In article , Bill Horne

wrote:



snipped fopr brevity



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.



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

2. Don't put off electrical work that you're going to be

wishing you had done earlier if the power goes out.

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.

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.



FWIW. YMMV, and I hope it does.



73,



Bill, W1AC



Read your stuff, and it is a GREAT Story, of the Unprepared, trying to

fix things..... I would suggest that you get some good Surivial tips

over on www.survivalmonkey.com, and some Generator Installation

information, over at www.smokstak.com..... there are lots of folks over

there that have "Been there, Done that" and have fixes for all those

issues, from practical Experience.ome even in your area.

Just Say'en.... YMMV..... Bruce in alaska AL7AQ



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