Well…it’s that time of year…and Zeus is certainly working overtime throwing out those lightning bolts.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A thousand years ago, when I was a young IBMer…one of the Old Hands told me:</div><div dir="auto">“There are two groups of customers you’ll deal with.  One group has learned the value of backing up their computer data.  The other group will learn that the hard way…sometime in the future.”</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Those were the Bad Old Days when people backed up to 8” floppy disks that only slowly stored 500 KB per disk.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Nobody liked that job.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">While you can’t lightning proof your computers and radios…there are some steps I take to reduce the probability of damage and/or data loss from a lightning strike.  You already know what they are….so I won’t waste too much your time.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">BUT…if there are even storms in the forecast, I’ve started disconnecting ALL hardwired attachments to my two laptops…power, internet and any peripherals.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I have a Paradan gadget that disconnects the outside antennas and shorts them to ground when I’m not using the radio.  I also unplug the K3 and K4 power supplies.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">You can also easily backup your entire hard drive to a USB device.  Western Digital and Toshiba (among other vendors) are selling one TERABYTE solid state drives for under a hundred bucks on Amazon.  I have a weekly schedule to back up both of my laptops. I store the backup drives at the other end of the house in a small fireproof (and hopefully lightning proof) box.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Hope this helps.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Fingers crossed!!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">73,</div><div dir="auto">Ray - ND8L</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div>