Lightning = 1 IMAX 2000 = 0

speaking of problems....Thursday our house got a direct lightning hit....one of my ham radio antennas up at 54 feet or about 18 meters took a direct hit....before Thursday it was 24 feet tall fiberglass with a solid copper wire inside....after the hit, not so much....look at pictures to see what is left...
the lightning traveled down the antenna to the ground rod...so far all is well...butttt....the ground rod for the house electrical system is only 10 feet from the antenna ground rod.....the lightning passed from rod to rod & entered the house wiring...not so good....tripped 4 circuit breakers &
blew up a surge protector....we also lost 2 satellite receivers, the 48 inch flat-panel TV,both cordless telephones/answering systems, BluRay player, and our wifi router......other items plugged into same outlets did not suffer any damage....satellite TV & wifi back up finally.....

all antenna coaxes were grounded through coax switch & output coax to radios disconnected.....all radios & coax switch are interconnected to single-point ground via #4 multi-strand welding cables

it was very bright & LOUD !!!

Ouchie!

it's weird having thunder and lightning after not having had it for so long (it's not something that happened in san francisco ... i can count on one hand how many times it happened while i lived there). where i am now i can't really have an antenna (for lots of reasons: lease doesn't allow it, building isn't built so i can easily do it anyway, ...) so i'm safe for the moment, but ...

R.I.P Imax 2000, ( looking nervously up to mine....)
Though my 77 feet high vertical for 160 is about 9 meters higher.... and of 80 mm ( 3 14 inch aluminium pole...
Grounded through 3 x 10 feet long grounding copper tubes 15 mm in size in very fertile and salty ground with the 1000 meters ( 3000) feet ground net of wires.
I have the gold version of house insurance that will pay out new price for replacing stuff, costs some premium, but feels secure.
Hope your insurance will cover the lot... the Imax looks like an artwork now... sell it as modern art...:mrgreen:

yeah, the IMAX is toast, literally.....

I live in a canyon in the ROCKY MOUNTAINS...soil conductivity for grounding not so good....

the wifi router was covered/replaced by my TELCO/ISP...they also lost a card in their junction box affecting 9 other customers...they are used to lightning damage...

the satellite boxes & service call fee were covered by our DTV monthly protection plan...we upgraded the plan to cover ALL electronics in the house TVs, phones,
computers, etc......$20/month seems reasonable now....

home owners insurance would cover the TV & telephones, but the annual deductable is larger than the value of the items....on us this time looks like....

but next time we are covered....and there could be a next time....this is our 2nd lightning strike in 27 years living in this house

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhT0g9jULpw

Yeah, I've never been hit directly but I have suffered the effects of damage due to nearby lightning. Lately we get these thunderstorms where the lightning is pretty much continuous. As they approach at night the sky is constantly lit up with continuous flashes. I remember on a few occaisions seeing my open wire line arc over inside the shack and simultanously hear a loud crack inside followed by a really loud crash of thunder outside. I remember one tome it destroyed the onboard ethernet card in my old computer as well as take out one of the channels in my network switch, The radio equipment suffered no damage whatsoever but then its hard to kill old 1950's tube gear.

With a direct hit all bets are off.

One season many years ago I witnessed ball lightning the size of a dime go through 2 windows and another time go through walls. What I noticed both times was that the thunder had that sound like it was down a long tunnel or a cellar.
In both cases I lost a computer.

Saw where a Shakespeare Big Stick (same overall physical design as an Imax) had taken a hit - this a number of years ago. Went by the house in question a couple of weeks back and a new antenna was in its place. No idea whose it is, but any HF antenna these days is a good thing.

Keeping all fingers crossed, not had a problem ( yet he said).
In times i expect thunder the large vertical is disconnected from the tuner outside and connected directly to the ground system through a massive 15 mm copper bar.
all other antennas get disconnected and power to the whole section in my corner with radio's tuners PSU's etc and satellite receiver gets disconnected as well telly and cable.
Lots of work but better as saying sorrry.
My house insurance pays new price even if the stuff is old, cost 300 Euro per year.
I have several insurances running with them so i get a decent discount.
( all risk car insurance 360 euro an year)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KG4CGC

One season many years ago I witnessed ball lightning the size of a dime go through 2 windows and another time go through walls. What I noticed both times was that the thunder had that sound like it was down a long tunnel or a cellar.
In both cases I lost a computer.

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Consider yourself lucky. Not many people get to see ball lightning. Sorry to hear of the loss of the computers though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n2ize

Consider yourself lucky. Not many people get to see ball lightning. Sorry to hear of the loss of the computers though.

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Thank you John. Your condolences are much appreciated.