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Lightning Strikes!!........No, NOT the good kind!

Last Monday was as it had been for a couple of days, hot and humid with afternoon thunderstorms. There was a cold front working its way in that was going to change everything for a couple of days and it did, a lot of rain and in the upper 50's yesterday, 59 and overcast right now at 8:26 am. Monday night was predicted some heavy T-storms to move in the area and an alert was issued from 8:50 pm to 2:00 am for the storms. Well nothing had happened by the time we'd gone to sleep at 10 pm, then at 11:33 pm, we were awoken by the sound of a strike so close it almost sounded like the house was hit!
I was wide awake from that and fully expected the power to go out but it didn't. Stacy went back to sleep so fast she'd forgotten about it. I was kept awake and kept awake for hours by nearby thunder. I'd just start falling asleep again and some thunder would reverberate through the area and house, and almost feel like an earthquake in the low frequencies. I counted and nothing was closer than three to five seconds away, but it was sure loud as in bounced off the mountains.
They yesterday when we get home we find out that our Hughesnet Satellite Internet is out, as is our wireless router, and the Direct TV receiver in the living room and the house phone!
We still don't know exactly what happened, and with everything grounded and surge protected nothing like this is SUPPOSED to be able to happen!
How the Direct TV receiver was toasted but nothing else in the living room and all on the same circuit, like the Plasma TV, surround sound system, the DVR, nothing else has any problems and works fine. But also we have two Direct TV receivers from the same dish and the other works fine, so if it was a direct hit to the Hughesnet and Direct TV dishes in the yard, then why not the other receiver and how does the house phone line play into it? And Stacy's fathers Mac computer also apparently got fried.
So was it a close hit to the dishes? Close enough to transfer power through the cables from the dishes, even though they're grounded outside, fry the Hughesnet modem, the wireless router and the Mac because they're all connected with Ethernet cables? Fry the Direct TV receiver and then fry the phone line through the connection to the receiver but not damage the other receiver?

Riddles, riddles.

Called India last night and we have a new modem for the Hughesnet coming, $145.00 since it was hit or damaged by lightning, and it will take about a week to get here. At least we don't get charged for the 7 nights of no Internet! And we can't even find out if the dish itself is damaged until we can get the modem replaced! Might be a whole lot more expense if the dish itself is toast! It sure looked normal though, no burning, scarring or evidence of any damage anywhere I could see.
We have an extra wireless router so I'll swap that unit out before I put it all back together with the new modem from Hughesnet.
Direct TV will have us a new receiver in a couple of days. I told him we have a brand new in the box D-10 receiver exactly like the one in the other room, but he wouldn't hear it so we get a new receiver out of it. Stacy's father got two new receivers at the local auction last year for $5.00, both brand new in their boxes, he just wanted extra remotes so he got them.
While we're at work today the phone company comes out to see if it can be figured out how the phone line was damaged, maybe if that can be found we can piece together what happened to everything else!
We hope the rest of the week goes smoothly!
Type later, Tad

Comments

Camdin said…
I just read about your experience with the T storms and just glad you three are ok, things can be replaced but the three of you can't be. Take care and hope the rest of the week is better all around.We have hot weather and some humidty but nothing like Georgia hot but more humid then the first.Till next time Love and Hugs..

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