how best to get electricity for emergency prepareness

...then there's the Bible-thumpers on 30 & 40 not to mention the 24-hour broadcast sales pitches.

So what do you watch on 44? The programs in Japanese, Korean, or Mandarin?

I read in sci.electronics.design that A. Jacobs wrote (in ) about 'how best to get electricity for emergency prepareness', on Fri, 16 Sep 2005:

Bearly enough, obviously.

The ranger isn't going to like it, Yagi.

BTDTGTTS

Have I made a Boo-boo? All seriousness aside, however, it's a 4-element, made from .032" TIG welding filler rod, and I got the dimensions by interpolating this guy's tables:

Oh, all right - if you're going to twist my arm:

By the way, the "FM" in the title doesn't mean "Frequency Modulation" - it means "F***ing Magic", because I can sit there INSIDE the RV, and aim the thing to get an astonishingly good picture. ;-)

I'm seriously tempted to make another one for ch. 30, "PAX" - sometimes they have some good oldies too, albeit I can live without the religious parts. >:->

I think it was worth the bother because chan. 56 has some of the old classics, like "Magnum, PI" and "Columbo". I used to sit and watch them with Mom when I was staying with her when she had to start taking care of Dad. She always said that I looked like Tom Selleck, but you know how Moms are about their kids. So anyways, these days, I'll lie there on the couch, watching Magnum's antics, drinking booze and smoking pot, imagining Mom's spirit there with me enjoying the show and fawning over how handsome I am.

Actually, the reason I bothered to make the antenna was because I'd discovered "Becker", a kind of weird sitcom about some doctor ("John Becker") played by Ted Danson, who's a cantankerous obnoxious old crank, who does nothing but bitch and complain all the time, and the people in the local diner and his office. The primary reason I started watching it in the first place was because Terry Farrell was playing "Reggie", the gal who ran the diner. Hubba hubba!

Hoo boy! Maybe I should have used one of my "Under the affluence of ..." sigs!

Cheers! Rich

Korean, but I don't actually watch the shows, just ogle the Korean babes in the infomercials. ;-)

(sometimes they have American babes in American-speaking info- mercials, which is something to look at when there's nothing else on. I kinda miss cable - "Showtime" used to have a morning show called "Aerobicise", which was babes in slinky leotards doing exercises, very slowly. )

Cheers! Rich

According to James Beck :

The fuel might "break", or go bad. IIRC there was a recent thread on this.

You might get a 1500W power inverter running off your car. That will run a furnace blower or fridge or microwave. Or, cook on a camp stove (outside the house).

You'll have to have the car running while drawing significant power. Even then, it might run down the car battery. However, it is a lot cheaper and probably more reliable.

make that a _maybe_. There are two very serious issues with common inverters:

a) they don't do well regarding "starting surges". Many items, when turned on, pull a _lot_ more power than once they're running.

b) inverters often give you "square wave" alternating current. This can do nasty things to many appliances, especially motors.

A separate self-contained jumper battery with cables and handles is about $30. One of the best investments you can make... It not only makes it easier to start your own car when you've left the lights on, but is also a lot, lot, more civilized when helping someone else who needs a jump.

Your puns are becoming unBEARable.

Hey. Stop taking our names in vain ! ;-)

Pooh Bear.

Oh, grow up, Pooh Bear! We all have our bears to cross! ;-)

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise wrote (in ) about 'FM UHF TV Yagi was Re: how best to get electricity for emergency prepareness', on Sat, 17 Sep 2005:

Such thin elements may not even give you 5 MHz bandwidth.

The TV broadcast tower may well not have backup power for significant power outages.

This is one plus of satellite, unless of course the uplink dish dies.

I didn't think of that. Thanks! :-) It'll be ridiculously easy to try some fatter filler rod - the weld shop has aluminum rod up to almost 3/16". I could also use epoxy instead of scotch tape. :-)

Thanks! Rich

Until you run out of battery / fuel power. UHF/VHF TV signals have a range of only a few tens of miles (and less in an urban area) as opposed to the thousands of miles that short wave AM can travel. And your radio will play for weeks on a couple of D cells, or indefinetely with a small solar panel.

Since the OP's concerns were mainly focused on the availability of TV, refrigerator and microwave oven I can only take wild guesses at what constitutes an emergency for him, and what kind of lifestyle he seeks to sustain during one.

robert

You forgot to mention that a gun also comes in handy for shooting at rescue helicopters.

robert

I like this idea of separate 12VDC car battery. Its easy and cheap and do-able. Please tell me more how you do it? I assume its not mounted inside your car? Do you convert output to AC and send power into your house? How?

In an emergency it's best to rely on resources that don't need technology and energy to stay available. Canned and dried food is the way to go.

robert

I read in sci.electronics.design that Robert Latest wrote (in ) about 'how best to get electricity for emergency prepareness', on Mon, 19 Sep 2005:

Wouldn't we all like to just be unscathed spectators at an emergency?

I didn't even wake up during the 1987 storm in England, even though my neighbour's house suffered considerable damage. My house appeared undamaged, but a few months later a ceiling fell down due to water getting through cracked roof tiles.

There was no electricity but (heating) gas and water were OK.