So I go out at noon to mow the estate's lawns (also known as my 4 acres of weeds and various grasses). Hot and sunny. I finish and look forward to the pool. Suddenly several t-storms pop up and the pool is history. About 4 inches of rain in a continuous monsoon, along with lightning. Lots of lightning. A couple strikes within a few hundred feet (or less) of the house. A power blip and my tv signal is gone. And so goes another Directv receiver into the heap in the garage. We have three receivers. One never lost the signal. The other one simply needed to be reset. But the expensive one - the HD DVR model - is fried. Even though it is plugged into a surge protector (supposedly a good one), which didn't trip.

Directv was surprisingly decent to me. In that past I've had to buy a new receiver and also extend my contract. Even though I told them it was probably a line surge, they are sending me a new unit free of charge - even paying the shipping both ways (I have to send the damaged unit back). And I don't have to extend my contract.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now that I've written about my lousy afternoon.

I'm glad to hear the tv box was the worst that happened. Lightning within a couple of miles scares the poop out of me--we hardly ever get it here in Southern Cal.

And glad to hear DirecTV did the right thing by you. That's refreshing to hear.

Rick,

We used to frantically race around the house unplugging computers and TV sets whenever a thunderstorm started putting lightning down in a major way. I stopped doing it a year ago when I put some pretty decent surge protectors on every piece of electronics. Well - I paid for it today since we all know that no matter what you do, lightning will often find a way to damage something.

Our house was hit by lightning about 12 years ago. It was a glancing blow in the night that apparently ran down a gutter on a corner. It killed two electrical outlets on the nearest wall - but they oddly started working again a few days later. All the alarms and bells in the house rang. It was bad enough that our neighbor called me at 4am to see if we were okay.

I love my DirecTV. I am an original subscriber. I would be lost in the fall without my NFL Sunday Ticket subscription, which only DirectTV offers.

Dave, glad ya'll are ok! Sorry to hear about your lousy afternoon, and receiver, it is great they are going to replace it though. I don't like lightning either. I have lost 2 vcrs, and a microwave in the last few years. Tonight was the first night we have not had storms in several days. Lightning killed a guy at the lake I go to. I have my computers going through a surge strip, and then into another flat type surge protector that the unit, monitor, and printer is connected to. So far so good, I still unplug them if I am home during an electrical storm though.

I am so scared of lightning, that even if it is a few miles away, and I am going out, I will run to my car.

Dwayne

I'm a strage bird, I love lightning. It facinates me and always has. As a child I'd go to the window and stare at the sky hoping to be looking in the right direction when the strikes lit the sky. I was only terrified by a T-storm once in my life. As teenagers we went to a private lake as a youth get together from our church. A few of us wanted to see a cave and sulpher spring we'd heard about across the lake so we took out a little metal row boat and headed across. Took us some time but we found the cave and spring at the entrance. About that time we heard thunder in the distance and thought we'd better head back By the time we got back to the boat we thought we'd have time to cross before the storm hit. It was our only way back and out of the weather. As I rowed a short distance out it cut loose and lightning strikes were hitting all around, the sky stayed lit up like a fireworks show. Knowing we were in a metal boat and the water and boat would conduct electricity, I and everyone else with me were certain we were about to die on that lake. I got the best workout of my life with those oars that day. We all got back safely but my back, arms, shoulders and even my legs ached for days from tring to get that boat across that lake as fast as possible.

Now i'm back to loving the lightning, I just like to be inside and not on the water when it hits!

Cheers, Neil

A few years ago, when we still lived rural, I bought a UPS (universal power supply) for my computer setup, as we were prone to power bumps and surges. One day I came home from work to find we had a SUPER SURGE - - it actually cracked my UPS... the good news is, it took the hit and my equipment was fine. The kicker though was that the UPS was warranted, but I would have to pay to ship it back . . . the cost of shipping being the same as the cost of a new UPS . . Anyway, it's nice to know that something actually works the way it is supposed to.

Well, here we go again. Some crazy low pressure thing is practically spinning over my head! The weather is nasty. Wind and rain and temps in the low 60's. First power flicker was a few moments ago. The monitor just flickered, and the system didn't re-boot on that one. Would an UPS help prevent this?

The eye of whatever this thing is should pass over me soon, and maybe we'll get a break. We have been getting heavy rain and wind all day. It blew my cap off when I went to get the mail.

Dwayne