[ale] Not so evil empire

[Robert Reese]

Hello Richard,

Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 1:47:19 PM, you wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Robert Reese<ale at sixit.com> wrote:
>> Brian wrote:

>>> I have Charter telephone. I've had no real problems. The only thing to
>>> keep in mind is that, unless you put the telephony modem on a UPS, you
>>> lose phone if you lose power.

>> I put my cable modem, my router, my VOIP box, and my cordless phone on UPS / battery backup.

>> It's nice to be able to surf and chat while waiting for the power to return. Not to mention check the weather and call family for those annoying tornado warnings that always seem to coincide with downed power lines (as long as the cable line doesn't go with it, that is!)

> So, you have experience with this working as described? In my
> experience, every time the power goes out (and it does VERY OFTEN
> because we are at the end of the line for Greystone Power) I loose
> cable and internet also.

Yes, it works pretty well as long as the cable isn't on the ground somewhere.

The BS at T lines have, literally, deep cycle marine batteries powering their junction boxes.  (Yes, the same ones you and I can go buy at any auto parts store or department).  I suspect Cox has similar batteries.

To save the battery backup/UPS battery level, we only stay on our computers for about 15 minutes after the power goes out to get to a stopping point, check the latest news/weather, do a few last-minute email checking and notifying folks of the outage, and then we turn off the UPS as well as all computers and their UPS boxes.

Oh, by the way.... here's a good trick to know if the power is likely to be out for a while - 3 Strikes You're Out!  Transformers (for overhead lines) and those green power boxes in your neighborhoods with underground power both have 3-step fuses.  When first tripped they go out for 10-30 seconds (I can't recall the specific times for any stage, sorry) and then 'reset' to the second step.  If it immediately trips the second time, it also goes out for a short period (I believe this one is 30 seconds) and resets to the third step.  Tripping the third step is permanent and almost universally means the power line is grounding somewhere (in the case  of overhead lines, literally grounding on the ground) and you are on the still-standing side.  Pretty much the same for the green boxes.

Hence, the Three-Strikes rule: if it goes out, comes back, immediately goes out, and comes back, know that if it goes back out the third time it is likely to be awhile before it comes back on.  The good news is that it is possible for the crews to disconnect somewhere closer to the fault and get your power back on before the lines are repaired, or better yet they tripped from a lightning strike somewhere and just need the fuse replaced.

Also, if you look out and SOME of your neighbors have power, or even MOST of them have power, it is likely a phase problem.  Most residential homes are single-phase only.  Three-phase is almost exclusively for business, though a wise consumer building their home should pay the premium for three-phase cabling to their new home.  Trust me, this is well worth the price if you can arrange for it before the service line is laid or hung.

The relevant advantage to this topic is frequently one leg of the three phases is looped through the neighborhood, or (IIRC) less frequently all three legs are looped through the neighborhood and in rotating series split off to each of the homes on the loop.  Look at your power poles or your green boxes to see if you have A, B, or C, *or* A and B and C.

You'll frequently see Theta and Ro symbols (again IIRC), and (yet again) IIRC those represent the hot and neutral leg of the current phase (no pun intended) but I don't remember which is which... I think Theta is neutral.

Power can be disrupted on one or more legs or phases, and quite possibly it my not affect you and yet put your neighbor's house's lights out, or the neighborhood one street or block over has power.

So, specifically, Richard, if you are at the end of the line, ask your power company if it terminates the line at or near your home, and if so ask the workers what it would take to offer you another phase.  Better yet, find out how much it would cost to go three-phase which would be easy if you were at the termination of all three phases on that end-of-the-line. It might be worth your while to go three-phase.


As far as "Lost" goes, I'm waiting to the first few seasons on DVD, particularly Season 3 (I think).  When I moved down to Warner Robins I never once got to see an episode, and finally gave up and decided to wait for the DVDs.  IOW, I have no clue (AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW) about anything that happened after John Locke blew up the bunker, Charlie's pining about Claire and her baby (pretty big for a baby that's just a couple of week's old, doncha think??) and Michael was off looking for his son on a boat.

The one thing I DO know is at the time my wife and I agreed that they needed to *abandon* the 1 episode = 1 day, as not only was Michael's son doing some heavy-duty growing, but you could tell the rest of the cast was aging as well!

Cheers,
R~