I don't know if all you Outlaws heard about the devastating Thunderstorm that swept through Michigan, Ohio and PA on the 21st, but it was a doosey! I left work 1/2 hour early after power was knocked out and the battery backups finally failed. We had power at home (wife and kids were safely hiding in the basement!)until I heard a "POP" from outsite and our power went into brown-out condition. Well, my wife, wanting to stay abreast of the weather situation, kept turning on the main TV, a 27" Panasonic. Now I'm no electrician, but I figured keeping the TV OFF was a good idea, right? I'm outside surveying the situation....every time my house lights browned you could see arcing light from a utility pole somewhere behind the homes on our side of the street. Well, my son starts shouting for me from inside the house, saying that Mom went to turn on the tv to check the weather reports, and all the tv's doing is making a high-pitched whine
We now have a cooked tv. I put a claim in to the electric company this morning so now I wait. The power was not restored to normal until 2:00am this morning(yes..5/24)!
My home owners policy has a $500 deductible, so that is more than the tv cost originally. Any other Outlaws have a similar story?

Ooh.... Storms.... Nasty stuff. I feel your pain.

My system was on a Panamax MAX5100 last summer when Memphis got hammered by straight-line winds that took out power to about 2/3rds of the city (leaving the gonk household offline for about 10.5 days), and we got away undamaged even though the power at our house browned out and flickered on and off several times before going out (the microwave's display did suffer somewhat permanent damage, but I've determined that was caused by excessive heat in the house during the week and a half of July heat during the outage). TurnerF (another Memphis-based gunslinger) also came through intact, but one of my co-workers had some electronics damaged (blown fuse in a Spectral pre-amp, dead VCR, and a TV that he initially thought was dead but somehow got working again after several trips to the shop).

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

The story gets better! My wife just called to let me know, with much frustration and anger, that she heard a "BOOM" followed by the power going out. We JUST got power restored this morning. She went to investigate and discovered a tree trimming crew 4-5 houses down the street had clipped a power line...UUHHGGGHHH!!!

Speaking with an electrician, he told me there's such a thing as a whole house spike protector that is wired into the mains entering your house. He didn't think it was expensive especially compared to frying your tv, micro, etc... Seems like a good idea. Why don't we hear more about this from any resident experts? (BTW, I'm completely confident that my Brickwall is protected the ht.)

Jay

I've got a couple co-workers (electrical engineers) who have talked with vendors about surge protectors like that. One of them even got a freebie for his house, but last time I asked (a couple years ago) he hadn't gotten an electrician out to install it yet. I think that they can be had for a couple hundred dollars, plus a hundred bucks or so for an electrician to install it. When I eventually put in a transfer switch for the generator (so I can run a few key circuits in the event of another lengthy power outage), I may look at adding one at the same time. Even with gear like this, it is probably not a bad idea to include something like a Brickwall or Panamax at the really valuable gear.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

My parents have one on their home in FL. They live just south of Tampa - the Lightning Capital of the World. I think it's pretty much SOP for homes in thier area. Even with it, they've still had a few lightning related issues with a whole house intercom/sound system. The main unit's been replaced twice ... apparently due to direct strikes - the antenna wire in the attic was blackened and charred and there were char spots on the unit's mainboard, but nothing else in the house has been touched.

They've since added one to their condo here in New England (they're "snow birds" ) and have pretty much talked me into having one retro-fitted - My builder refused to put one in during initial construction 2+ years ago.

pat----

This was NOT a direct result of a lightning strike or power spike. Having the tv on while the voltage took a roller coaster ride heated up and smoked what a friend called the 2nd annode. Could be the tube is shot maybe. It was not plugged into a surge/power strip, but directly in the outlet.

That's the same sort of roller coaster ride I witnessed when we lost power during the storm last summer (we had at least three good brown-outs in about five seconds, pulling down the lights and cable box, before we lost power for good). A good surge protector will keep those dips and spikes from tearing things up, whether it's located at the equipment or at the main panel. Unplugging the vital stuff is even better protection, but impractical for storms that hit while at work or come on too quickly to react to.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

About three years ago, a couple of months after we moved into our house, my wife was reading in bed one Saturday morning. She noticed the bedside light was becoming brighter than usual. About 5 seconds later she heard a "POP" from the basement and all the lights went out.
They stayed out for about 10 hours as a repair crew fixed the damage caused by a pick-up hitting a utility pole about two miles from our house. Apparently he was running from the police when he slammed into the pole, causing the power line to fall and connect with the neutral line, sending enough juice to blow out the entire town and voltage in outlets to go up to about 160. People were throwing burning microwaves and tvs out their doors.
We lost our 10 year-old 27" Magnavox and a Sony vcr. Had to update to a Sony Trinitron (oh,well).
Cadboy, we figured if we had put in a claim our insurance would have gone up more than the cost for replacements.
Our contractor came to check the electricals and said he was glad we had him re-wire the house before we moved in (all the wiring was the two-copper-wires-wrapped-with-tape kind.It's a 100 year-old one-room schoolhouse renovated in the 50's). We would have lost the house if he hadn't.
The $30.00 power strip/spike protector I bought for the computer (the purchase of which I received a reprimand by she who must be obeyed) worked perfectly. There were scorch marks on the strip where the computer had been plugged, but the computer was fine.
She went right out and bought three more.



[This message has been edited by CBWills (edited May 27, 2004).]

