Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Where there's rain & lightning, sometimes there's fire!

I love the rain and the rainy season starts in late May and usually lasts until mid October.

Last year it was a mild season but this one seems about normal.

My wife is always shouting at me to come inside when I go outside and look at the lightning shows.

There is something that draws me to the great nature show.

Last year I hooked up a new computer to act as a server for a web site that I have running and because it is located closer to my Internet connection, one hop closer to the source it sits most of the time just humming along, working tirelessly.

But during on of the nice crashes of thunder and the flash of lightning......

I had a lighting arrestor on the line that goes up to my antenna.

However the path to ground did not come down the antenna line.

It quickly traveled down the CFE line.
(CFE is the Mexico power Utility)

Now I have a new arrestor ordered.

5 comments:

Michael Dickson said...

A nearby lightning strike recently fried a relatively new television, a WiFi router and a DVD player. I empathize.

Michael Dickson said...

PS. Readers outside of Mexico will not know what a CFE line is, amigo.

Todd said...

CFE stands for
Cant
Fix the
Electricity

Todd

Tancho said...

OK, you are right as usual Felipe, CFE is the Mexican Federal Power Company, like ConEdison,Southern Power and Light, PG&E and all the power companies that make lots of money on their customers, spend money on advertising to tell you that you must conserve power, and when their customer do, they cry that they have to raise the rates because they are not selling enough energy to pay their employees.

Calypso said...

A direct hit will often find an arrestor useless. We disconnect from AC and any other line (phone, cable etc.). Lightning can travel down wood if it has a mind to - during the lightning season here (mostly June-July) we never leave the house with anything we value plugged in.

CFE or not - Had a direct hit in Colorado - had everything unplugged except lines from satellite dish to modem (Hughes system) - the modem was fried.

Mother Nature at her fiercest!