"Bill Ogden" wrote in message
...
It was raining heavily. I was sound asleep at about 2AM when there was a
really violent KA-BOOM. It propelled me out of bed and woke me enough to
check the house for lightning damage (none) and to switch my antenna to a
dummy position (yes, I know this does not do much good, especially after
the
fact).

You know those "gift bags" (looking like a small shoping bag) that play
tunes when a certain spot is squeezed? They usually play "Merry
Christmas"
or "Happy Birthday". One of these bags was in the bedroom, and had not
been
touched for months. It started playing (without being touched) just after
the KA-BOOM.

A second major KA-BOOM thunder/lightning happened about 10 minutes later.
The bag started playing again. Both times, the bag played a normal cycle
of
the tune and then quit.

There was no damage anywhere in the area and my Orion seems OK.

The OT question is what kind of antenna effect (in the gift bag) would
activate it? While it was raining heavily, there was no sense of heavy
humidity in the house. No other electronics were affected, as far as I
could
tell.

Could just have been the strong RF in the air. I had something related
happen to me. We have a Teddy Bear that sings "We Wish You a Merry
Christmas" for 20 seconds whenever you press a button on it. We don't take
out the batteries before stowing it overhead in the garage.

In March, I was experimenting with a 40m wire antenna draped over the garage
roof. Do I have to tell you what happened whenever I keyed up?
(Eventually, I climbed the ladder and took out the bear's batteries.)

"Sal"