Potential Storm Damage - How to prevent?

[richad]

Hi guys,

I operate 2 streams in the Sydney, NSW area. Going towards the summer time now, there are several large electrical storms that roll through my area in a week. Every time I turn the stream off and disconnect the antenna cables from my scanners in fear of lightning strikes. Overall this amounts up to a lot of downtime.

What do other stream providers use (hardware wise) to prevent damaged equipment from lightning strikes?

A couple of months back a power surge traveled through my ADSL router -> Wireless AP -> Switch -> Server

I had to replace all of the above. That is why I am overly paranoid I guess.

Thanks

[Bellingham_Scanner]

There really is not much that can withstand a direct lightning strike.

So really disconnecting is the safest if you live in a high lighting strike area.

Consider switching to an indoor antenna during storms to reduce downtime.

There are lightning suppressors designed for coax that can be used. I would recommend the gas discharge tube type that is also a ground block, and make sure it is GROUNDED!

I believe you can find similar devices for your phone line.

For your electric power look into whole house surge suppression

[richad]

Thanks mate,

I will look into the gas discharge tube. Looks interesting

[rafdav]

there's no protection from a DIRECT lightning strike. NONE!
Do as you've been doing by unplugging everything and you're that much more safe from damage.
Here's a little side note to add: even if you unplug everything, and a lightning strike is within a few feet of your equipment, you more than likely will suffer some damage. That bolt of lightning is measured in the hundreds of thousand volts or more, with amperage being extremely high also. This causes an electro-magnetic field affect that damages sensitive electronic components.
Even if you used an indoor antenna, and battery back up, you're connected to the internet, whereby a bolt of lightning hitting that wire travels into your equipment; damage done. So, do as you're been doing; unplug everything.
I live in the lightning capitol of the U.S. of A., east of Tampa, Florida. I unplug it all...

[richad]

Hi rafdav,
Yes I will have to keep doing the whole unplugging business. Only problem is that if I am at work, there is no way to physically disconnect the BNC connectors and disconnect power to the hardware. I can remote shutdown (through iLO) but that is about it.

Its a real issue specially since storms seem to appear out of nowhere all of a sudden.

But thanks guys for your replies, just wanted to know whether I missed something obvious.