Experiences with lightning strikes

[blakews2217]

Well I got my first experience with lightning strikes this morning. I was about to get up for work ( I work close to home) and was rolling over in bed a 6:56am. I herd thunder and though to myself I should unplug my antenna. As I’m rolling out of bed, KAPOW, lightning hit the Antron-99 I had up. On the bright side, it was a small strike. The lightning arrestor did its job although I need to upgrade the ground wire now. I powered the radio up and it still works, I didn’t key up though. I had some fun talking skip to Texas and Florida last night from Illinois so I know the radio is good, idk about now. I’ll test when I get home. But I’d like to know your guys experience with lightning strikes and what the damage done was.


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[mmckenna]

Many people assume it won't happen to them. Most are just lucky.

While it may have been a direct strike (you'd probably see antenna damage) a nearby strike can induce enough energy to cause damage.

Taking lightning protection seriously is a good thing. Glad your gear is mostly OK.


I'm fortunate to live in an area of the country that sees very little lightning activity. We do occasionally get it, though.
Many years ago we had a strike hit at work. Didn't damage any radios, but managed to get into the underground telephone cable plant, follow a path back to an old terminal server system, and blow that out, about a mile away from where the strike was thought to hit.
Took a long time before they figured out installing appropriate protectors on the cable plant. Goes back a long time when someone thought they could save a few bucks by skipping it, because "it never happens here".

 

[zz0468]

I've never had a hit at home, but 40 years of mountain top site experience has taught me a lot. I've seen very energetic hits turn the earth around the ground rods and buried ground wires to glass, making the ground system useless. I've seen direct hits splash molten metal from antennas and tower lights. I've seen the tops blown off of every chip and transistor in every radio at a site.

I've also seen some weird stuff, like microwave radios where only the pnp transistors on the top half of the radios were blown. Or, entering the building and seeing the lights on, dimly, and it didn't matter if the switch was on or off. And a blown neutral on a pole pig after a hit, where it was the floating neutral that did the damage, not the actual lightning. I've also seen St. Elmo's fire streaming off the pointy end of things on towers just before they were hit.

Yes, the sites and equipment in all of the above WERE properly grounded to current standards of the day. I guess that's what happens when you're the highest thing in a 40 mile radius.

Fun stuff.

I've also seen direct hits that had absolutely no effect on the equipment whatsoever. I've been at ground zero at sites during a strike several times, including multiple strikes in the same storm. Yeah, it's loud. As you can imagine, I have a healthy respect for the stuff, and can get neurotic about proper grounding. But I'm also aware that "proper grounding" can't always save you. Some hidden flaw somewhere can make it all null and void.

 

[mmckenna]

I was on a ship that was hit by lightning.
Didn't damage the radios, radar or any of the bridge/navigation equipment.

Took out an engine management computer down in the engine room.

Lightning doesn't play by mans rules.

 

[krokus]

When I worked on consumer electronics, we had stuff come in from one house, which had reportedly taken a hit on their service drop. (To the point of sparks shooting out of outlets.)

The VCR that the road tech brought back to the shop was a sight. All of the RCA jacks were blackened. The tuner and power supply, which were adjacent, were damaged way beyond repair.

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[blakews2217]

The building at my work was hit like that once. The cheap *** plastic fm radio caught fire. The thing still works.


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[SCPD]

My cobra 142GTL got hit by lightning and all that happened was the trail on the pc board opened up by the antenna.It was a week old! But I soldered a wire and after that it worked fine.No fire here.
You should have seen the meters light up,it was brighter than the sun.

 

[JamesO]

As I say, there is no such thing as Lightening Protection, only Damage Reduction!!

About 9 years old sitting in the front kitchen bay window of my house when a LARGE Tulip Poplar tree about 40 feet away took a direct and strong lightening strike. Scared the crap out of me. 2 streaks of stripped bark 4 inches wide down the sides of the tree. Piece of bark all over the yard. Ended up killing the tree.

I was into CB at a young teen and had high mounted ground plane but it was never hit.
Same house about 40 years later was hit. I think the gutters were actually hit because there was a hole in the gutter from flash over to the telephone drop to the house.

The telephone ground block was carbon tracked and shorted, an electronic dimmer for the kitchen lights was damaged and both kitchen florescent light bulbs were blown out that were over the sink and stove but not on the dimmer.

Again, Damage Reduction is the best you can hope for!