6 ms·

The lot next to where I live has a cell tower which gets hit now and then. It is ... way beyond.. loud. The last time it happened all my pets were in front of m

The lot next to where I live has a cell tower which gets hit now and then. It is ... way beyond.. loud. The last time it happened all my pets were in front of me within 10 seconds after, as if saying "Pardon sir, we are not programmed for this event! Please advise!". The induced EMF in my long cables like cat-5 throughout the house and my outdoor observatory also takes out motherboards, DSL interfaces and ethernet adapters each time. These days when I hear thunder I start unplugging devices.

bergstromm466 6y ago
> "Pardon sir, we are not programmed for this event! Please advise!" do you have a blog somewhere, or more writing somewhere?
- mikeInAlaska 6y ago
  I don't, thanks that is very kind.
lucb1e 6y ago
> It is ... way beyond.. loud. Um, I don't know how often this happens but any chance of that damaging your hearing? Because I wouldn't know of any sound I'd even describe like that. The part about it frying motherboards in your house makes me wonder how the cell tower copes with it. I assume it has a lightning rod but so close to that rod as the tower's equipment is, compared to how close your house is, it must fry everything on the tower? Do they come and replace all electronics on it every time?
- kqr 6y ago
  Fortunately, hearing damage is a function of both pressure and time, so your hearing can survive loud bangs as long as they are very brief.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    I know that it needs time as well, but as the pressure goes up the time might become so short that you could get hearing damage from just that momentary bang. Especially if if's so loud that they describe it with words I would not know to apply to any sound. Hence my question.
    - wahern 6y ago
      That sounds right, according to the famous toilet lid story: https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/979583605637877760 https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/979583605637877760 > 13. This is just conservation of energy. The initial potential energy was mass times height times gravity. Divide by the 1/20th second that it "rings" out the pressure waves (the sound), and that is acoustic power. Divide by surface area of the toilet bowl lid to get energy flux.
GordonS 6y ago
Once I was on a plane that got hit by lightning, and the sound was quite frightening - an extremely loud, but short, bang. There were a few screams and many very worried glances around until the captain casually told everyone what had happened, and that everything was fine.
nkrisc 6y ago
I was once walking along a soccer field in Costa Rica during the daily afternoon shower in the rainy season. Suddenly the entire sky beyond the treeline turned completely white. It was like I was looking at a black and white silhouette of the treeline. At the same moment I heard the loudest sound I've ever heard. It was like an explosion; I could feel the ground tremble. I have no idea how close the strike was, only that the sound and lightning were simultaneous from my perspective. It honestly could have been just on the other side of the trees across the field, or maybe half a kilometer away, I couldn't tell you. All I can say for sure is I ran like hell to the nearest house. I'm not regularly around explosions and such so I've never experienced anything like that before or since.
- kqr 6y ago
  This is the one thing that can be use to easily tell apart people who have been truly close to lightning, and those who only think they have. Lightning is a powerful event and even if you're not that close to it, it can appear overwhelming and make you think you were much closer than you were. People who have experienced this talk a lot about what it looked like. Everyone I know who has truly been close to a lightning strike unfailingly mention the sound above all else.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    You comment reminds me of descriptions from people who have been near large capacitors blowing. Once you have heard/felt it, you don’t forget it.
    - macintux 6y ago
      A transformer blew about 200’ from my house. Woke me in the middle of the night thinking someone had just bombed my car. Enormously loud.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        Supposedly that can also just be a giant fuse blowing, to protect the lines/transformer (just happened to watch a video about it on YouTube recently).
jameshart 6y ago
Lightning seems particularly tough on high frequency signal processing hardware. A lightning strike on an invisible dog fence the previous owners had left in place around our house fried, along with a couple of ethernet ports, every HDMI connector that was plugged in in one particular room at the time. Rest of the devices continued to function perfectly, but those HDMI input/outputs were cooked. Similar HDMI devices in another room were totally unaffected. My working theory is that the devices in the affected room were plugged in to multiple power sockets, giving a longer antenna loop through the sensitive components, while in the unaffected room all the devices were running off the same power strip. Would explain why ethernet - connecting devices in different rooms - also seems vulnerable. Not much more evidence to go on, so it's largely superstition, but as a result I do generally try to keep my whole AV setup - game console, TV, AV receiver, etc. - plugged into a single power strip now. I also now have a cat who is exceptionally nervous whenever he hears thunder. My wife and son were home at the time and... yes, the sound of a lightning strike at point blank is not just loud, it's.. like a crack in the world.
- tootie 6y ago
  The 8-bit Guy had a video on this topic. He does a tour of his home wiring setup and talks about his previous setup was completely destroyed by lightning hitting a tree above a buried cable. https://youtu.be/Ev0PL892zSE?t=355 https://youtu.be/Ev0PL892zSE?t=355
- NordSteve 6y ago
  There's some support for your idea of connecting everything to the same strip. This book goes into great detail on lightning protection for amateur radio stations, with similar guidance. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34838106-grounding-and-bonding-for-the-radio-amateur https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34838106-grounding-and-b...
duxup 6y ago
Years ago I was near a tree that was struck, but did not strike me. It was like sensory overload, I remember hearing something, but not aware what and I found myself sort of crouched on the ground covered in tinyn (harmless) cuts and the tree bark that hit me. I remember being aware of noise, but not a specific noise other than a sort of echo of it....and just knowing that a very loud noise had occurred.
- leetrout 6y ago
  Yes. I’ve tried to tell people what it’s like to be near a strike. You feel it more than you hear it. And very scary.
nitrogen 6y ago
Long ago I was inside of a church when its steeple got struck by lightning. We could hear the static building up in the sound system before the strike occurred. People said arcs shot from all of the power sockets. There were burn marks on every corner of every wall where it seemed the current couldn't make the sharp bend and jumped out of the metal within the walls. I just remember it being loud.
nieve 6y ago
Cat-5 can definitely do it if you're unlucky about cable orientation and length. Years ago I worked in an office one story underground and the whole thing had a cable run along a single wall with drops. One day we got a nearby strike and every single ethernet card fried, but the rest of our hardware was fine.

