Protect your tools and wallet from lightning!

Watching today’s extreme weather, the question may arise: Are we protecting our assets properly?

Lightning can not only damage our devices through the outlet! Network cables or central antennas are nearly as dangerous as their electricity-carrying counterparts. But do we defend ourselves properly or during a storm, if we are not at home at the moment, do we trust only in the power of prayer?

Let's put our hands on our hearts! Do we adequately protect our tens or hundreds of thousands of forints, proudly bought and owned televisions, computers and phones? Do we usually have to worry when we find out that a terrible -electric storm is raging in our place of residence and all our devices are powered on, stanby, or maybe our PC is just downloading so that by the time we get home, we can already watch the movie?

No no. Whoever trusts the lightning rod, I am now disappointed. The role of the lightning rod is to deflect so that lightning does not strike our buttocks directly. The terrible energy that such an impact carries is surely transmitted everywhere by the perpetrator. Panel flats are relatively more protected due to the reinforced concrete structure, but this is also little! Plus, it’s lightning season because in June it will surely strike more times than Luke Skywalker returns to the Emperor on the Jedi return, despite repeated encouragement from the Ruler.

So we protect our devices and not just unplug the power cord, but the power cord from the router, the phone cord from the phone, and so on.

The decision is ours. Here are the options:

• Our faith is strong and we are confident that we will be home during the storm and then we will pull everything out quickly.
• Our paranoia defeats us and before we leave home we pull out every channel from our devices. I also need a lot of time and inventory to do this if we want to be 100%.
• We defend ourselves by taking advantage of technical possibilities.

I suggest point 3!

In terms of protection, it is cheap compared to the damage, because we can buy a surge protection device for a few thousand. These are most like an extension cord / splitter. For more modern versions, we can also connect an analog antenna, an Ethernet cable and a telephone cord in addition to the mains sockets. It is advisable to buy a more complex asset for better value for money. Experts mention that we should buy something that shows how much energy it can dissipate. The rest is left to rest in the store.

Finally: The surge protector may be damaged by a lightning strike, but if we consider that all the devices that were plugged into it were broken, we realize that this is much more economical. It is cheaper to buy a new “surge protector” than a TV, PC, phone, anything else.