NEWS: Verizon and AT&T May Both Get Apple Tablet

There has been internet on the playa (not necessarily for public use) for at least 14 years. They streamed the burn from the playa to people who couldn't make it out in-person in 1996, as well as posting daily updates of the Black Rock Gazette online on the website:

The cell service in 2009 was from people putting in ad-hoc cell towers and then using some other technology to transmit the calls back to town. I forget the name of the technology but it was a hot topic a few weeks ago when someone was discussing putting in a repeater that uses the internet to carry the calls from his house (where he has no native cell signal) to the cell provider - I *think* that's the same technology used to get cell service in BRC in 2009. If you really want to know, Google is your friend.

It's also *not* that far to Gerlach. In years past they would hold Burning Man out in the middle of the playa (20 or more miles from Gerlach), but these days it's ~2 miles from the road, less than 10 miles from Gerlach. In 1996 they had problems with the internet-over-radio signal to Gerlach (terminating on an ISDN line at the hotel) bouncing off the playa because they hadn't accounted for the curvature of the earth from the distant location on the playa to Gerlach. (Someone who knows more than I do about radio can certainly explain this better than I just did.)

jc

I provide space at some of my transmitter locations for Ham club repeaters. All of the sites have backup power. My own communications room runs on a 48VDC battery plant floating on a Lorain charger. There is a Generac motor/generator set that starts automatically upon utility failure.

A number of the groups I am aware of regularly hold drills to test their readiness in the event of widespread power outages. All in all, they are much better prepared than the communications companies. Comcast and AT&T will both go down within hours of a regional outage. AT&T's Uverse batteries will all die, and Comcast doesn't have enough power trucks to cover all of its outside plant at once. Even if they did, the road conditions might not allow the travel.

Wrong again.

Nonsense.

And you still haven't provided any data or facts to back up your assertion.

He won't. He never does.

You are trying to teach a pig to sing, and it's wasting your time and simply annoying the pig. I suggest you put Navas in your killfile.

jc

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OT question for any posters or readers of the exchange on emergency power generators appended below:

I have a 10 kW standard residential solar photovoltaic system on my roof (no batteries or other added complexities). I understand that if PG&E goes down it stops functioning, and more or less why this is.

Suppose I acquired a small generator and had professionals install the necessary (manual) switching to disconnect my house and the solar setup from PG&E and connect them to the generator.

Once this switch was thrown and the generator fired up, would the solar system function normally while the generator was running? If so, what size generator might be required?

======================================== ORIGINAL POST:

NEWS: Up to 2 years for even small panel cell antennas to be approved > >

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No one wants to screw with that tappidy-tap code shit...

What can I say. I'm impressed by people who have such a strong commitment to ignorance.

No one really wants to see any more of your typety-type bullshit.

without the storage of a battery system to buffer the load the PV system is subject to drop out. The mains act as a sink/source.

As to PV and gen set alone I imagine that that could be done but the matching of the systems will be difficult.

We have a place in the mountains in WNC that is totally off grid. With the exception of heavy loads (example washing) in extened cloudy days and periodic exercising we've not used the gen set in years.

Until it's the only way to get the message though.

Wrong again.

... doesn't belong here!

Who the f*ck appointed you "god", asshole?

He clearly posted "OT".

Fuck you. You think you *own* all of these newsgroups, NavASS?!?

We're in full agreement that you're wrong again. And you still haven't provided any data or facts to back up your assertion.

By now, we're well past the point where you've conceded that you don't have anything but your opinion to back you up, so go ahead and take the last word. I'm done with you for now.

AES wrote in news:siegman-5AF1F3.09005231072010 @bmedcfsc-srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu:

I don't understand your system, to begin with. If you have no batteries to store what the panels make, you have no power on days with no sun. Is that correct?? I've never seen a solar system without storage, before. What would you do for lighting at night when the power goes down. Both your systems would be dead, not just the solar. That doesn't make sense to me.

I'd keep the panels loaded charging massive battery banks if I had that much money invested in solar panels. 10KW is a MASSIVE array! There'd be a serious 48 or 96 or 144VDC battery house on the property with a few KW of 115/230 inverters that would autoswitch the mains from the utility to the inverters when utility fails. You'd never even see the lights blink! With so much solar energy simply going to waste because you're NOT storing all its potential just leaving the panels cooking in the sun on the immediate load, then going dark when the sun gets low in the sky, that's a terrible waste of potential useful energy, unless you're selling it to the utility through a reversible meter, which I suspect you will tell us is what you're doing. There'd be no point in the investment, otherwise.

I wouldn't buy a generator with so much available power for free. I'd build a battery house with some massive stationary batteries also used to power large electric fork lift trucks and quit selling it back to the utility for peanuts. 10KW for 6 hours a day, 60KWH on a good day in California is plenty to run a fairly good energy efficient home. If it proved to be enough, I'd simply tell PG&E to stuff it! 60 x 20 days (guessing an average in sunny California month) = 1200 KWH. With a little conservation and energy efficiency I'd be power company free!

But, if you are determined to put in a genset that will power the house, a 20KW propane would be appropriate, I'd think. Automatic start and switchgear for it isn't a huge investment. It cranks when the power blinks, even if it doesn't fail, and puts the load on the genset until the power system settles, then shuts itself off after X minutes and puts you back on the grid. I like propane for two reasons. Natural gas would be great, but you live in an earthquake zone where natural gas disruptions are an issue as the fault line breaks the gas lines. A big propane tank isn't pretty....well, not until the neighborhood is in total darkness and you're house sticks out like a sore thumb with all the lights on half the night. Then, propane tanks are downright BEAUTIFUL! The propane company will automatically keep them topped up and you will do nothing to keep them topped up, unlike gasoline you'd be hauling yourself. Diesel is a great fuel IF YOU USE IT OFTEN. Diesel fuel grows black algae and is hygroscopic, collecting water right out of the vented air. When you need it most, if it's been sitting in a standby condition, it may not be ready for use loaded with algae that required constant maintenance. Propane can sit in a tank until your kids are grandparents and crank the genset immediately. It doesn't "go bad" like gasoline or diesel and if the gas lines downtown rupture and the neighborhood has no natural gas pressure, you STILL ARE RUNNING on propane. A 15-25KW propane genset with autostart and switchgear would be great for your system. Compared to 10KW in solar panels, it's downright cheap! Your electrical contractor can do a power use survey and recommend a suitable system. Mine is just a guess. Electrical Engineers don't, usually, bite and most are housebroken. I'd guess there are plenty of them at Stanford that have some knowledge of PRACTICAL systems that could plan it. If the EE department can be persuaded to make your electrical system a "student project", you may even get the Federal Government to fund it through the school. I used to teach electronics technicians in a technical college on a much lower level than Stanford. The Air Conditioning and Refridgeration School made a student project of our house and I ended up with a steal on 7 tons of overkill for the price of 2 tons, neatly installed by the students. Check the school. Plenty of grants going around. Make it say something about "Global Warming" and "Saving the Planet" and it's sure to be approved, even if it's a new toilet.

It doesn't do any good. You still see the followups! :-)