Like many of you in the UK today, we've had some pretty biblical rain, hail, thunder and lightning this afternoon. In the midst of a hailstorm the likes of which I have only seen in certain parts of the US, there was a crack of lightning that was very close by indeed (I've been in buildings when they've been struck by lightning so I know what to expect - this was close, but not that close). The power went out and after the worst of the storm had passed I ventured out to the boiler room to go and check on the main board and then back to the reset the consumer units. All seemed well except that the phones weren't working - or rather, the fixed landline was OK but the base unit for the handheld portables was dead as a doornail. A quick run upstairs to check out the BT router box - also dead. Subbed in an old BT box and all working OK, so the box itself had been fried. Oh dear...
So, having spent the last hour going through everything it would seem that any item that was mains powered and also connected to the phone line has been fried. Thank the Lord I had unplugged the main hifi system last night and not got around top plugging it all back in. Although there was a Unitiqute that was on and playing when the strike happened, it's using wireless due to its location - It's working fine, phew!
As for the fixed landline phones, if lightning had indeed struck the phone system as it would appear occurred in this instance, how come they are all OK (including a rather fancy old '80s B&O phone) while the mains powered phones/boxes have been killed?
Posted on: 26 June 2016 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Richard, if a telephone cable took a lightning strike it would have almost certainly have been vaporised and the phone system would I suspect be completely in operable in that local area. I suspect it's more a mains pulse from a nearby strike that destroyed the powersupply in the DECT phone base station.. probably a SMPS .. and such powersupplies are sensitive to mains spikes and pulses. I have had a nearby strike take out a NAS SMPS when everything else in the house has been fine. UK phone master sockets have surge arresters in them to mitigate pulses induced from a nearby strike... but obviously useless for a direct strike.
Simon
Posted on: 27 June 2016 by Bananahead
When we used to live in the mistake that is the UK (sorry) the house next door had a strike and the modem in both the PC and the Sky box were killed. The phone itself was fine as was everything else in the house.
The local sub-sub-station was killed though so it took some hours before we knew this.
Posted on: 29 June 2016 by Salmon Dave
So I guess official Naim advice is still to unplug equipment from the mains if there's a possibility. Was it just a coincidence that yours was unplugged overnight Richard?
Also, I was always told to unplug roof aerials at the wall - still true presumably for TV and VHF, even since the demise of CRT TVs...?
Posted on: 29 June 2016 by Richard Dane
No coincidence. I wasn't taking chances with the Hifi. I'd also unplugged the TVs from the aerial. However, that didn't stop the aerial amplifier from getting fried as well. According to the aerial installers who came by to fix it yesterday, a lightning strike fairly close by is all it can take - the static EMP can be picked up by the aerial and any adjacent wiring (such as the telephone cabling) and zap any connected electronics, which is what appears to have happened here.
Posted on: 30 June 2016 by ChrisSU
We had a lightning strike a couple of years ago, which hit the phone line. The BT box exploded, and at the splitter, the charge must have chosen the internet wiring, as the phone was unscathed. The router, an Airport Extreme, and a Unitiserve were all fried. They were housed in a solid Victorian mahogany cabinet, which was blown apart, and the room filled with smoke.
Fortunately, our insurance covered it. I now keep a sharp eye out for lightning, and use a handy iPhone app to watch it's direction of travel. I guess that's shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but better than waiting for lightning to strike twice, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphors.
Posted on: 01 July 2016 by ursus262
I read your post with interest, Richard, as you mention the grandness of electrical storms in the US. Straight away I recollected my memory of the worst electrical storm I have ever experienced in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in Minnesota. I had only just arrived in my hotel which was right next to two terrestrial TV transmitter towers. The storm arrived and I've never heard anything like it. The power in the hotel went off, unsurprisingly, and people were stuck in the lifts. Cue the Fire Department, then the Police, trying to get everybody calm and to rescue those stuck in the lifts. It was pandemonium!
Dave
Posted on: 01 July 2016 by Richard Dane
Dave, I could well imagine. The sound of being struck by lightning right above your head is somewhat akin to an artillery gun being fired close by. I recall a weekend spent up in the Catskills with a girlfriend. We were staying at a hotel on Lake Mohonk and, as a big electrical storm closed in, during dinner we had a perfect view from our window side table across the lake at the skytop tower as it was struck over and over by lightning. And then there was an almighty bang, lights went out and screams - lightning had hit roof of the restaurant, just the once thankfully, but unforgettable.
I used to work on the top floor of WTC2 in NYC and was told by colleagues that big electrical storms could be "quite interesting" but perfectly safe. I was glad that during my time there I was never in the office when lightning struck, however, I did have a great view of the WTC towers from my apartment on Bleecker Street down in the Village and watching Summer electrical storms at night was quite a spectacle - there was at least one night where I had lost count of how many times the towers were hit, over and over again for more than an hour.
Posted on: 01 July 2016 by ChrisSU
Derek Wright posted:
What is the name of the Ap - Please
I find an app called WX Charts EU to be good for tracking electrical storms. You can see from the lightning map which direction a storm is moving, which helps when making an informed decision about when to unplug, and when it might be safe to reconnect. Of course, it's not a forecast, I would look at Met Office data for that, but being able to watch storms moving on a map in real time (more or less) is useful.