bergstromm466 6y ago

> "Pardon sir, we are not programmed for this event! Please advise!" do you have a blog somewhere, or more writing somewhere?

mikeInAlaska 6y ago
I don't, thanks that is very kind.

lucb1e 6y ago

> It is ... way beyond.. loud. Um, I don't know how often this happens but any chance of that damaging your hearing? Because I wouldn't know of any sound I'd even describe like that. The part about it frying motherboards in your house makes me wonder how the cell tower copes with it. I assume it has a lightning rod but so close to that rod as the tower's equipment is, compared to how close your house is, it must fry everything on the tower? Do they come and replace all electronics on it every time?

kqr 6y ago
Fortunately, hearing damage is a function of both pressure and time, so your hearing can survive loud bangs as long as they are very brief.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  I know that it needs time as well, but as the pressure goes up the time might become so short that you could get hearing damage from just that momentary bang. Especially if if's so loud that they describe it with words I would not know to apply to any sound. Hence my question.
  - wahern 6y ago
    That sounds right, according to the famous toilet lid story: https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/979583605637877760 https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/979583605637877760 > 13. This is just conservation of energy. The initial potential energy was mass times height times gravity. Divide by the 1/20th second that it "rings" out the pressure waves (the sound), and that is acoustic power. Divide by surface area of the toilet bowl lid to get energy flux.

