Hi Mark!   
      
   You and the others are I think sorta lucky...   
      
    MH> When I was around 10 years old, I was looking outside my bedroom window    
    MH> during a storm and lightning hit our garage right in    
    MH> front of me.  All I saw was white light and an instant    
    MH> VERY loud boom.     
      
    MH> The lightning had hit the corner of our garage and    
    MH> caught it on fire.  I had to go out there and put it    
    MH> out with the hose.  I'll never forget that one!   
      
   I too first got introduced to lightning at about 10 years of age when I first   
   started fooling with radio beginning with crystal sets.  Incidentally I still   
   have my original cat-whisker crystal that I used with the coil wound on an   
   oatmeal box here in the same room I am typing this message, chortle.  At any   
   rate, I've been closely nudged by lightning 29 times at the last count.  My   
   airplane has been hit directly six times.  The Research Vessel Hidalgo for the   
   Oceanography Departmemt of Texas A&M on which I eventually got my FCC First   
   Class Marine Radio Telegraph Operator license was hit eight times when I was   
   on it.  Yes, the radio shack was up on the top of the vessel right behind the   
   captain's room.  Twice while I was in Houston walking on Main Street downtown   
   while I *HAD* to so for emergency reasons, a power line pole next to me was   
   hit directly!  As the Chief Engineer for WTAW radio here in College Station   
   for years just out of high school here my special knowledge about lightning   
   strike damage suppression by individual construction for radial wire lobe   
   creation to carry the hits to the ground surface eventually helped stop damage   
   from MANY strikes that hit even the power lines that ran the station as well   
   as the 256 foot high tower for it.   
      
   My main type ham radio interest for my still W5WQN call and the Extra Class   
   license I got at 13 years of age in 1952 has always been on CW 40 meter work   
   only.  That eventually got me 300 40 meter only CW country QSL cards for my   
   original only ever in the history of the ARRL initial application for my 40   
   meter CW DXCC award.  The antenna array out at our family remote site with   
   even four tower 80 meter vertical phased array systems I use is hit directly   
   an average of about three times a year.  With my special work for suppression   
   grounding for everything, including a complete ground radial grid with   
   multiple dispersion radial spikes on it around the whole house, the last   
   damage I have ever taken from this was back in I think 1974.  However the   
   worst strike I was personally involved in was out there when I was asleep in   
   bed about 2AM.  The strike blew me out of the bed on the floor!  That's when I   
   put in the ring ground line around the whole place.  And by the way - the   
   normal power line ground spike at the meter is a joke when it comes to   
   lightning.   
      
   At A&M Consolidated High School here in College Station as a freshman, I was   
   going to dance classes at Texas A&M here.  I was very attracted to a beautiful   
   girl who was a WONDERFUL dance partner.  We went toward the top of the heap in   
   the class until one day when lightning hit the Memorial Student Center during   
   a class.  This girl was from a major cattle ranch down near Navasota about   
   twenty miles away.  After the BOOM I told her about my close calls with   
   lightning even back then,  She ran away from me and never came back to the   
   classes!  Later I found out why.  Her Dad was blown off his horse and killed   
   riding home trying to get out of a storm by a lightning bolt!  Their ranch   
   wound up as being the cattle auction operation for Navasota.  I cried when I   
   found out this.   
      
   Key UPS advice to all folks here.  You should NEVER use any UPS that does not   
   use an actual iron core power transformer in it to isolate the entire   
   protected side of the power it protects through the pig-iron core!  The reason   
   is that a lightning stroke can't really whop things across the pig-iron core!    
   If you EVER use any item with a switching power supply for the DC voltage it   
   gives you direct from the power source line, that is a guaranteed suicide for   
   whatever you thing it is protecting.  For years now I have always used only   
   the APC Smart protection units that have the pig-iron transformers in them.    
   There are other reasons to Feed-The-Pig beyond money investments, chuckle!   
      
   As well, if you are using a major huge rack system for lots of stuff, one of   
   the best protection methods you can use is to install even a many KW pig-iron   
   isolation transformer and feed the whole system of computers, printers and   
   everyting else behind it.  With ABSOLUTELY surge protected ground connections   
   on the whole powerline stuff behind it that are *NEVER* allowed to touch the   
   standard ground pin or anything connected to it in the whole house.   
      
   And remember a lightning bolt is *NOT* just electricity as most people likely   
   think!  It is a RADIO WAVE.  Which can vary in quarter wave length amounts   
   during a strike from even over 250 feet at the start of a strike down to even   
   only six or eight feet, depending on the frequency of the bolt that chances   
   during the split second it whops whataver!  That's why on the same power line   
   in your house, sometimes your computer gets blown away while ten feet away   
   your radio, TV or music set doesn't!  Voltage and current swap in peaks every   
   quarter wave down the metal that carries the radio wave.   
      
      
   Mike Luther as NC117 from 1:117/100 and still W5WQN.   
      
   ---   
    * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)