[Elecraft] Lightning

[Rich Lentz]

A while back I read with amusement the stories about why you should
disconnect your RIG from the antenna during a thunderstorm.  In my 30
years I have rarely done this and I guess I was extremely lucky in that
I have never experienced any damage to my RIGs.  Until last week.  I had
just laid down in bed and a bolt of lightning struck so near my house
that I saw the flash, heard the noise and felt the house shake all at
once.  The bed room was brighter than if all of the lights were on.
Quickly went in and checked my K2 - was receiving signals good, but to
be safe I disconnected the antenna - lucky again.  The next day I was
trying to work some PSK2 and the interface to the K2 didn't appear to be
working correctly.  After trouble shooting the PC for a while moved the
RIG over to a different PC - same problem.  Further trouble shooting
showed that the lighting bolt had wiped out the MAX232 chip, the
transistor, two diodes, two inductors, and actually blown two strips of
PCB foil on the KIO2.  Ordered a new KIO2 and while waiting for it
determined that the RX/TX lines on the MCU for the K2 were also blown -
even though all other functions on the K2 worked perfectly!.  But that's
not the end of the story.  After replacing the MCU and the KIO2, the PC
still would not talk to the K2.  Moved it over to the back up PC and all
worked fine.  That's right, the serial I/O in the PC was also zapped and
since it is a SMD on the motherboard I guess I need a new motherboard.

 

Morale of this story - disconnect the antenna (and other sensitive
connections) if you are not using your RIG.  

 

And many thanks to Gary and Scott for the QUICK and professional help
given to me during this disaster.

 

Rich

 

KE0X 



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