[Elecraft] K3 #4407 - dead; Long Live 4638!

[John Ragle]

  There is an interesting point here, and perhaps a moral to Chuck's 
story, based on a reading of our experiences along these lines. Perhaps 
our story is of interest:

Our utilities are underground from the nearest sub-station (about a city 
block). Our cable (and ISP) is fiber optic and also underground from the 
region of the same sub-station to a utility pod across the street from 
our house. The connection from the cable pod to the house is coax, also 
buried about 1 ft below ground, but enters the house at the sill level 
through a plastic box.

We have fairly frequent electrical storms here in FN32rk and it is our 
practice to disconnect all antenna lines and unplug all 110 VAC 
connections to our computers, of which there are 4 in the household. 
Three of the household computers were (note past tense!) connected to 
the router with cat 5e runs of ethernet cable, the longest of which was 
about 60 feet long. The fourth was connected via WiFi.

Recently, in July, we had an electrical storm. The closest strike was 
ca. 300-400 meters distant, judging from the timing. This strike took 
out one of the hard-wired computers and one channel of the router. The 
computer was the one most distant from the router, and was not 
repairable (extensive damage to the MoBo). It was physically unplugged 
from the utility line but was connected to the router.

At first blush, this is a rather peculiar occurrence. It does, however, 
illustrate the quixotic nature of large surges/spikes from lightning 
strikes. On the positive side, it illustrates the wisdom of using WiFi 
connections to a router, rather than hard wiring. WLAN/USB adapters for 
811g & n are available for only a few bucks from various dealers (Tiger, 
etc.) We have been running our household using these devices for about 2 
weeks now, and there doesn't seem to be any noticeable hit in speed. I 
think it will remove one source of anxiety regarding lightning damage, 
though I will continue to disconnect my antennas.

Apologies for this somewhat off-topic post...I sympathize with the fate 
of Chuck's K3.

John Ragle -- W1ZI

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On 8/27/2010 2:06 PM, Chuck Shefflette wrote:
> ...interesting is that the strike doesn't appear to have been through
> the antenna, there is no evidence anywhere in the RF path of any damage.
> Rather it seems that the entry point was the RS-232 connector since the
> major damage was to the KIO3 board - the RS-232 driver chip is missing its
> top!