GordonS 6y ago

Once I was on a plane that got hit by lightning, and the sound was quite frightening - an extremely loud, but short, bang. There were a few screams and many very worried glances around until the captain casually told everyone what had happened, and that everything was fine.

nkrisc 6y ago

I was once walking along a soccer field in Costa Rica during the daily afternoon shower in the rainy season. Suddenly the entire sky beyond the treeline turned completely white. It was like I was looking at a black and white silhouette of the treeline. At the same moment I heard the loudest sound I've ever heard. It was like an explosion; I could feel the ground tremble. I have no idea how close the strike was, only that the sound and lightning were simultaneous from my perspective. It honestly could have been just on the other side of the trees across the field, or maybe half a kilometer away, I couldn't tell you. All I can say for sure is I ran like hell to the nearest house. I'm not regularly around explosions and such so I've never experienced anything like that before or since.

kqr 6y ago
This is the one thing that can be use to easily tell apart people who have been truly close to lightning, and those who only think they have. Lightning is a powerful event and even if you're not that close to it, it can appear overwhelming and make you think you were much closer than you were. People who have experienced this talk a lot about what it looked like. Everyone I know who has truly been close to a lightning strike unfailingly mention the sound above all else.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  You comment reminds me of descriptions from people who have been near large capacitors blowing. Once you have heard/felt it, you don’t forget it.
  - macintux 6y ago
    A transformer blew about 200’ from my house. Woke me in the middle of the night thinking someone had just bombed my car. Enormously loud.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Supposedly that can also just be a giant fuse blowing, to protect the lines/transformer (just happened to watch a video about it on YouTube recently).

jameshart 6y ago

Lightning seems particularly tough on high frequency signal processing hardware. A lightning strike on an invisible dog fence the previous owners had left in place around our house fried, along with a couple of ethernet ports, every HDMI connector that was plugged in in one particular room at the time. Rest of the devices continued to function perfectly, but those HDMI input/outputs were cooked. Similar HDMI devices in another room were totally unaffected. My working theory is that the devices in the affected room were plugged in to multiple power sockets, giving a longer antenna loop through the sensitive components, while in the unaffected room all the devices were running off the same power strip. Would explain why ethernet - connecting devices in different rooms - also seems vulnerable. Not much more evidence to go on, so it's largely superstition, but as a result I do generally try to keep my whole AV setup - game console, TV, AV receiver, etc. - plugged into a single power strip now. I also now have a cat who is exceptionally nervous whenever he hears thunder. My wife and son were home at the time and... yes, the sound of a lightning strike at point blank is not just loud, it's.. like a crack in the world.

tootie 6y ago
The 8-bit Guy had a video on this topic. He does a tour of his home wiring setup and talks about his previous setup was completely destroyed by lightning hitting a tree above a buried cable. https://youtu.be/Ev0PL892zSE?t=355 https://youtu.be/Ev0PL892zSE?t=355
NordSteve 6y ago
There's some support for your idea of connecting everything to the same strip. This book goes into great detail on lightning protection for amateur radio stations, with similar guidance. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34838106-grounding-and-bonding-for-the-radio-amateur https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34838106-grounding-and-b...

duxup 6y ago

Years ago I was near a tree that was struck, but did not strike me. It was like sensory overload, I remember hearing something, but not aware what and I found myself sort of crouched on the ground covered in tinyn (harmless) cuts and the tree bark that hit me. I remember being aware of noise, but not a specific noise other than a sort of echo of it....and just knowing that a very loud noise had occurred.

leetrout 6y ago
Yes. I’ve tried to tell people what it’s like to be near a strike. You feel it more than you hear it. And very scary.

nitrogen 6y ago

Long ago I was inside of a church when its steeple got struck by lightning. We could hear the static building up in the sound system before the strike occurred. People said arcs shot from all of the power sockets. There were burn marks on every corner of every wall where it seemed the current couldn't make the sharp bend and jumped out of the metal within the walls. I just remember it being loud.

nieve 6y ago

Cat-5 can definitely do it if you're unlucky about cable orientation and length. Years ago I worked in an office one story underground and the whole thing had a cable run along a single wall with drops. One day we got a nearby strike and every single ethernet card fried, but the rest of our hardware was fine.