You got something in your mouth I would have in my hand!!!!

In article , N8KDV
writes:


All the antennas here are unplugged. About to roll a few smokes and step
outside
to watch it roll in. Should hit the shore here in just a bit.


Kind of cool to watch it all hit...If you're in a safe place..

I live in southern Mississippi. Last Tuesday (Mardi Gras) night, I was
listening to the BBC on my Super ATS-909. A light, drizzly rain had been
falling for about an hour.

I was wearing a light pair of Sony digital-grade headphones, because my wife
was watching the news on television in the same room.

All of a sudden, a huge flash (our sitting area overlooks the lake we live
on -- and has large picture windows) and an ENORMOUS "KABOOM!!!" happened.
No other thunder (or lightning) happened, before or after -- this was the
only strike. Now I really understand that this is the kind of event that
kills golfers.

Our kids came running downstairs, asking us what had happened. I opened our
front door, and saw a "striped" longleaf pine with steam coming off of it,
and knew immediately that we had just experienced a serious lightning
strike.

That tree was right at 50 feet away from the spot that my "random-wire"
antenna goes out of my bedroom window, and winds around the house, hidden on
the back of the soffit.

The Super 909 was still alive, but lightning did find its way into our phone
line (we have underground utilities), killing the dial-up modem and the
keyboard in my wife's computer and the network interface cards in both my
daughter's and my computer. I also had to replace the fuses in our alarm
system. Since NIC cards are cheap, and we use DSL (don't need the dialups)
I was able to recover from this by investing about an hour's work and less
than $30.00 for new NICs.

I was thankful that my Super 909 survived, and I e-mailed Chris Justice at
RadioLabs to let him know what had transpired. As it turns out, he actually
DID make a modification that may have kept the radio from getting zapped!

Here's his response to my note:

"You don't have a clue how lucky you are! Serious. I went to a Lightning
engineering course at Poly Phaser in Nevada for 7 days to study the effects
of lightning and what paths are travelled. If that longwire was only 50'
from where your wire was, you are damned lucky!"

"The damage that you mentioned is not from a line getting struck, but rather
from the ground suddenly becoming an above ground source.... In other words,
the "Ground" that everything else in the house is attached to started
raising to a potential of 1000 - 50,000 volts. The damage occurs when the
telephone, cable, electrical and all of the other lines still stay at their
same normal potential.... 110 volts, 24 volts and cable TV ground.... So,
you see the problem. The 1000 - 50,000 volt charge tries to escape through
the little life lines to your house. So............ BOOM! IF that would have
come down your longwire and into your headphones, I as well as your family
would be very very upset right now. So, you are one lucky guy!"

"I am suprised though. You helped me out in a geek kind of way. I installed
a diode shunt on the front end of the Super 909's antenna jack, before the
RF amplifier. If the lightening struck that close, I know that the ambient
static voltage on that wire was quite high, enough to blow out the front end
FET... So, most likely it worked. Thanks for risking your life to test the
909... I appreciate it!"

So that's my little story -- I thought I'd share it with you guys.

-- Stinger
Super 909 Lightning Tester
;^)


"N8KDV" wrote in message
...
Thunderstorm season seems to be starting early this year. Currently have
some cells moving across Lake Michigan, kicking up a bit of a racket on
the MW band as I listen to WLS 890 (50 kw blowtorch) in Chicago.

Steve
Holland, MI
Drake R7, R8 and R8B

http://www.iserv.net/~n8kdv/dxpage.htm

Thank You for this story...

Thre was someone posting here who's " area" got hit by lightning;
fried all the stuff in the house,
cat wouldn't come out of the Basement for three days..
No loss of life
( Lucky)

Our building ( Steel frame) got hit a few years back
Totally fried all the elevator controls

Might Keep a picture of the tree next to your 909
as a gentle reminder..

Dan




In article , "Stinger"
writes:

Subject: Thunderstorm Season (and Super ATS-909)
From: "Stinger"
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 18:19:14 -0600

I live in southern Mississippi. Last Tuesday (Mardi Gras) night, I was
listening to the BBC on my Super ATS-909. A light, drizzly rain had been
falling for about an hour.

I was wearing a light pair of Sony digital-grade headphones, because my wife
was watching the news on television in the same room.

All of a sudden, a huge flash (our sitting area overlooks the lake we live
on -- and has large picture windows) and an ENORMOUS "KABOOM!!!" happened.
No other thunder (or lightning) happened, before or after -- this was the
only strike. Now I really understand that this is the kind of event that
kills golfers.

Our kids came running downstairs, asking us what had happened. I opened our
front door, and saw a "striped" longleaf pine with steam coming off of it,
and knew immediately that we had just experienced a serious lightning
strike.

That tree was right at 50 feet away from the spot that my "random-wire"
antenna goes out of my bedroom window, and winds around the house, hidden on
the back of the soffit.

The Super 909 was still alive, but lightning did find its way into our phone
line (we have underground utilities), killing the dial-up modem and the
keyboard in my wife's computer and the network interface cards in both my
daughter's and my computer. I also had to replace the fuses in our alarm
system. Since NIC cards are cheap, and we use DSL (don't need the dialups)
I was able to recover from this by investing about an hour's work and less
than $30.00 for new NICs.

I was thankful that my Super 909 survived, and I e-mailed Chris Justice at
RadioLabs to let him know what had transpired. As it turns out, he actually
DID make a modification that may have kept the radio from getting zapped!

Here's his response to my note:

"You don't have a clue how lucky you are! Serious. I went to a Lightning
engineering course at Poly Phaser in Nevada for 7 days to study the effects
of lightning and what paths are travelled. If that longwire was only 50'
from where your wire was, you are damned lucky!"