For monitoring weather during bad storms and power outages, can anyone say "battery operated?"

if you are not using at least a cheap surge protector on anything worth 2 cents in your house, you are crazy. you can get really inexpensive ones with a guarantee for connected equipment like $15,000 or even more i guess. just make sure you hang on to your receipt. worse case is usually that the surge protector will fail, sacrificing its life for your stuff. buying another one is more affordable than new electronics... granted it is hard to put a surge protector onto your appliances, but they do make surge protector outlets... i have often thought about getting that surge protector put in at the pole, but we will be moving again, so i havent bothered.

the townhouse that we now own had this problem of lights getting brighter for a few seconds when something like the fridges condenser would kick on (or ac, etc.) and I had the old lady call the electric company to see what was up... i was nervous as anything about hooking up my audio gear. anyway it turned out that there was a bad splice leading to our house that they replaced for free, once it was replaced, presto no problems. they will do a free inspection if you are having problems, to at least determine where the problem lies, with their side or your home. we have progress energy (formerly CP&L). i just use inexpensive surge protectors with high dollar connected equipment guarantees. i do have a back-up UPS unit on my computer though, but after i got it on rebate it was a damn steal.

Battery operated radio is a wonderful thing. Heck, after last summer's storm we ended up with a little battery-powered black & white TV, which now lives in a closet in the hall bathroom (the only completely interior room in the house).

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

yeah after a power outage of about 10 days one winter storm i was given a portable battery powered tv, and while it is tiny, it is still nice to have. can hook it up in the car too if necessary :-). its a color casio i think. reception is pretty good for being so small, but it doesnt work for crap while driving :-).

Well, I received a letter from the Electric Co. telling me I am SOL! They are not liable for damages caused by natural disasters such as the storm we had, with sustained winds of 81MPH. I guess I have to schlep the set to a repair shop and get an estimate. Mrs. "Cadboy" has already laid down the "law" that we cannot afford a new set right now, so I hope it can be repaired at a reasonable cost. The 20" RCA we are using only has a coax input on back and my DVD player only has component cables connected to it, so it is not even hooked up right now. I would need to pull half the equipment out to access the connections and I don't want to mess with anything for a temporary situation.

Okay, I need opinions! I took my tv to a repair shop yesterday and am probably looking @approx. $150-$200 to fix - don't have the official estimate yet. While there, I saw some used/scratch-n-dent sets for sale. One in particular caught my eye - a 26" Samsung digital HD-ready widescreen set. They are asking $350 for it. It is a discontinued model,#TXN2670WHF, which I looked up in Crutchfield's archives. They were selling it for $650. If I find the repair bill a bit high, I was thinking that this might be a good deal to get into a hi-def widescreen set. Granted, it's a small set, but I only had a 27" anyway. What would some of you outlaws suggest?

samsung is typically junk. that model if i remember correctly has issues with the sides of images being stretched, especially when watching hdtv that is not widescreen (i.e. black bars on sides). there are peaks where the image is stretched outward of where it is supposed to be like an inch or so.

this is from ones that i have seen... samsung spends a lot of time/money in r&d but thats it. cutting edge products with no quality.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.

Thanks for the info! Still waiting to get the estimate for the Panny. I think I'll fix what I have and keep it for now provided the repair bill is not insane. Speaking of quality issues, a cousin of mine recently purchased a 32" hi-def Sony for approx. $1,200 only to have the tube go out after only a few months. Sheesh!! Sony is having their problems as well according to the repair shop.

The official estimate is in! For a grand total of $160 including sales tax my tv will be like new. Now all I have to do is figure out where that $160 will come from(grocery money, gas money, wedding/birthday gift fund, Hmmm....what would an Outlaw do?

[This message has been edited by Cadboy (edited June 11, 2004).]

I did it...I picked up a used TV over the weekend. I could not get the wife's blessing to spend the $160 right now(too many expenses with 1 1/3 income - P.T. Home Depot) so I made a deal w/the repair shop. They took my broken TV in trade for a unit they were selling. It is a JVC 20" D-series model they were asking $100 for. I picked it up for $75 out the door! It has all the connectivity I need for now, and a good picture. The model# is: AV20D304. There are two caveats: 1)the original remote is missing so they supplied a Moteva replacement. 2)There are some small scratches in the middle of the screen which in some instances are noticable. Does anyone know of a product or method used to repair or minimize such scratches?

darn it. I'm very sorry i didn't see this thread before it was too late Cadboy. i have the Sears version of the Samsung (TXN2668WHF) you were contemplating and will tell you that I'm very happy with it!

you can watch 4:3 shows with black bars on the side (not really recommended full time due to burn in concerns) or in one of four stretched modes. for regular shows, I rather like the "Panarama" mode ... the aspect is nearly normal in the middle of the screen and stretched at the sides. only time it's really noticable is during higher speed pans or when there's a ticker along the bottom or top of the screen.

i've got two 1080i sources feeding it via Components ... my CATV box and a Zenith DVB318 upscaling DVD player. HD (or near HD upconversions) look great! If you check HTF and AVS, you'll find that while there are some people who had problems as curegeorg reported, the majority of owners where very satisfied with these two particular models.

I'd highly recommend the set if it's not too late to change your (or your wife's ) mind.

Not sure what to do about the scratches on your current replacement ... maybe some jewellers emory paste? you know, the stuff they use to polish the scratches out of watch crystals?

either way, good luck!

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pat----

email: pat@sklenar.info ---===--- home page: Grumpy's Lair

Thank's Pat, but if $160 was too much, the $350 they want for the Sammy is a distant dream! With the year we are having there is little, if any, extra $$$ to play with. I am usually robbing Peter to pay Paul and my wife is VERY stingy when it comes to non-practical spending - she usually spends her birthday money on family necessities!

oh well. it's the thought that counts.

good luck!
pat----