What the. . . . EM pulse??

[JB]

Tuesday PM. Watching DirecTV.

Suddenly, the DTV receiver goes into reset mode. Gets about halfway reset and resets again. Does this about 4 times and then dies completely.

Switched to trying to watch local Digital TV off my antenna. All of my channel list is erased. Unhooked DTV receiver and reset the TV, then scanned channels again and finally got them.

Came in here to use my 'puter. No display on the monitor. Tried to reset it and got a "no VGA signal" message. After about an hour of messing with it I unplugged and let it sit for about an hour. When I cold booted I got VGA display but the (wireless) mouse is dead. Switched to a "normal" mouse. . .also dead.

Switched the 2 channel wireless mouse to CH-2 and it started working.

DTV FedExed me a new receiver. Installed and set it up. Works fine.

Now this ratzakratza forum server has gone back to needing several minutes to load a page.

What happened to all my electronics at once??

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Freak power surge? Electrical storm? EMP from a nuclear device or the most reasonable answer...... Lester's little buddies playing games from up above

 

[gonefishie]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

I say the most likely scenario was power surge. Or the military was testing some new EMP weapon.

 

[JB]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Well I tend to suspect an EMP because the only devices that were affected were those devices that operate in the high UHF/SHF spectrum ('puter is on line-of-sight wireless link).

Only wireless devices I have that weren't noticably affected were phones (see below), garage door opener and IR lasers. No non-wireless devices were affected.

One outside possible source is my new, Panasonic expandable digital cordless phone system. It uses DECT 6.0* at about 1.92GHZ. Just set it up Tuesday AM. It has shown no glitches and works fine.

* Digital Enhanced Cordless Communications.

 

[eurolarva]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

I am pretty sure and EMP will take out all electronics that were on. Your monitor should have been toast as well. Any CMOS chip even off would have blown the covers right off the ICs. Computer in sleep mode would have gone. Microwave timer, oven timer and the list goes on. If weather has been real Hot and air conditioning was at a peak I would bet and inductive kick messed with you.

 

[i386]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Doesn't sound symptomatic of surge to me as those pop power supplies. Anything else funny happen outside the house? Car stereo, radio in the barn, neighbors? Strange stuff.

 

[v1_0]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

What happened to all my electronics at once??

Three possibilities: EMP, Power surge, or you are under a UN/Alien attack.

First, go out an buy the "faraday cage" material of your choice. And lots of tinfoil.

Wrap up those transformer phones so they can't attack your other electronics. They resent having to keep up with the rest of technology and long to return to those days when they didn't have to have anything more than a bell, couple of speakers, dial, and were connected directly to the mother network. They blame your computer. The DVR is just collatoral damage (similar components).

Next, trace your circuits - are those devices on the same power circuit? It's possible that one thing failed and pulsed your others.

The UN has been having problems getting the home monitoring circuit in the DTV recievers to work properly. They contracted out to China, suspicions are that the Chinese are putting in small, hidden, one-shot EMP generators into the electronics these days. The Aliens would have "no comment" on this issue, if they weren't so busy hiding.

 

[JB]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Um. I have done what so many posters do. I have failed to include important info.

All three devices affected by this event are on surge suppressors, and the 'puter's surge suppressor is plugged in to a Sola regulating transformer.

 

[v1_0]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Um. I have done what so many posters do. I have failed to include important info.

All three devices affected by this event are on surge suppressors, and the 'puter's surge suppressor is plugged in to a Sola regulating transformer.

Now I understand why you ruled out power surge!

How close together are your items? Are there any other commonalities - such as cable (or are you dsl)?

You could have had a spike come in on your cable line, telephone line, etc. Unless you have surpressors on those...

Ruling out that, you would have to go with something 'over the air' - although I'm not sure how your DTV fits into that.

An EMP would probably affect other things, although most of the stuff you mentioned is probably the most susceptable to it out of normal electronics.
There would be levels of sensitivity, of course. Your toaster probably wouldn't care much unless a nuclear grade EMP went off nearby. The more 'static sensitive' an item - such as your computer (ie: more transistors) - the more sensitive it is. Your other items would fall somewhere inbetween: things like your cell phones, cordless home phones, game consoles, etc.

Now, there are caveats to this sort of thing. Long wires - such as an antenna - would respond to an EMP pulse by producing current, due to the magnetic field fluctuation. This current then goes into the attached devices...

 

[JB]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

The TV and the sat receiver are close. . . on the same surge protector. The TV has seperate inputs for the sat RX output and the antenna signal. It is a digital receiver.

The 'puter is in another room and on another circuit. No DSL, It is on a wireless broadband ISP. Don't know the freq, but it is line of sight so I am guessing high UHF or SHF.

Lockheed Martin test flies both the F-22 and F-37 (38?) (assembled in Ft. Worth) in this vicinity. I am wondering if there is a black weapon on one of those dudes that got accidentally triggered to destroy my anti-aircraft RADAR and LASER circuits.

 

[scipper77]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Did any of your neighbors have similar issues??

 

[gonefishie]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Well, seemed that it could be a big RF interference that messed with your wireless devices. You have DTV and DTV satellite internet right? It could be that DTV send out a hash signal, which they do frequently, that did more then it intended purpose. Is your DTV receiver completely dead/no power? or is it just not receiving signal? If no power then it likely that Dave did it.

 

[v1_0]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

The TV and the sat receiver are close. . . on the same surge protector. The TV has seperate inputs for the sat RX output and the antenna signal. It is a digital receiver.

The 'puter is in another room and on another circuit. No DSL, It is on a wireless broadband ISP. Don't know the freq, but it is line of sight so I am guessing high UHF or SHF.

Assumption: all your issues were caused by the same thing.

Anything "wire borne" seems to be ruled out - filtering/surpression on the power lines, and no other common wire (cable/lan/etc) that they are all connected to.

So, whatever did it was non-wire related. Obviously, you had already reached this conclusion.

scipper77 has asked the important question. If others in your neighborhood were affected, this would reassure our sense of your sanity. And, you could use that information to either determine a path or the point source of the problem.

It could be that Lockheed Martin is testing out the latest ECM technology that they "discovered" (from the Aliens).

 

[SuzukiChopper]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

This is generally the time of year for sunspots to start affecting electronics. After a quick 1 minute search it doesn't look like there were any reports of anyone being affected, although a new one did start forming approximately around this time frame.

I wouldn't rule out military involvement in any way since you say they often test those aircraft in your area.

 

[v1_0]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Maybe they were checking for tunnels: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience.../newradaraimstodetectillegaltunnelsonusborder

 

[JB]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Nearest neighbors (1/2 mile in each direction) reported no problems.

 

[eurolarva]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

Lockheed Martin test flies both the F-22 and F-37 (38?) (assembled in Ft. Worth) in this vicinity. I am wondering if there is a black weapon on one of those dudes that got accidentally triggered to destroy my anti-aircraft RADAR and LASER circuits.

Just exactly do you do with those anti aircraft radar and laser circuits?

 

[JB]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??

I would tell, but then I would have to kill you.

 

[skargo]

Re: What the. . . . EM pulse??