Lightening and Tuner Display


So I was on Audiogon, drinking a beer, and listening to tunes... not really noticing that a lightening storm was about to hit. All of a sudden, thunder cracked. My power did not flicker or go out, and my amps were fine, but I noticed that the digital display on my trusty NAD 1600 tuner read "0000," and the tuner band was changed. What? I have an APC surge protector but it detected no voltage swing or power anomaly. Could airborne static charge have gotten to the tuner's microprocessor? This is a first, and I was wondering if anyone has an explanation I'm not thinking of (no more beer while on Audiogon for awhile by the way).
bojack

Showing 1 response by almarg

I don't see anything surprising about that. Lightning (not "lightening," btw) produces large amounts of airborne RFI (radio frequency interference). A good illustration of that is the static that can be heard on AM radios when lightning is in the area. Obviously a tuner (FM or AM) is designed to receive very low level radio frequency signals, and to greatly amplify them. So the tuner picked up a burst of RFI at high levels, amplified it some more, and the resulting transient in the circuitry was large enough, and at high enough frequencies, to couple (perhaps via stray capacitances in the circuit board) into some of the digital circuitry in the tuner, causing the result you observed.

As long as operation subsequently returned to normal, perhaps after cycling power off and then on, I wouldn't worry about it.

Regards,
-- Al