Telephone hook-up, lightning, surge protector questions

[JDS]

I have some questions.

We suspect lightning got the 508's modem. We had surge protection on the plug-ins, but didn't even know surge protectors for coax existed, until I read a post here, that I can't find again. Oh well, thanks to you all for posting and educating us.

During the same storm, a surge zapped our community gate's circuit board, which goes thru the phone line (part is blackened), and it zapped my computer's telephone surge protector, as well as our well pump switch. (Melted it good)

The phone line for the 508 works at that jack when i hook a phone to it, but the modem diagnostic thinks there's no phone attached.

OK, here are my questions.

1. By reading other posts, I know the ratings for surge protectors are rated in joules, the higher the better, but is there a rating for the telephone jack protection? How can I pick one that is sufficient? Or maybe they're all the same.

2. By not having my 508 hooked to the phone line now (argh), will I incur a monthly fee from DISH?

3. Are there any stand-alone phone surge protectors (without electric plug-ins) that I can buy for my phones, now that I know our sensitive our phone lines are in this area?

4. A friend told me that phone surge protectors are a one-time-shot, meaning it'll protect your modem once from a surge, then it's no good. (No reset button for the phone jack.) This seems to be true, since I can't get a dial tone on my computer's modem thru the protector anymore, but it will work when hooked directly in the wall. Wish I'd had the 508's modem hooked to one. Is this true, that once a phone surge is suppressed, you have to buy a new one?

Please feel free to comment, even reprimands for not having modem/coax surge protection are welcome. I hope someone else reading this who doesn't have proper surge protection can learn from my mistake. Thanks! JDS

 

[maximum]

I asked my installer about connecting the satellite coax lines to a surge suppressor and he said I didn't need to worry about it because the dish is grounded. He said he sometimes has to disconnect people's coax surge suppressors because they cause interference.
I have my OTA antenna and the phone line on a surge suppressor but left the satellite lines as installed. If lightning kills my receiver, it's the installer's fault.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Whew. OK. JDS, you've learned a lesson. Sounds like the 508's modem is fried. Don't tell Dish, and don't use PPV - you should get away with it for a long time.

As for surge supporesors working just once - that depends on how big the surge was, but generally, yes. They work by shunting excess current to ground, and the semiconductor that does that generally "fuses" in the process. The reset button is generally for a circuit breaker - nothing to do with surge protection. And yes, you can probably find a phone-only suppressor, but it'll probably cost more than a regular one. They're cheap enough - get a 3-way (power, phone, satellite) protector. If any one of the suppressors craps out, the others are probably compromised anyway - trash it.

Maximum: Your installer is an ASS. Get a decent 3-way protector. There ARE some old ones out there that couldn't handle the frequencies of the satellite feed, but I doubt they make them any more. Mine has 2-sets of coax protection. One is marked 'Sat', the other 'Cable'. They are exactly the same internally.

 

[nebguy94]

The joules rating indicates how much of a power surge the suppressor can withstand before needing to be replaced. It's not worth the money to get a suppressor to withstand a lightning strike, as most suppressors in the affordable consumer market are rated in the 300 to 3000 joule range and the average bolt of lightning is roughly 10 million joules... That's not to say this rating is irrelevant, just not worth considering in respect to direct lightning strikes. Depending on how often your house experiences power surges and how great the surges are (many variables influence this such as the draw you have on your house's electrical source particularly devices that cycle on and off creating sudden surges and drops, local transformers, switches and wiring, etc.) you may find a lower rated suppressor lasts for years, or you may find you are replacing it yearly. Look at the joules rating as a gauge of how long a life you can expect out of the suppressor...

A more significant rating is the clamping voltage. This is how powerful the surge must before the surge suppression will kick in. The standard UL ratings are 330v, 400v and 500v. In my opinion, if you're going to go 400v or 500v save your money, you'll need it to replace the device you were protecting. Further, many suppressors are rated far below 330v, the more "delicate" and expensive the electronics the closer to 120v I like the suppressor to be rated.

The other rating that is of interest is the response time, this is how long of delay there is between the surge starting and suppression kicking in. You want a rating <1 nanosecond.

The are phone line only surge-suppressors, but they need to be plugged into a wall outlet to be useful. You'll also find very small profile supressors with one or two outlets and phone suppression run about the same price. They're harder to find but a quick search online for phone surge suppressor should turn up plenty of hits.

As mentioned earlier, in discussing the joules ratings, when it comes to lightning, most suppressors are disposable items. Many will have indicators to tell you when they need to be replaced, but when it comes to my more expensive electronics, if I had taken one lightning strike, I'd probably replace the suppressor regardless, as the power of a lightning strike has been known to complete fuse some protective circuits into useless always on conductors...