"The damage that you mentioned is not from a line getting struck, but rather
from the ground suddenly becoming an above ground source.... In other words,
the "Ground" that everything else in the house is attached to started
raising to a potential of 1000 - 50,000 volts. The damage occurs when the
telephone, cable, electrical and all of the other lines still stay at their
same normal potential.... 110 volts, 24 volts and cable TV ground.... So,
you see the problem. The 1000 - 50,000 volt charge tries to escape through
the little life lines to your house. So............ BOOM! IF that would have
come down your longwire and into your headphones, I as well as your family
would be very very upset right now. So, you are one lucky guy!"

"I am suprised though. You helped me out in a geek kind of way. I installed
a diode shunt on the front end of the Super 909's antenna jack, before the
RF amplifier. If the lightening struck that close, I know that the ambient
static voltage on that wire was quite high, enough to blow out the front end
FET... So, most likely it worked. Thanks for risking your life to test the
909... I appreciate it!"

So that's my little story -- I thought I'd share it with you guys.

-- Stinger
Super 909 Lightning Tester
;^)


"N8KDV" wrote in message
...
Thunderstorm season seems to be starting early this year. Currently have
some cells moving across Lake Michigan, kicking up a bit of a racket on
the MW band as I listen to WLS 890 (50 kw blowtorch) in Chicago.

Steve
Holland, MI
Drake R7, R8 and R8B

http://www.iserv.net/~n8kdv/dxpage.htm

I hope you don't keep your radio connected to the long wire when storms
start to roll in. That would be almost a guarentee to a short life for
your radio!

"Stinger" wrote in message ...
All of a sudden, a huge flash (our sitting area overlooks the lake we live
on -- and has large picture windows) and an ENORMOUS "KABOOM!!!" happened.
No other thunder (or lightning) happened, before or after -- this was the
only strike. Now I really understand that this is the kind of event that
kills golfers.

Read the post again. He said that there was nothing but light rain, no
storm.
"John Jenkins" wrote in message
m...
I hope you don't keep your radio connected to the long wire when storms
start to roll in. That would be almost a guarentee to a short life for
your radio!

"Stinger" wrote in message
...
All of a sudden, a huge flash (our sitting area overlooks the lake we
live
on -- and has large picture windows) and an ENORMOUS "KABOOM!!!"
happened.
No other thunder (or lightning) happened, before or after -- this was
the
only strike. Now I really understand that this is the kind of event
that
kills golfers.

On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 10:55:52 -0600, John Jenkins wrote
(in message ):

I hope you don't keep your radio connected to the long wire when storms
start to roll in. That would be almost a guarentee to a short life for
your radio!


That's the main reason for plugging an "extension" cable into the radio and
plugging the antenna into it.

Keeps from wearing out the jack on the radio.




Gray Shockley
--------------------------------------------------------
For a 909/398, use stereo or mono
cable according to your setup.



"Stinger" wrote in message
...
All of a sudden, a huge flash (our sitting area overlooks the lake we live
on -- and has large picture windows) and an ENORMOUS "KABOOM!!!" happened.
No other thunder (or lightning) happened, before or after -- this was the
only strike. Now I really understand that this is the kind of event that
kills golfers.

That's the main reason for plugging an "extension" cable into the radio and
plugging the antenna into it.

Keeps from wearing out the jack on the radio.

what 'exactly' would that be Gray? Do you or someone else have a catalogue #
from Rat Shack on this. I'd really appreciate it, I had started a thread on
this said subject but never got an 'exact' answer.

If you could or someone else, I'd really appreciate it. :-)

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 0:51:10 -0600, Dxluver wrote
(in message ):

That's the main reason for plugging an "extension" cable into the radio
and
plugging the antenna into it.

Keeps from wearing out the jack on the radio.

what 'exactly' would that be Gray? Do you or someone else have a catalogue #
from Rat Shack on this. I'd really appreciate it, I had started a thread on
this said subject but never got an 'exact' answer.


I thought I had answered that. Betcha I find it as "to be worked on later".

If you could or someone else, I'd really appreciate it. :-)


Okay dokey. This is absolutely and totally correct with no mistakes
whatsoever and, please, let me know when you find them.

And you know all sorts of good stuff but I'm writing this for NUG's also
grin so I'll try to be clear.


ATS-909/DX-398

Antenna Jack: a stereo 1/8" jack

Tip and sleeve go to shortwave antenna ("tip" is the end of the plug)

Ring and sleeve go to the AM antenna (ring is between the tip
and the "sleeve" - the long part which is ground)

--------------------------------------------------------
Two external antennas: sw and mw/am:

So you can use a 3' "stereo headphone extension cord" and a "Y adapter" which
splits into two stereo jacks. Use one for the shortwave antenna (just connect
the tip and sleeve) and the other for the AM antenna (just connect the ring
and sleeve).

--------------------------------------------------------
One external antenna (sw) and use interal mw/am ferrite:

This is an "educated guess" but - if need be - I can see if my theory works.

Do the same as previous but short the ring and the sleeve.
--------------------------------------------------------

One external antenna (sw) and lose the mw/am:

This is what I do. My CCradioPlus is about ten inches from my 398, so I don't
care if I totally lose mw/am (which I do) on the 398.

Mono plug to mono jack to sw antenna (EdLoop).
--------------------------------------------------------

Okay - will that work?

Of course, ya can soldier wires, use Bud boxes or a cigar box (if you can
find one). But that /should/ be the truth and the whole truth, so help me
Hallicrafters.




Gray Shockley
----------------
DX-392 DX-398
RX-320 DX-399
CCradio+ w/RS Loop
Justice AM Antenna
Torus Tuner (3-13 MHz)
Select-A-Tenna
---------------------
Vicksburg, MS US