Hi Guys:
This is Dog Radio Studio 2. As the above title notes - a big storm came
through here and I lost power last Saturday afternoon. It's Thursday
Hi Guys:
This is Dog Radio Studio 2. As the above title notes - a big storm came
through here and I lost power last Saturday afternoon. It's Thursday
evening now and I don't think it will be back for a while. 780,000
households; most of Connecticut - lost electrical power. I don't know
much about the nearby states. We have not had access to a computer
until just now. That's because the University of Hartford, where I work,
just opened back up today. I'm on the computer in the office. So with no
computer and no TV, we only have had the local AM station for info. This
station - WTIC 1080, the local 50,000 watt flame thrower, has done a good
job.
Let me back up a moment and give you guys a few thoughts.
This has been an emergency. Some people, about 10, have died
as a result of the storm. Last Saturday night, a Noreaster (probably
spelled wrong) came through here and dumped between 4 and 24 inches
of snow in roughly a 12 hour period. This was in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
EVERYBODY was caught off guard. Thousands of trees came down because
they still had leaves on them. The combination of the leaves and heavy snow
was the main ingredient that nobody foresaw. On Saturday night a neighbor's
tree came down in my front yard and tore my power line right off of the house.
But the power had failed before that. Two line transformers blew up within a
thousand feet of my house.
My initial reaction was survival. Land line phones were jammed. Cell phone use
was spotty, power lines, some live, were down all over the place. Leaving the
house was not possible. Some people were trapped in their houses because of
broken trees that prevented them from getting out. The local supermarket closed.
Fast food places closed. My house temperature dropped to about 45 degrees and
(luckily) has been holding there ever since. (It could have been much worse.) I am
a ham radio operator, but I could not find any emergency traffic nets. However,
in just trying to stay warm, I didn't look very hard. My 16 year old daughter was
almost going crazy, because she didn't have a working computer. We spent most
of our first few days just dealing with her. Then, when things got a little better, she went
to New York with a friend - there was power in Manhattan, and that is where she has
been ever since.
We were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and Wheat Thins, and drinking
ginger ale. The super market (my job number two) lost power - a LOT of food was
lost. I just so happened that I had the week off from there. It was a vacation week
that had to be used up. The University of Hartford (my job number one) was closed on Monday through
yesterday (Wednesday.)
As you guys know, I haven't been feeling well. Too many things that were going on
(and exhaustion) (and the wrong medicine) caused me to collapse at my job a couple of weeks ago.
That situation was not permanent and that has pretty much been resolved. (Actually, the
ambulance ride to the hospital was very humorous, in a Stephen King sort of way.)
So the storm hits, and after figuring out how to get warm and stay that way, and getting used to the situation,
I was able to sleep a lot, and that was good. (If you are going to take a nap, a big dog
is a real good heater.) I feel a lot better now.
I have a lot more thoughts, but after being through this and still going through it, I have
a few thoughts about Part 15 radio in these kinds of situations.
I would have done some ham radio help if I had been able, but I couldn't.
If your Part 15 station has listeners in your neighborhood, you could maybe
help them. But everybody was listening to WTIC. Actually, not everybody -
a LOT of people had NO IDEA what "AM 1080" was, according to a good
friend of mine.
So, if you have a working Part 15 station with listeners, you would have to give
them useful information. In this case, everybody just wants to know when
power is coming back. I still don't know the answer to that. I suppose you could
send a friend around and look at nearby streets, but initially this was very
dangerous. And one could only go out during the day, not at night. At night there
are too many unknowns, and NO street lights or stop lights. It is DARK.
So, you have to have an audience, and some kind of REAL information.
The last thing you need to have is a good working Part 15 station that
will run for a long long time without AC power.
We on this board are all engineers either officially, or just in spirit.
So we all can envision a Part 15 station that runs independent of
the power grid.
Assuming no computer is available, what comes to mind is a couple
of portable CD or MP3 players, a mike and preamp, a passive mixer,
some kind of audio limiter, and the transmitter, and some way to
power them. It would have to be simple, because, you won't have time
to be messing around with the equipment. Although I am not in any
condition to assemble such a station, someone else might. Everything
would be easy, except for that audio processor. In may case, I have
a very good portable cassette recorder with a good audio limiter that
could be placed in the line. In fact, I have used it for that purpose in
the past. You just stick a tape in, put it into the pause mode, and let
it do it's job.
NOAA radio is cool and I like it. But people usually have a good idea
what the weather is going to be. What everybody here wants to know here is;
When is the power going to come back? And NOAA WX won't help in
that regard.
I spent a whole day messing around with a portable HDTV that was given
to me. WFSB, channel 3 (actually channel 33 RF HDTV) is 4 miles from
here. I could not receive it. I could not get ANY TV. It would have been
nice to see a big map that showed where the outages were and weren't.
