Text 44482, 65 rader
Skriven 2008-03-17 15:08:22 av Ross Cassell (1:123/456)
Ärende: News of my demise...
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Hello All!

..is highly exagerated.. :)

On Saturday March 15th at or around 15:45 to 16:00 hrs, my system went offline.

If you all had been following the news, the Southeast USA was affected by a
strong weather system that contained strong thunderstorms, Tornadoes and heavy
rain. Indeed this is the same weather system that brought the tornado to
downtown Atlanta.

By saturday afternoon, this weather system began affecting my area, I only saw
thunderstorms and heavy rain in my county of residence, while counties to my
south and southeast are the ones whom really got clobbered with that which my
Georgian neighbors saw.

However, around 15:30 hrs or so, we heard a loud crack of lightning, I mean
loud and real close, followed real quickly by the resulting thunder boom. WE
did not lose power, it didnt even flicker, but about 20 minutes later the
picture quality on the TV's got worse and worse and eventually no TV and the
cable modem lost sync. A given, since poor cable signal which affects TV will
mean no internet.

I walked around the house and saw no signs of a lightning strike, doesnt mean
there wasnt one, but nothing I could discern.

So I called the cable company to report an outage, I was told that no one else
has reported it in yet, but these things take time and they need 3 calls from
the same area before they officially declare an outage. But I got a service
call scheduled anyway and the soonest they could come was between 8a-12n on
Monday March 17th.

Followup calls to the cable company always had them telling me something
different each time...

Oh yes sir, there is an outage declared, it will be fixed in a hour or 2...

Oh yes sir, no estimated time of repair, but they are working on it..

No sir, there is no outage, but if you unplug your cable boxes for 15 seconds,
I'll refresh the signal.

No sir, there is no outage with TV, but there is with Internet (and vice versa)

etc etc etc

Long story short....

When the technician arrived, he quickly determined that the amplifier that
resides in the interface box at the rear of the house, was fried..

As soon as he replaced it, TV's sprang to life and cable modem quickly synced
up, wallah I am online..

I plan on setting up a email list that I can maintain from my cellphone, more
later, this way I can let people know why I am down, which doesnt happen often
but I certainly am not immune.

==
Ross
Fidonet Feeds Or Fidonet In Your Newsreader: http://www.easternstar.info
E-mail: ross(at)cassell(dot)us | Blogs/Other Places: http://links.cassell.us
... A Independent: A Democrat who is in denial.
--- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-30413
 * Origin: The Eastern Star - Spartanburg, SC USA (1:123/456)