I'm Back!!!

[pcfdcap1]

HEY EVERYBODY, I'M BACK! JUST TO GIVE YOU GUYS A LITTLE HISTORY OF THE LAST 9 WEEKS.
JULY 12TH WE HAD A NASTY LIGHTNING STORM(with a few drops of rain)AND THINGS BLEW ALL OVER. OUR BRAND NEW COMPUTER AT THE STATION FRIED AND SO DID MINE AT HOME. AFTER MUCH HASSLE AND DISCUSSION WITH MY INSURANCE COMPANY, I FINALLY FECEIVED A PARTIAL PAYMENT. I JUST GOT MY COMPUTER UP AND GOING THIS AFTERNOON
I'll have more details to come later. Now it's time to get caught up on what I've missed.
Oh, and Jay, thanks for the email. As my ativar says will you still remember me

[RspctFrmCalgary]

Wow Hope you get it all worked out.

Welcome back

[jboczek]

Welcome back, cap. Hope your insurance company pays off the rest of your damage. Hint: put GOOD surge suppressors on those systems and it could keep it from happening again.

[pcfdcap1]

Ah yeah, surge protection. Funny you should mention that Jack. The computer,monitor and printer were plugged into a APC surge protector.
That's only a small part of the story. We also fried a control board in our LINK radio(the one we recieve paging from the 911 dispatch center from). The audio module was fried in our base radio in the truck room. The power pack that supplied the power to that radio blew the voltage regulator. The APC surge protector(the one that had the computer was plugged into) and the base and link radios were plugged into an APC brand UPS. APC says the lightning came through the phone line thus causing the damage. We still can't figure out why the radios blew because of the phone line. The insurance ajuster says the lightning came through the base radio antenna. He will cover the radios but not the computer since APC has a guarantee on their products.

We've learned 2 things at the station. 1-don't buy another product from APC and 2, look for another insurance carrier for our property damage.

As far as my computer goes, I didn't upgrade my suppressor when I bought my computer last year so that was my fault. I finally got a nice check for my damage and got my computer today-with a new suppressor.

[jaybird210]

YEA!!! PC IS OKAY!!! YEA!!!

I was worried about you, my friend! (See Paging pcfdcap1! thread)

You'll never stop lightening. Never. Remember that the bolt has over-come 2-3 MILES of air to strike, so some little $100 surge supressor ain't gonna do poop (at least on a direct hit).

I usually unplug my stuff at home during a thunderstorm. Literally (phone, too). As for the station, hell, that's what back-ups are for!!!

Good to have you back!

[Weruj1]

I am glad Jay has found his brother ! and I am also happy he is ok !

[ChiefReason]

Great. Mike's back. He stopped in over at the other site the other night.
Now, if we can just get the rest of the missing to report in.
Yogi; you never did give us a report on Monroe or didn't you go?
The rest of you MIAs; can you just give a little sign that things are; you know, OK?
CR

[80FIRE]

Welcome back PCFPD glad to see you are still among us.
I had better get off the puter and get it unpluged. It just cracked a lightning bolt WAY to close here

[pcfdcap1]

Good idea. It's doing nothing here-yet