Lightning Done Did Us In Again!

[DriVer]

We just had a dinky thunderstorm pass directly over the house. Colleen and I were in the dining room listening to our Sirius and working on a puzzle when a "flash-bang" lit up our dining room. The Sirius immediately went off. (no smoke visible)

Rutt - Roh !!! (Scooby Doo)

In the house, our Sirius runs on a docking station that has a large planar speaker. In trying to push the ON button the unit is presenting with no pulse. I pulled the Sirius out of the docking connector and powered up the radio independently and hooked up an antenna to the unit. The radio seems to be working but we don't have a speaker. So the fact that we didn't loose the radio is a good thing.

Now I have to go and buy a new docking station for our Starmate Model ST-4. The last dock I bought was from Best Buy. Ya can never get ahead .....

Everything else is OK at the moment except for Colleen's nerves. Looks like we ain't through getting whacked by lightning just yet.

[Billieg]

I live in Fl. the lighting capitol of the world. Every outlet has a surge protector on it and my computer equipment has 3 and a power supply backup. I'm thinking of getting one of those whole house protectors that goes in the main box too just to be safe. What a bummer.

[DriVer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billieg I live in Fl. the lighting capitol of the world. Every outlet has a surge protector on it and my computer equipment has 3 and a power supply backup. I'm thinking of getting one of those whole house protectors that goes in the main box too just to be safe. What a bummer.

Thanks form the comeback ..... You know I believe that the mechanism of injury to the base station must have been the Sirius antenna itself which is located on the roof attached to the gutter. The antenna has to have access to the sky. The antenna is on the same side of the house as the flash-bang. Now the strange part - it seems that the antenna is still working since I can get a signal on the Sirius.

The base station was the only thing connected into the plug and I don't have any other damage to our electronics in the house. My next door neighbor - the poor man - lost 3 television sets almost in a row! The refer is on the other side of the wall from where the base station was installed and it's OK! Whew!

We have surge protectors on just about every piece of electronic gear in the house .... Except the darned Sirus base station!

[RJay]

Mike,
Sorry to hear about your mishap. There is not much you can do when a lightning strike hits so close. Did you check out your Progressive Industries unit? The surge protection feature may be damaged. Good Luck.

[DriVer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RJay Mike, Sorry to hear about your mishap. There is not much you can do when a lightning strike hits so close. Did you check out your Progressive Industries unit? The surge protection feature may be damaged. Good Luck.

Fortunately for us the motorhome is about 15 miles from here getting fixed! You are right ... that would have been something that I would have to have look at since the MH & the radio were all on that side where the lightning struck.

[dieselclacker]

Hmmmm, thats twice now. Remind me not to camp next to you!

Seriously, glad it was only a docking station, could have been a lot worse.

Dieselclacker

[wa8yxm]

Use of a "Surge protector" strip (or two) might help with those docking stations in the future... If you find a dock that uses a wall wart with 12 volt out you might get lucky and be able to use the giant surge supressor built into your rig (DC batteries do a fairly decent job) some of them work that way.