On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 04:52:32 GMT, "R. Bharat Rao"
wrote:

Tom, sorry... so how do I get "whole house surge protection"

Contact a competent local electrician and explain what you want. Make
sure that all incoming wires (power, telephone, cable) etc. are
grounded at a single point at the house entrance point and appropriate
surge protectors applied to them _at_this_point and that external
metallic structures, such as antenna masts and metallic dishes are
also grounded to this point.

A single plug-in surge protector in the TV mains plug is nearly
useless, if the TV is connected to a computer (e.g. for playing games)
and the computer is connected with a modem/ADSL to the phone line. A
surge from a badly protected phone line can flash over the modem/ADSL,
go through the computer and do some damage there, then move on to the
TV, do some damage there and then end up into the plug-in surge
arrester and finally into ground. The surge arrester worked, but
everything else had been damaged before that :-).

So it is really important that all the possible paths are protected
and it is much easier to do this at the point where all these wires
enter the house. But you really need a competent electrician to do
this, do not attempt to do it yourself.

Paul