But it was not to be. This little handheld HDTV didn't do ANYTHING. Is that
little HDTV broken - or are ALL of them just poor performers? I don't know.
I thought about the 3 LPTVs - channels 38, 48, and 50. 48 is an "Old TV
show" network feed and that's all. There is no local programming there.
38 and 50 are Spanish language. I am willing to watch Spanish language
TV if there is a map of Connecticut showing where the outages are. But those
2 channels are network feeds only. OH - actually - I found out that all
3 LPTVs were off the air. None of them had emergency power.
So
When Is The Power Going To Come Back?
I don't know.
And I may not get to a computer for another couple of days, so Best Wishes!
If anyone has comments on this, I may not be back for a while.
Thanks for reading all of this stuff! I hope there aren't too many errors.
Bruce, DOGRADIO STUDIO 2
Dear Bruce :
Your story of such a powerful storm is very chilling to everyone who reads it here at the site. What you could not do on part 15 radio you certainly have done for us.
The lesson you bring is about how frail we are in the grip of the giant natural forces and probably everyone on this board will have their turn with a terrible earth-space event.
Just this week I've been wondering about power generators and how difficult it is to have them in safe working order when they are needed.
Trees are playing a large roll in all the disasters... they come down in ice, floods, earthquakes, wind storms and now your new twist, the sum weight of leaves and snow.
A few years ago my seemingly peaceful bamboo trees iced up and slumped onto the power lines ripping them from the house.
A simple honeysuckle bush iced up on top of the internet cable and dragged it from the wall.
Invisible ice put me on my back in the dark and only by chance did I escape a broken bone.
I'm so happy you and your family are making it and it will be so good when "normal" returns.
"So, you have to have an audience, and some kind of REAL information."
It may not have been on a good working Part 15 station during a grid outage from an unexpected storm, but you just provided us with REAL information on the local situation.
Thank you for that and hang in there.
RFB
After many years of snow and ice storms,I concluded that trees near my house or cars are evil and have systematically cut them all down. Now since I have been a ham radio operator for decades and serve my local area with two repeaters and support emergency nets,I have a huge 12 volt battery bank,1680 amp.hours worth. It powers everything that will run on 12 volts,repeaters,transcievers,tv's,stereo,and my part15 station. Inverters run the pc's,router and cablle modem as well as emergency lighting. For longer outages,I pull out my 7500watt generator to run the furnace and refrigerators and stuff like that. My listeners get weather alerts and when warranted,I stop the automation and replay scanner audio of interest.
p.s. I walked into a couple of institutional type buildings nearby and caught them using my FM feed for background music on their overhead paging system,,,made me proud!!! I dont advertise much.
When the power goes out here, I have the better half climb up on the exerciser bike and start peddling. 😀
This is true! I attached low back torque bicycle generators to it feeding bridge rectifiers and voltage regulators charging Li-Ion packs, in turn which power DC-AC inverters for low wattage devices.
A salvaged 10Kw diesel generator kicks in if power is out for more than 10 minutes to handle the larger loads like the fridge and central heat/AC unit.
RFB
RFB you present a real-life example of an idea I presented on my radio program that all the people working out in exercise centers everywhere should be attached to generators to supply national electricity.
You are already doing it!
Here is one that will not only be quite effective in windy conditions, but fit in nicely with the other yard decor.
Attach the low back torque bicycle generator to the fan of those yard wind mill sets. It works great! I have 3 of them. 🙂
RFB
This Part 15 website has ventured into many branches of electronics that relate to radio broadcasting, including solar power. But I haven't seen much about power generators and the value of them, not so much to keep the station on the air, as to keep the station's owners alive for another day.
RFB, what kind of fume exhaust have you installed for your diesel generator?
This type of situation was a real concern when I was broadcasting on Bowen Island, as we lost power quite frequently (and for days on end) during the winter.
The idea that I had, and I also built it, was a transmitter in a car, with a 108 inch CB whip mounted on the fender (with a short feedline to the transmitter), a portable Yamaha mixer/compressor, a microphone and a music source. For the latter I used an MP3 ready CD player, but the intent was to install a Car Computer (which could also be used for navigation and other things). The nice thing about the car station is the built-in power supply i.e. the battery.
I think I might just dig up the pieces, rebuild that station and keep it going.
Wonderful comments you guys. I got power
back on last night - so it was out for 8 days.
This is the first time I have been able to get to
a computer.
Thank you again! I appreciate the info and best
wishes very much!
Bruce, DOGRADIO STUDIO 2
Welcome back. Glad to hear things are on their way to returning to normal.
RFB