Hey @GasBandit is everything okay with you? Saw that you guys had some really severe weather earlier and even a confirmed tornado.
Checking on GasBandit
- Thread starter Sparhawk
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GasBandit
Staff member
Yep, I'm ok, thanks.
The tornado hit about a mile east of my place (which is about 3 miles NE of where I work).
GasBandit
Staff member
We should also check on @IronBrig4 though I think he's down in College Station further from this particular area.[DOUBLEPOST=1464302948,1464302737][/DOUBLEPOST]Footage and Photos:
http://www.khou.com/weather/possible-tornado-hits-bryancollege-station-area/216188498
http://www.khou.com/weather/possible-tornado-hits-bryancollege-station-area/216188498
Do we even have a map? We need a map. Something with pins and little Post-It flags and string. Nothing too precise, of course.
--Patrick
I really meant something like a world map, so we know how dense some groups of halforumites are.
Yes, I know that many of us here value our privacy, so I don't really expect this to happen.
--Patrick
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GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, thought twice about it, both for my privacy and Iron's.
Even though I have it pretty obvious in profile, I both understand and appreciate those who only respond "on-demand" to this type of thing, and don't want it easily available/harvestable.
I actually got stuck in my house again. That extra 4 hour nap this morning paid dividends...
So, going to be able to persuade management to install lightning rods at the least, and preferably industrial surge protectors to protect the whole property? They exist.
They almost surely have significant grounding and lightning protection at the station. However, when a bolt comes near a site, any long lines become antennas/generators and generate huge power surges, and ethernet cables are one significant receptor to the magnetic field a lightning strike generates. This would require surge protection on each ethernet cable.
You can overcome this with fiber optic lines for any connections longer than a few dozen feet.
Or wifi, but that has its own drawbacks.
GasBandit
Staff member
This one got fancy. Best as we can tell, lightning hit the transmitter tower (which is 500 feet tall), and it was a big'un, cause that happens all the time without this happening... but anyway, the zappy juice came down the guy wires, and one of the guy wires passes within 2 feet of the cable TV wire, and we think it "jumped" there, because where the cable comes into the building, the coax insulation is scorched black. Those coax lines enter the building through the same hole as the ethernet cable that goes to a wireless ethernet radio mounted to the roof (it lets us remote control our electronic roadsign), and that ethernet cable comes in and plugs into a switch... one of the two switches that got fried, and the other switch is also plugged into this switch, one room over.
The only hole in that theory though is that both the outdoor wifi radio and it's PoE adapter inside the building between the radio and the switch still function normally. But I don't know what else it could have been because everything else is surge-suppressed out the wahzoo.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, our first order of business is going to be an ethernet surge suppressor on that goddamned outdoor radio cable. Wish the guys who installed the sign and the radio had done that, but this'll be the third thing they fucked up (first they didn't hook up the bottom half of the sign, then they installed the light sensor INSIDE the sign where it can't see the sky/outside, and now this).
GasBandit
Staff member
You should see how goddamn bright the sign is at night because it can't tell when it's night. Seriously, we've gotten complaints. THE BEACONS ARE LIT. GONDOR CALLS FOR AID.
GasBandit
Staff member
Aaaand the xerox machine is fried, too.
Talking to the engineer, we also lost 3 studio telephones, a television, and all the tower lights. You know, the ones that make sure pilots can see the tower at night.
It's been probably 12 years since we got hit this bad, and that day, you could smell the cooking electronics coming from one studio.
Talking to the engineer, we also lost 3 studio telephones, a television, and all the tower lights. You know, the ones that make sure pilots can see the tower at night.
It's been probably 12 years since we got hit this bad, and that day, you could smell the cooking electronics coming from one studio.
GasBandit
Staff member
That might make it difficult to transmit radio signals, though.
GasBandit
Staff member
Another casualty - the magnetic door lock on the front door. Well, not the lock itself, just the button console that you're supposed to use after hours to disengage the lock. That lock is just staying locked.[DOUBLEPOST=1464390823,1464390725][/DOUBLEPOST]Well, Ironbrig's logged in twice at least since the tornado hit yesterday, so I guess he's ok, just busy maybe 
Eh, quite a few people - 63 of them. But most of them aren't active anymore, honestly. I still have the Google Map, though I'm not sure everyone would still want their location made public.
There's one pin in Hawaii, and oddly, it's not who you'd think