On Fri, 2011-11-04 at 06:33 -0400, Bill Horne wrote:
It started on Saturday night, with a finger-poke and my wife saying
"Bill, the power is out". It ended at about three am today, when I
noticed that the streetlight was on and I went and threw the transfer
switch back to commercial power. I leaned a lot during the power
failure, and I invite comments and discussion to help other hams who are

preparing for the coming winter and for public service events.

[snip]

They say an ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory, so I'm
putting this out there, unvarnished, to illustrate some fundamental
principles of disaster preparedness which I will be following in the
future.

Here's an update on what I've done since the storm, and also a request
for help. I'll get to the "help" part in a moment.

1. Any fool knows you need extra matches around in the winter.

I now have a book of matches next to every candle in the house. I also
have a well-maintained flashlight in the drawer next to my bed.

2. Don't put off electrical work that you're going to be
wishing you had done earlier if the power goes out.

I've decided that the arrangement I had just wasn't workable: there's no
reason to switch "everything" over to a generator that will only power a
couple of things. So, I'm rewiring my home to have a generator feed
available to only a few devices:

A. Furnace
B. Refrigerator
C. Seven low-wattage compact-flurescent lamps, one in each room
we usually use.
D. The Internet connection: an ADSL Modem and the routers.

With this arrangement, I anticipate that my current generator can
support both the refrigerator and the furnace, as well as a few lights.

3. Any widespread outage is going to tax _ALL_ the resources of
your community: gas stations, restaurants, and road-clearing.
Unless you have your own water, food, fuel, and the
capabilities to use them efficiently, your just a guy with
some extra stuff lying around.

I've moved my Coleman camping stove, some Coleman lanterns, and my
kerosene lanterns underneath the stairs to my cellar, in a space that
wasn't being used. The fuel for them is now in a small storage box on my
back porch, so that I can get to it even if the path to my shed is
blocked by snow. I'm keeping a five-gallon can of stabilized gas on
hand, and I'm going to swap it into my car once a month and refill it.

We have plenty of canned food, some dry food such as pasta, and
some packets of things like cocoa, plus a couple of gallons
of "spring" water just for good measure. Without power or the
chance to get to a store, we'd still be well fed for about
a week.

4. It's no good to buy a small generator and think that it
prepares you for the winter. Without a proper setup and
regular tests, you wind up with a marginally useful device
that needs too much attention and provides
sub-standard capabilities.

As much as I hate to eat my words, I'm going to have to "make do" with
the generator I have for a while. I can't complain too much, since I
bought it for a great price and I knew that it wasn't a "whole house"
machine at the start. My XYL has shown very little interest in upgrading
to a larger model, so I've painted myself into a corner by
demonstrating that the 2KW unit can work, even if only barely. I'll
have to wait awhile before I can upgrade, and I'm gathering info
in the meantime.

However, there are larger issues, and here's where I'd appreciate help
from the other readers. This applies to field day, to EmCom in general,
and (of course) to being prepared for storms at home, and so I'm going
to ask some questions about preparedness in the hopes that all can
benefit.

1. What information source(s) are there for generator ratings,
fuel consumption, durability, workmanship, and cost-per-watt?
This may seem like the most obvious stuff, and it should be
available anywhere, but the retailers' web sites don't have it,
and I don't want to buy a set that isn't rated for "continuous
duty". Are there any neutral parties who will offer an
opinion? Are the specifications of units available to the
government available to civilians?

2. How much do the various fuels cost to use, in real dollars? I've
heard several people advise me to get a generator that runs on
natural gas, but I've also seen claims that natural gas is
a lot more expensive to use than gasoline or diesel fuel. Counting
factors such as "derating", is natural gas competitive
with diesel or gasoline?

3. What would it cost to fit a larger fuel tank? The 2KW Coleman
unit I have only runs about 80 minutes before it needs
refueling, and that's just too little time to allow for
work and sleep. I'd like to have at least eight hours
between refuelings.

4. What about noise? I need some information about ways
that I can reduce the noise from my 2KW unit enough
that I can run it at the same time I'm trying to
sleep.

5. Last, the subject of keeping food on hand when the roads
are blocked. How do I, as an individual, judge the
companies that sell "emergency" food? I don't want to
seem cynical, but all I could find is word-of-mouth
opinions about the various firms that are in the business,
and I'd like to have some more objective information
available before I spend hundreds of dollars for
freeze-dried or other long-term-storage food supplies.

Thanks for your help.

Bill, W1AC

--
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