farri Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 We`ve been getting severe thunder storms here in the Cairns area for the past week....Mid day, last Wednsday, we coped a beauty here at Deeral. My wife, Frances was sitting on a lounge chair with her bare feet on the tiles and our little dog, Tim Tam, was lying about a metre in front of her when a huge clap of thunder occured, what seemed to be, directly overhead.....Fran copped a hell of a shock and she said she saw sparks fly off Tim Tam....The poor little dog cried out in pain for a few minutes, Fran got a good fright. It came through the phone line and exploded the Filter/Spliter. It also went through the main power supply.... Destroyed several appliences and damaged the meter box. I had the computer connected through a serge protector and the technician told me it didn`t get damaged by the lightning, but it died and I had to buy a new one. I`ve spent numerous hours trying to learn to use this new, Windows 7 home premium system......The phone line hasn`t been fixed yet and I keep loosing connection to the internet Frank. Ps, Bugger it, I`ve had enough of this computer! I`m going for a fly! 3
Guernsey Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 That's the most En- Lightning post I've read today. The next strike will probably smash all 7 windows in your new computer. Alan. 2
Guest Maj Millard Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Frank, We had a very spectacular lightning show at Shute harbour at the same time. Was a great shot in the paper of one bolt touching down on the water, right by a cruise liner at anchor. The width of the lightneing bolt appeared to be at least 2 meters across compared to the cruise ship behind it..You'd better put 'new knickers' on Franciss' Xmas list ok......................Maj...
dazza 38 Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 OOh when I first read your Thread heading.I was thinking of something else:giggle: 2
dazza 38 Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Hi Frank, have not had many storms here on the Gold Coast.But it is always windy.Has been for a few months. I had a similar experience to yours.As a young fella, lighting hit the power pole, travelled down the line to the house.Blew a massive hole in a electric blanket.I was about 6 or 7 then. I still remember it.Nobody hurt. 1
farri Posted December 17, 2011 Author Posted December 17, 2011 OOh when I first read your Thread heading.I was thinking of something else:giggle: Dazza, I knew I`d get your attention. Frank. Ps, Had a good flight....8 Octas of cloud cover,high though...... Windy and interesting....He Ha....... 1
farri Posted December 17, 2011 Author Posted December 17, 2011 Ross, The lightning caused damage on board a couple of Yatchs, moored in the Mulgrave river, just up the road a bit.....It got a few of the local neigbhours as well....All up, a fair bit of damage...... The Ergon Energy guys who turned up to repair the power lines said they`ve been flat out because there`s been lightning strikes all over the place,since the storms started. Frank. Ps, We need a good lightning icon!
winsor68 Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Last Saturday evening we had a extremely severe thunderstorm in Mackay... the 7 year old daughter was petrified and spent a good hour sitting on me holding on for dear life... lol. I taught her to count the flash bangs to comfort her as it moved away... The next morning we watched some YouTube Weather videos my reasoning being that an understanding of how Lightning and Thunder are formed would help alleviate her fears...We learnt all about positive and negative charges and moving air masses so it was all good and educational for us both. That afternoon her Uncle dropped around and I told him about her fright during the precious evenings storm but it was ok now because she had learnt all about where Thunder comes from... "And where is that...?"he asked. "It's the sound of the hammers in Santa's Elves workshop"she told him.... So I guess YouTube has it all wrong... Sigh. 1
Trevor Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Well strike me light-I am glad we didnt get enlightened like that !!!
Tomo Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 If I'm ever playing in a big band and there's a lightning storm around, I know I'll be right, because the conductor is out the front! 2
motzartmerv Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Id still be worried Tomo, lightning hits the tallest thing around don't it?? 1
facthunter Posted December 17, 2011 Posted December 17, 2011 Takes the path of least resistance. I think Tomo would resist. Nev
Guest davidh10 Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Never had any lightning damage, but lost a microwave due to the power company's poor regulation in the area. The voltage would often rise to 270 volts; Well above the maximum permitted and stay there for quite some time before returning to a more normal 250 volts. After reporting it several times, they sent out an electrician who measured the voltage at our meter box and was surprised when I correctly told him the reading. "How did you know that?", he asked. "I read it from the status display on my UPS.", said I. "What's that?" replied the electrician. "An Uninteruptible Power Supply", I replied. I'm still unsure whether he understood, but as a result they did notify an outage for our estate, changed the feed tap on the transformer that feeds the estate. In addition, they did find a fault in the town regulation and after that was fixed everything was tickety boo. Took several months to get it all fixed though.
winsor68 Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 U If I'm ever playing in a big band and there's a lightning storm around, I know I'll be right, because the conductor is out the front! just take a drummer Tomo. They make great decoy in all sorts of situations...
