On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 05:54:20 -0700, John Ings
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 04:17:33 GMT, Rick Frazier
wrote:

Lightning
and it's effects is truly a wonder of nature. Despite the trouble it causes me
in getting things repaired, I still like to watch nature's display of electrical
power...

It makes a mess out of underground telephone cables, too, even
though it's bonded and grounded nine ways to heck. Even in
low-lightning Los Angeles, we had a lightning strike hit a pole riser
and wipe out over a mile of 1800 - 2400 pair underground cable. The
lightning strike refused to bleed off to ground, and it jumped between
different hundred pair groups (and slagged them) as it traveled down
the cable and hit the various splice points.

I stopped at a motel in Saskatchewan once that had a U shaped driveway
and a Neon sign in the middle of the space delimited by the driveway.
Between the motel office and the sign, right across the driveway was a
couple of sawhorses acting as a temporary barrier to keep customers
from driving into a foot-deep trench that ran between the sign and the
office. The sign was not lit and I asked the proprieter if he was
installing new cable to a sign that had obviously been up a while.
"No," he said, "ligntning hit the thing last night and that's what dug
that trench. There's nothing at the bottom of the trench where the
power cable used to be buried!"

Bad news: You have to replace two neon transformers, three sections
of neon tubing, re-paint the sign face, 100 feet of conduit and power
feed wires, timer, breaker...

Good news: You won't need a backhoe to dig the trench, only a
shovel to fill it back in. ;-)

I'd suggest a big lightning rod for the top of that sign, 000 cable
or better down the sign, and run the ground network wires the other
direction from the power feed.

Oh, and whenever you set up a wireless internet link, be SURE to
turn on all the security protocols - Wired Equivalent Protocol, non-
standard SSID, no SSID broadcasting, etc. The hackers don't want to
steal your CAD plans - but they would like to pull up and park on the
public street by your garage for an hour, and hack around in your
office computer files looking for account numbers and passwords. Or
better yet, send a few million pieces of Spam E-mail over the link,
and let you get blamed because they came from your ISP connection.

And consider unplugging the link totally when you're not using it.
Then there's no way anyone can abuse it, even if they take the time
and effort to get past the security.

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.