As far as relying on the satellite's coax ground, I'd rather not gamble that the ground wire is connected properly to a ground of low enough impedence and with no ground loops. Unless you do actually experience a problem introducing a surge suppressor (in which case I'd try a different type suppressor) I'd rather have the peace of mind of knowing there was another layer of protection between lightning and my home theater equipment.

Some other points should be made. First, make sure that any receptacle you plug a surge supressor into is actually grounded. I can't count the number of three-prong receptacles I've seen hosting surge supressors, where the ground isn't hooked up properly, which means the surge suppressor can't do anything.

Second, make sure you don't build a ground loop into your surge suppression. A couple tips along these lines. If a device has multiple connections (e.g. AC, phone, coax) all connections should go through the same surge suppressor, DO NOT plug the AC into one surge suppressor and use a separate suppressor for phone and/or coax.) Second, if you have devices connected together in such a way they can transmit electricity (e.g. your TV has wire connecting it's audio output to your receiver, your DVD player has a wire connecting it's video output to your TV and audio to your receiver) all the interconnected devices should use the same suppressor. Along the same lines, if you've got your PC and monitor on a surge suppressor but not your printer (or some other peripheral that is connected to your PC) you're unprotected.

 

[SimpleSimon]

nebguy94: Well-stated! Thank you!

 

[Chuckster]

Wow, thanks nebguy94, that was very informative.

 

[Stargazer]

Many surge protectors have lights on them indicating if it is plugged into a grounded outlet or not. I had a lightening hit close to my house less than a month ago and it got me and my neighbor's phone line. I had all the phone lines go through this one surge protector first before going into any other device that the phone line is plugged in at and it saved everything including my laptop, $80 phone, caller id, intercom phone, and a phone in the other room. It burnt out the line between the outside box and the surge protector and the surge protector would no longer pass a phone signal through it. Since I had a surge in a receiver about four years ago I would not hook up another receiver up to a phone line. I think the most likely surge one would get would be through the phone line.

 

[SimpleSimon]

It depends on the local utilities and how conscious they are of the issues (and whether they're willing to put any money into it).

For example, even though I'm in the #2 lightning county in the country, When it comes to power, we rarely take more than 'blinks'. This is because they put surge trips on about every third pole. Then there's lightning fuses on every house drop. Other areas have all sorts of serious issues. The difference is my power company is a co-op - all the profit goes back into physical plant and the leftover comes back in the form of annual rebates.

So, because of that, yes, phone is the biggest problem for me - because the local phone company couldn't care less about doing anything right.

 

[maximum]

I have a three-way surge suppressor (power/phone/2 coax) so I guess I'll connect the two satellite lines to it and get another coax protector for the antenna. Now I have to find a couple more lengths of the right kind of coax cable (was it RG6?) . Thinking about connecting a UPS too. My entertainment center cabinet is getting too full.

 

[Wayd Wolf]

Cable companies have surge suppressing ground blocks as Charter Cable tends to use but I have yet to see a separate one for DBS which would be incredibly nice. I shudder to think of Home Depot's assinine markup on such a thing though. ($0.39 wallplates for $3.97?!)

And we installers aren't issued the surge suppressing power strips so... If ya got one and it is definitely compatible, then by all means, insist on trying it.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I have a three-way surge suppressor (power/phone/2 coax) so I guess I'll connect the two satellite lines to it and get another coax protector for the antenna. Now I have to find a couple more lengths of the right kind of coax cable (was it RG6?) . Thinking about connecting a UPS too. My entertainment center cabinet is getting too full.

Yes, RG-6. But if you're talking like 3 feet, and you aren't pushing the distance limits to the dish already (100' for Legacy, 200' for DishPro), feel free to try whatever you've got lying around - you'll probably be OK, and it only takes a minute to try it. Check signal strength before and after - on both tuners - and make sure you use the same transponder for the checks.

 

[Stargazer]

I would assume that most surge protectors that has the coax protector built in would not be DishPro compatible.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I would assume that most surge protectors that has the coax protector built in would not be DishPro compatible.

DishPro has nothing to do with it - except for the frequencies in use, which might be what you're referring to.

So, yes, make sure the protector is suitable for 2150MHz - but all things considered, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Stargazer]

The frequencies is what I was referring to. I wonder if it would even be an issue for legacy receivers, lnbf's, and switches.

 

[SimpleSimon]

The frequencies is what I was referring to. I wonder if it would even be an issue for legacy receivers, lnbf's, and switches.

I haven't run into any troubles. Of course, I only buy coax protectors that are rated for DSS. Considering what's in them, if they can handle 1450MHz, 2150MHz shouldn't be a problem - it's not like we're worried about the capacitance loss that long cable runs have.