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Thread: Lightning strikes again

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    Default Lightning strikes again

    A hit near the house took out all the sat gear recently. TV, DVD, Decoders, LNB's, Motek drivers, the lot

    Looks like the pulse came through the coax cabling, since the electronics were unplugged at the time. Being familiar with electronics I had a look at the gear vis a vis repair, but lightning damage is extensive throughout everything and, in my experience, never worth chasing up.

    Got a new tele and vast box and a GTsat v8 Nova (Freesat) on order, along with a replacement Motek box. Also a replacement c band lnb from Strong (SRT L928) which is a new release model and hopefully better than the old Zinwell it replaces.

    I'll now have to consider a coax inline surge arrester and wondering if anyone has experience and advice regarding these?
    4.6m C band dish, numerous Strong boxes, GTsat V8 Nova and even an old BMAC somewhere ---



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    Wow that is bad news ... were you around at the time, did you hear the lightning strike.

    I have never seen or heard of in line coax surge arresters, during my Telstra days we used to have lightning surge arresters across our UG copper phone cables at business premises POE MDFs, these were placed in parallel obviously with an earth return to shunt away the surge.

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    During the storms in Sydney in January I had an Optus Cable modem and the connected Optus Router (Netgear) both fried. Also fried the lan card on a computer connected by cable to the router. Everything else was okay. The Optus techie said this was quite common and the tech support had a pretty good idea what was going on straight away. Optus replaced both no charge.

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    Quote Originally Posted by checkitout View Post
    Wow that is bad news ... were you around at the time, did you hear the lightning strike.

    I have never seen or heard of in line coax surge arresters, during my Telstra days we used to have lightning surge arresters across our UG copper phone cables at business premises POE MDFs, these were placed in parallel obviously with an earth return to shunt away the surge.
    In bed asleep. The "crack/crash" woke me up - along with the cat using me for a claws out launch pad - - -

    Lost a cordless phone as well. It was only two days old and replaced one smoked by a more distant strike earlier. Who said lightning never strikes twice - - -?

    I've seen inline coax gas arrestors with "F" connectors advertised, but they're expensive (>$250) and i wonder how effective they are?
    4.6m C band dish, numerous Strong boxes, GTsat V8 Nova and even an old BMAC somewhere ---

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    Did a sat dish re-cable job in the Blue Mountains recently as a result of the storms.... same deal with lightning.

    The ironic thing was both the LNB and the decoder survived but the copper on the centre conductor was black all the way down to the wall outlet connector, of which the internal contacts and insulation had vaporised... which may have saved the decoder by breaking the connection.

    First time I've ever seen a decoder survive such a hit.

    Cheap-ish arrestors are only good for minor spikes and even very expensive commercial arrestors are no match for a direct strike, which is why lightning rods are used on larger commercial installs, as they are designed to attract lightning and ground it, but even then, gear doesn't always survive.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Cheap-ish arrestors are only good for minor spikes and even very expensive commercial arrestors are no match for a direct strike, which is why lightning rods are used on larger commercial installs, as they are designed to attract lightning and ground it, but even then, gear doesn't always survive.
    That's what I figured. About as helpful as a "surge protected" power board.

    Still, might make me feel safer if I install one, you know, placebo effect - - -
    4.6m C band dish, numerous Strong boxes, GTsat V8 Nova and even an old BMAC somewhere ---

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    You should know that the effectiveness of any surge arrestor is inversely proportional to the value of the equipment that it is protecting.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    You should know that the effectiveness of any surge arrestor is inversely proportional to the value of the equipment that it is protecting.
    Lol! And a corollary to that would be Karen Blixen's post fire remark from "Out Of Africa": "Insurance is for pessimists"

    Another way to look at this problem would be to rationalise the fact that the sat gear had managed to survive 40 years without protection, but, on the other hand, two phones in as many days is a bad omen - - -
    4.6m C band dish, numerous Strong boxes, GTsat V8 Nova and even an old BMAC somewhere ---

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