Back to watching black and white TV

[ponytug]

Yes, I've tried switched surge protectors but lightning strikes just arc the contacts. Completely unplugging the equipment is the safest bet.

Yikes. That's a lot of surge. My grandparents place was like that. Bulbs would blow just because you were sitting in a chair close to them during a storm.

I would be throwing the main disconnect for thunderstorms, but then again, I don't mind candles or kerosene lamps.

All the best,

Peter

 

[usmron]

We never had color TV until I got out of HS. I never realized that the tailfeathers of the Peacock on the local station was in various shades. I didn't know that the Smirfs were blue until I watched them with my niece years later. Kermit was green?

Now I find myself watching old westerns on Youtube, which of course are in B&W. I'm just getting back to my roots.

I love watching the old westerns, Gunsmoke, (don't like the color ones, wagon train, The real Mccoys, father knows best and more.

 

[lman]

There were a couple of Gunsmoke episodes where the mistreatment of native Americans was talked about.

One of the main characters for a while was Quint, Bert Reynolds, who was half Commanche. Matt always treated him with respect.

 

[WinterDeere]

We always unplugged our TV during thunderstorms. We also had a 150 foot AM radio tower in the back field, which made a great lightening rod.

We had a large antenna tower next to the house we bought around 1981, and it would also take lightning hits. My father took it down a year or two after we moved in, and then the large oaks that surrounded the house started taking those hits.

I had a very large (16.5 ft. long) classic UHF/VHF aerial antenna in my first house, in my 20's, and I placed it in the attic of my barn. Worked great, but I'm pretty sure it also took a hit once while I was out of town. Came home to find some of the circuit breakers in the barn had tripped, but none in the panels in the house. Every single TV that was connected to that antenna was toast, but no other electronics in the house were damaged, which is why I believe the antenna was the entry point.

Yes, I've tried switched surge protectors but lightning strikes just arc the contacts. Completely unplugging the equipment is the safest bet.

I used to do work for a company that made surge suppressors and UPS's (SL Waber), and can tell you no surge suppressor will save you from every major surge. The big equipment insurance values ($10k - $1M) they advertise for your UPS or surge suppressor is not an indicator that one model is any better than another, but rather it's built into the pricing as a calculated risk that the number of provable direct correlations (and thus number of actual pay-outs) will be low enough to pay for the marketing advantage of offering said warranty.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Yikes. That's a lot of surge. My grandparents place was like that. Bulbs would blow just because you were sitting in a chair close to them during a storm.

I would be throwing the main disconnect for thunderstorms, but then again, I don't mind candles or kerosene lamps.

All the best,

Peter

I live on a mountain top where many of the trees on the property have been struck by lightning. Most of the time, it strikes a power pole or even the ground itself. I usually do throw the main breaker during a storm if I'm around.

While I was building the house, I lived in a small trailer on the property. One time, during a lightning storm, a nearby tree was struck which caused a arc between two electrical outlets inside the trailer! It scared the bejesus out of me and fried an alarm clock as well as a few lightbulbs! The old B&W TV I was watching at the time never skipped a beat!

 

[WinterDeere]

One time, during a lightning storm, a nearby tree was struck which caused a arc between two electrical outlets inside the trailer! It scared the bejesus out of me and fried an alarm clock as well as a few lightbulbs! The old B&W TV I was watching at the time never skipped a beat!

A kid I worked with as a teen was struck in the head this way. He was laying in bed one night during a storm, when his house was hit. Somehow an arc formed between his head and a wall outlet. We all called him for BS, but his family was able to back his story. The funny thing was that he had pin-straight hair prior to that incident, but following that his hair was curly in one spot for at least awhile. Haven't seen him in the nearly-30 years since, so I'm not sure what the long-term impact was.

The funny thing is that we worked together at a tubing and canoeing rental on the river. You'd rent a tube or canoe, we'd bus you and the equipment up river, and you'd float back down to our base. He and I were the two most fit paddlers, that the owner would send up-river in a canoe or jet ski every time a surprise storm would roll in. Always scared the hell out of both of us, being in a canoe on the water with lighting strikes in the vicinity, just for us to be telling everyone else to get out of the water.

 

[riptides]

One of the main characters for a while was Quint, Bert Reynolds, who was half Commanche. Matt always treated him with respect.

Lancaster?

 

[lman]

Lancaster?

Quint Asper

Quint Asper is a character who appeared in a total 50 episodes of Gunsmoke beginning with the Season 8 episode "Quint Asper Comes Home" (#13). The part of Quint was played by film/TV actor Burt Reynolds, who would later go on to even greater success on both the big screen and television...

gunsmoke.fandom.com

 

[bdhsfz6]

A kid I worked with as a teen was struck in the head this way. He was laying in bed one night during a storm, when his house was hit. Somehow an arc formed between his head and a wall outlet.

I'll bet he now wears a tinfoil hat to bed!

 

[masseyrider]

Way back, my girl friends mother and her step father went to some special do.
We stayed in to take advantage of each other.
There was a huge and intense thunderstorm that night. Much worse than we normally get around here.
A number of the strikes were really close by.
One was closer than we thought.
There was the smell of sulphur, worst in the living room but generally throughout the house.
Next morning her step father was at my parents house.
Screaming and yelling that I had destroyed his stereo system and the TV. Before VCRs. Still a reel to reel and casette.
Never touched them, unlike the step daughter.
Later in the week the insurance guy confirmed lightening had hit his antenna tower and zapped everything. Fried all the circuit boards TV tube etc.
Then it was our fault for not unplugging everything.
If we had done that he would have screamed that we had been messing with his stuff.