Things had to be going too smoothly, I guess. Cause this morning at 7:40+ AM… we had a really big storm roll through. Unfortunately I slept through most of it, well all of it… being near deaf and only one earl works 50% can be a help and a hinder. I had been sleeping on the good ear so I hear almost nothing from the bad ear and even missed the huge bang that everyone else said happened at about 7:49… Yea , I should have been up already but since I had been up 2 or 3 times in the night before this I missed all the action… Anyway, The storm rolls through , I did get up about 5 minutes after the power went off, so maybe I did hear the big bang but didn’t realize what that was…
The water had been running over the banks in our drain “river”… It was just about done raining with I peaked out and saw the loop antenna down in the back corner… peaked out the front and those corners were still up… so I went out the garage door and out of instinct looked up at the tower… it was all in place…. except the top antennas was bent, dangling???? hum… walked on around and sure enough the NW corner of the 160 meter loop was broke over… it was just a big 2×4 and guess it wasn’t enough… the other two corners I had guyed off because they looked weaker… so I came back in the house… hey the power was off so what could I do?
We went to breakfast and there was a lot of damage in spots around town and the ditches and pond were full on the way in.
Right in front that river… is a really deep ditch so that is a lot of water….!
… trees broken over and one rested on a small car at Braums…
we only had some small leaves/twigs laying in the back like we got a bit of hail…after breakfast we had to get to the old Walmart to find a sun cap for GS#3… and then it was home to check things out and hope the power was on… well it was but no internet? hum… went down and checked and the cable modem was up and appears find, the phones worked and the TV worked but the router was not coming on and the power cube was warm? I tested several things and nothing would bring it up so I had to assume it got it? but how did that happen with the electricity working fine and nothing else fried??? I unhooked it to do more tests and took it to the shop… when I got in there I went over and punched the button on the big computer to get it started… nothing but noise , the HD’s was spinning but nothing… then I noticed the Weather station control panel was blank? it is supposed to run on battery for days? then noticed the network switch in the corner was dark? that it struck me… the dangling antennas was a lightening strike and what all was hooked to that? radios, what else… so in a bit over an hour I found that nearly all the electronics in the shop were fried… radios, controllers, power supplies, and it had come down the tower, got the TV hooked to the TV antennas, jumped over to the APRS radio as well, and then back down the connection to the computer zapped that MB on that and then across to the network lines and go everything on the network back to the router… thankfully? it stopped there but cant be sure till it is all tested out… so at 1:45 I took off to town for parts… first up was a new router to get the network back up so I could test other things along the line…
But wait… it gets even crappier… I picked up a Wireless router that was less expensive and highly rated… got it home and pulled the instructions and they are supposed to be just plug and play… well I plugged and it lit put but didn’t play… I hooked the computer direct to modem and got on the internet fine… plugged back into the new router and nothing… I could hook the computer to the router and get into the screens for set up but it would not link to the modem… so I called Netgear and spent about 2.5 hours on and off the phone with the tech support to figure out , that new router did not work…
That was the short story but in that 2 plus hours I had given my phone number to the tech… I was on the phone that goes through the cable modem… we tested several things like turn this on and off and that on and off and finally got to we need to turn the modem off… “ and you need to pull the back up battery too” well, won’t that disconnect the phone… yes, I will call you back… hum… ok… so I reset the modem down to pulling the battery and we got cut off and he called back in a bit… so then we went through the plug this into that… and then into something else and plug it back into here and loop and … and… and.. we got cut off again… he called back again and said he couldn’t do that again… I said, wasn’t my fault… but this time we had done a hard reset on the router and now I couldn’t get the computer to connect to it after I had gotten new firmware for it… finally he said, you need to take it back it is defective… NO SHIT SHERLOCK!…
It is now after 6pm… I rolled it up, and headed back to Staples and got my money back… told them it had old firmware in it and would not link to my modem… no questions from them… just mark it broke and that is that… I went back and talked to a tech there and we discussed the different ones they had now… and what he used and then I decided to try one more time… but I had to move up $10 more to what the tech guy said had a much fast and stronger wireless… ok, one more try and if not… it will be back tomorrow..
When I got home from the Second Router trip I stopped to get the mail… yes had not gotten to that yet… and noticed that the water had been over the curb on both sides of the mail box… that is a lot of water…
I got that second router home and unboxed and HOLLY SHIT!… follow the instructions and it immediately links up… talks to the modem, talks to the laptop, has fast wireless… oh boy one small success. I still had to work out some other small issues like … all my wireless cameras for the security were on a different decade IP address so I had to reset this new router to that so the existing would show up…rather than go to each camera and rest the “hard entered IP” and some more on and off type stuff but got lucky and 3 of the 7 cameras (all wireless) came up… I am sure all the wired ones are toast since both the switches between the shop and the router appear dead…
I guess if it weren’t for bad luck today, I would not have had any??? I still have a bunch of SHIT to chase out and replace and call the insurance guy to see if anything is covered… I should have stayed in bed longer…wouldn’t have helped but would of cut my day time down… ha! I got to thinking… in 30+ years of ham radio, I have never lost a radio to lightening… never been hit and fortunate this time that I did have the tower grounded really good and nothing caught on fire… tomorrow I start a work plan on what can and can’t be replaced and what I replace with… so for now…
The APRS node is dead – radio fried, tiny trak fried, antennas? coax? (may stay dead)
The weather station is dead ( although I already had a back up controller, just not a back up computer)… well, dead for internet use… I have the back up controller on and can monitor it locally but will have no internet links… till?
no HF work for awhile… Not sure how much of the antenna farm is hurt but thinking for sure the preamp and internal works to the mag loop are gone, the antenna switch and tuner? not sure yet.
I know, I should disconnect the antennas
but hey it was not storming last night and didn’t have a clue it would hit this morning… and with over 30 years of free sailing… you just never know…
WD0AJG