On 6/15/26 15:16, Joe wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:35:24 -0400
Eben King <[email protected]> wrote:
This time I ordered a surge suppressor too,
because that's how I think this one died. I live near Tampa.fl.us;
lotsa lightning here.
That's generally what lightning eats. Even if a suppressor appears to
be working after a strike, it can be damaged and not do its job next
time. I've had a phone answering machine confused after a strike but
came back on rebooting. A later strike killed it. I had an even earlier
machine, one with a cassette for recording, killed on the first one.
I really liked the double-cassette kind. Too bad they went extinct.
We are much more likely to see lightning down the phone line than on the
mains. Not for much longer of course, the copper is going this year or
next.
I think we're on FTTH for combo internet/phone, no CATV, no external
antennae, so power and water are the only ways lightning can get in.
You have to go half a mile to find aboveground power lines, so that helps.
--
How often have I said to you that when you
have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth?
-- Arthur C. Doyle as Sherlock Holmes in "The Sign of the Four"