Kyle Communications Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Talking about lightning strikes you should try running and maintaining repeater sites on the tops of mountains. One lightning strike on the tower or on a antenna is devastating to just about every piece of equipment that is in the site. Our main repeater site just west of Caboolture has had a few and I can tell you its a expensive exercise...especially most insurance companies will not insure for lightning strikes...theft yes but not lightning. The lightning rod situated above all your equipment earthed to a earth mat is a saviour this gives you a supposed 60deg cone of protection for the gear within that area and it does seem to work 95% of the time. Although usually a month or two after the strike something usually fails due to the silicon junctions in the semiconductors in the electronic gets punctured and after a while it will fail. When I used to work for SEQEB as a high voltage switching operator another life time ago I can tell you some hair raising stories of being up a pole and lightning hitting a short distance away and the aftermath and sparks or being in a electricity substation and lightning hits a pothead outside...scarey stuff Mark
Powerin Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Storms lately have been reasonably tame around our place. However, earlier this year we got what I think was a direct strike somewhere on our house. Instantaneous blinding flash and bang like a canon shot on the roof. I usually have everything unplugged at the hint of a storm as we are in a fairly lightning strike prone area. This one took me by surprise. I had several TV antennas, an external wifi antenna and an external NextG antenna on the roof, all plugged in to running TVs and computers. All survived without damage and I could find no evidence of a strike on the house or nearby.The only thing that happened was the RCD circuit breaker tripped. Scared the willies out of us though. Must have been a weak bolt or a branch from the main strike. A tree about 100m away also got struck in that storm (knocked a few branches off), which was about 20m away from a tree that got struck a few weeks earlier.
farri Posted December 18, 2011 Author Posted December 18, 2011 Bang on guys, but how is TimTam? Doug, She`s fine and full of go. Tim Tam wasn`t affraid of thunder before the lightning strike and I was affraid that thereafter she would be terrified. We`ve had a couple more storms since, but she hasn`t shown any fear at all. Maybe she didn`t link the pain to the noise. She`s a mighty little dog. Frank.
Bryon Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Ujust take a drummer Tomo. They make great decoy in all sorts of situations... Now that is hitting below the belt W68..................
Guernsey Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 First of all we had the Qantas Strike now we have thousands of Lightning Strikes all over the country, this is getting me down, an absolutely shocking situation!!! It's about time the Conductors Union got their act together. Alan. 1
farri Posted December 18, 2011 Author Posted December 18, 2011 Ujust take a drummer . They make great decoy in all sorts of situations... A drummer what, Win68?????? Frank. 1
farri Posted December 21, 2011 Author Posted December 21, 2011 Hey Guys, I`m pleased pink and every other colour as well! After the lightning strike, my computer died. I took it to the professionals and was told that it wasn`t worth fixing and if the data was retrieved it would ruin the next computer, so I purchased a new one, $830 and two trips to Innisfail. I thought, bugger it, I`ll take the old one home and think about it. I decided to take it to a young auto electrician, in Babinda, who does my electrical work and is an amature computer repairer and low and behold, an hour ago I got a phone call , " Hey Frank, I`ve fixed the problem". It was a corrupt download that chucked a spanner in the works. Total cost to repair $50 and he wouldn`t accept anymore. I`v just used the buggered computer to write this post.....I`ve got my Email addresses back, some photos I hadn`t backed up and a couple of music programs that I ues for my guitar playing, that won`t run on windows 7. To Robin, and to the professionals..... Frank. Ps, Gues who I`m taking it to, next time I have a problem.
fly_tornado Posted December 21, 2011 Posted December 21, 2011 you can download disc wipers from the net. Once you have written over the entire HDD you can't recover the data. What happens on the Mission Impossible movies about data recovery is fantasy.
farri Posted December 21, 2011 Author Posted December 21, 2011 If you are selling your old computer, this is always recommended, murder the hard drive and put a new one in the computer, other wise any banking and other personal details etc. that you have on the computer could be retrieved if the next owner really wanted to get to it) Good point Ignition! I`ve been using the Computer to pay bills and manage our bank accounts for years and I`ve never had a problem but wasn`t aware of what you`ve said. I have what`s called, a security token, it`s a six digit device that changes figures every few seconds.It`s synchronised with the bank and without it you just can`t access the bank. .....Wouldn`t the hard drive be useless without the security token. I would never sell my computers but I have left old ones with the proffesionals where I originally purchased them. Frank.
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