I agree. I thought maybe Jim knows more about it, because he lives
with it.
Yup. I'm less than 3 miles from tidewater and 6 miles from Raritan Bay
in NJ. We lost power with Irene in 2011, but it was restored in less
than two days. We never lost power with Sandy.
https://globalresilience.northeastern.edu/2017/10/new-england-storm-causes-widespread-power-outages/
"Drought conditions across much of Maine may have contributed to the
large numbers of trees that toppled during a storm that walloped the
Northeast this week, officials said."
The more rural areas of New Hampshire are also the slowest to be
restored, as they prioritize the repairs that will help the most
people. Maine is settled one town deep along the coast and much of the
interior is sparsely populated.
-jsw
The storm blew down trees that broke power lines and poles, so in that
sense distribution was a problem. The bucket trucks have a safe wind
limit of 35(??) MPH which the last storm exceeded all the next day,
delaying restoration. The news said a crew could install two poles per
day. One of their anchors took Pole Climbing 101 and demonstrated that
he already has the right job.
A crew had just trimmed the trees near the lines here a week before
but they don't touch trees on private property that are further back.
I did ask.
https://www.eversource.com/Content/general/residential/programs-services/tree-trimming
Eversource serves NH, MA and CT but not Maine, so I know nothing of
conditions there. Eversource brings in crews from all over the
Northeast and some from Canada to repair damage quickly, and loans
crews out for their problems. I think I've seen a truck from Ohio.
Smaller independents are slower to restore power.
Eversource has crews on standby for another windstorm tonight.
-jsw
Aha. Now I remember. The memory is the second thing to go. d8-)
I guess we talked about Greenland, which is where my family is from,
since around 1675 or 1680.
The crew that restored my power (N. Central Florida) after Irma were
form where I had lived in Ohio. I talked with them for about ten minutes
while they ordered a new 40' pressure treated power pole, and discussed
what had changed in the last 30 years.
They were stunned to learn that I had managed to get their company's
authorization to pole mount a NEMA cabinet with a single 'Heterodyne
Signal Processor' to interconnect the community loops of two different
CATV companies. The design only worked because one system was sub split
(below NTSC Ch 2), and the other was mid split (Between NTSC Chs 6-7).
You needed a minimum of Ch 2 and Ch 13 to set system gain controls.
I fed Ch 2 from 'Metrovision' into our subsplit loop, and converted
their Ch13 forward channel to T10, return channel. At our headend, I
used a pair of additional HSP. One converted T10 to Ch2, to feed to
their headend. The second converted Ch2 to Ch13 for the schools in our
service area. We provided a clean, NTSC analog modulator to a school in
our service area, while Metrovision used the cheapest FM video crap from
Catel. We left the control up to Metrovision. Our side looked as good as
our main CATV system, while anything provided through Metrovision was
smeared.
The design from Metrovison was costed at over $30,000, and was their
excuse for never interfacing with United Video Cablevision.
My design was designed and built for under $3000. It took one NEMA
box, three RCA HSP, and a handful of splitters that were used as
combiners or splitters inside the NEMA box, and two for the headend. I
was chewed out at turn on, because my levels were .25 dB hot at initial
power up.
The NEMA Enclosure was similar to this.
<https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Shopping/Catalog/Enclosures_-z-_Subpanels_-z-_Thermal_Management_-z-_Lighting/Enclosures/Padlocking_Enclosures/RHC242408?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product-search&gclidêIaIQobChMIruHw9fWy1wIVhjyBCh2cWARtEAYYAyABEgLgT_D_BwE>
Heh, heh, heh. That's a good reality check for a Leftjournalist.
The problem is that wherever the trees can fall on lines, they will in
a storm. All trees tall enough to impact lines should be topped
(usually not a good idea, but one option) or removed, not just
trimmed, if the power line is above ground. It's a binary problem and
solution. Fix it or suffer the consequences. Any trees tall enough
to impact the lines should be considered to be on the utility's right
of way. Yes, the owner should be given the choice of topping or
felling, and if they want the wood, the utility can leave the cut
remains. All or nothing. State legal teams need to get this to
happen. They already have right-of-ways through private property, so
this is a small extension.
== Looking at Santa Rosa and Napa Valley should be a clear indication
of why this needs to be done. 5,700 homes lost to simple gusty winds
because people wouldn't let the utility trim trees. I took the option to ask the tree trimmers hired by Pacific Power to
take the whole trees down instead of just trimming them, and they did
it for me. The agreement was that I would handle the remains, but
when I returned home that day, they had chipped it, too. I asked if
they wanted to get rid of the chips and got two truckloads of them,
which I installed in place of a front lawn. Win/Win/Win.
Yeah, linesmen are just like firefighters in that respect, swarming
from all over to fix a problem ASAP.
--
America rose from abnormal origina. The nation didn't grow organ-
ically or gradually from indigenous tribes--like, say, the French
The owner of roadside trees is generally the town and removing them is
an expensive and difficult political issue. People complain in the
paper about trees cut on private property.
I recently had my property lines surveyed and found that one corner
was out on the pavement. The town engineer's map of the road
right-of-way overlaps my deed by nearly 20', as he showed me with his
cell phone GPS. He prefers to avoid stirring up trouble.
-jsw
Yeah, sucks. The Outraged Left need to be put in their places by
common sense things like keeping weapons (trees) out of the range of
our electric infrastructure (targets), period. Trim around them or
bury the utility where possible, giving them the choice, but one or
the other must be done. For the Santa Rosa fires to have happened in
the first place lends enough nasty reality to warrant the changes
immediately everywhere in the world, should they be sane enough to
choose wisely. Continue draining the swamp. MAGA
--
America rose from abnormal origins. The nation didn't grow organ-
ically or gradually from indigenous tribes--like, say, the French
Here is a good analysis of PWM vs MPPT:
https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/White-paper-Which-solar-charge-controller-PWM-or-MPPT.pdf
On Amazon PWM controllers go for $20 or less, MPPTs for $100 and up.
I use a metered adjustable linear regulator to top up and mildly
equalize batteries with power from my HF 45W kit. As they near full
charge the batteries draw less than the full current the panels can
provide and easy voltage adjustment becomes more important than
controller efficiency. 1.5A is enough for the marine batteries, 1.0A
for the vehicles. A Schottky diode in the regulator keeps battery
current from feeding back if I step on the wires and crush them
together against a stone.
-jsw
At 11AM the two 100W panels were sending 175W into the batteries
through a $20 PWM controller. I can't justify a $100 MPPT controller
to gain 25W.
-jsw
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