 1.33Ghz! :d

                          The Thunderbird is for me!

                          My parents can have my Duron 700!

                          And the insurance is paying most of it!
                          Maybe clouds do have silver linings
                          When you own your own business you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours.

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                          • #14
                            Came in late on this one, the 'call number display thingy' gets different names everywhere. In the telephone exchange it gets called 'Calling line Indentifier'

                            last I checked the the actually data sent to the box is called the 'caller ID' and in Australia we call/called them 'CND: Calling Number Display'

                            Your phone company should be able to install a lightning arrester for the phone line, to prevent future problems. It's a small box that connects the phone line directly to earth in case of a voltage spike (+250V or so)

                            The type i'm thinking of is a little gas isolator, it normally doesn't help if some prat connects a power line to your phone, but it stops things like smokeing modems in case of a lightening strike

                            It's probably worth the investment

                            Dan
                            Last edited by Sasq; 11 July 2001, 17:39.
                            Juu nin to iro


                            English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

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                            • #15
                              I like in thunderstorm central, midwest USA. T-storms are a very common occurance. After every thunder storm I have at least one person as me why their modem doesn't work anymore. Had 2 t-storms two days in a row this week. The latest victim...my Dad's modem...guess what I get to do when he gets back from vacation...
                              “Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out”
                              –The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

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