Hoping all those who were affected by the blackouts are safe and doing well. It’s interesting during times such as this how societies appear to rely so heavily on being connected.
When you read articles such as the one I’ve linked to below, it (in my opinion) reinforces the relevance of ‘traditional’ radio in the modern world. Even if you’ve no interest in using radio to make contact, I think it’s still pertinent to have a ‘traditional’ analogue radio in the home so you can stay ‘connected’ with the news. Even better if you have a portable SSB-capable radio e.g. a Tecsun or XHDATA etc and are familiar with how those work.
A shame really that we’re on a path to demolish and obliterate LW transmitters, blaming running costs, for example. Why not look at how Longwave and Shortwave transmitters could be examined to reduce operating costs?
Hopefully, in light of events such as those experienced in Spain, Portugal, France etc yesterday, it might trigger alarm bells in those who are of the mindset that LW etc are no longer of merit or too costly to operate and maintain. Not to mention those residing in nations where information is surpressed and where LW/SW/MW are a lifebelt to get access to (you’d like to think) relatively reliable information.
I have just heard that a very large SW and MW station in Slovakia is about to be bulldozed down. Again, running costs and moving away from shortwave broadcasting to the Internet have been given as the reasons.
I think there’s a place for city-wide, low-power FM stations to be available in situations such as Spain just suffered, and probably the only people capable of running such a network of low-powered emergency information systems for no charge to the government would be radio amateurs. Listeners could use battery-powered or even hand-cranked (yes, they are still made) radios to listen to the information broadcasts. Information to the stations could be sent via the good old 50v battery-powered telephone system, while the radio amateurs equip themselves with either a small generator or a bank of solar and wind-charged batteries.
73 Ed.
It seems to be the generic reason given every time a transmitter is demolished. Surely instead of destroying the transmitters, they could be retrofitted in some way as to modernise equipment, introduce renewable energy sources to power them or act as backup and so on.
Oddly enough you don’t see continent-spanning VLF/ELF transmitters getting demolished…
In my QTH We were, from 10:30 to 20:30 UTC, without power, internet, or the ability to use our phones.
I was informed thanks to a small radio powered by two AAA batteries.
I used my SOTA kit to listen to emergency frequencies on 40m, but I decided not to look for SOTA activators so as not to drain my lipo battery (we didn’t know how long the blackout would last).
Let’s hope the Spanish authorities learn from what happened and it doesn’t happen again…although I have my doubts…
With us so reliant on electricity the networks need to be more resilient.
I was reading a report on how the whole of Italy lost its electricity in 2003 due to a tree in Switzerland. Something similar probably happened in Spain in that a single event led to a cascading effect that took out the whole grid. Something similar happened here a few years ago but fortunately it didn’t bring down the whole grid. Recently Heathrow Airport lost its power for a day.
In every case it seems that the system is designed to cope with a single outage (loss of a generator, sub-station or power line) but can’t handle more than one thing failing at the same time.
I’m personally quite attached to my autonomy. I live almost completely off-grid. I have my own water source and my own wood for heating. I use the sun for hot water and for about 70% of my electricity consumption. I do have a grid connection at the house, mainly used for powering heavy loads like the oven, or when the weather doesn’t allow the panels to produce enough for an extended period. In case of a grid outage, it’s not really a problem — we just need to reduce our consumption a bit and stay aware of the weather.
For those who don’t want a full off-grid setup, a 12V 100Ah battery with a small inverter and MPPT solar charger (possibly with a compact mobile solar panel) can be very useful to keep radios, phones, lights, or even a freezer running during an outage.
Fortunately, such events are rare and usually short in duration — but who knows…
I learnt at IBM while supporting the Sydney Olympic Games “Good design is to plan for the worst (multiple failures) and be happy with the best (no issues)”. All systems there were triplicated or better, not just duplicated. In the whole time in the whole network, one 24 port Cisco network switch failed. Of course triplicating critical systems costs three times as much and it seems when it comes to some critical installations, the accountant, not the technical architect has the last word.
73 Ed.
True. Though the account for the biggest sporting event on the planet would probably want to keep their purse strings a little looser than usual when dictating critical infrastructure spend!
That reminds me how many clocks/watches to take on an offshore sailing. There must be at least three, as with two one never knows which one displays correct time Do not recall was that on this forum or I’ve borrowed that from elsewhere
Back to the topic - if my QTH to loose power, I’ll stay with no water/hot food/lights/comms - that is 100% dependency, fairly miserable, but that is the way they are building most of housing today.
… I would tend to agree, but I think we need to consider not only what broadcast transmitters there are still available but what radios still exist to receive them… most new things seem to be either DAB or web based, if I think about my kids (16-21) they don’t own a radio but rely on web content, In my view we should be encouraged to have a radio along with a torch somewhere at home…
We had a really long (10 day) power cut about 5 years ago due to storm damage to the grid and were in the unusual situation of having gigabit connectivity (we had a generator) whilst most of our neighbours had candles and no signal on the phone. (The mobile networks fell over when their backup generators (where they exist) ran out of power). If anything things have deteriorated over the last 5 years, the 50v analogue telephone has been removed (Impossible to get a contract now in this bit of the UK) and judging from the mobile outages we have if there is a power cut there is still no backup system…Lets hope that only one thing goes wrong at a time on the power grid… 73. Paul
“Never take two clocks to sea.
Take one or three.”
Backup generators are not very reliable in remote locations due to our wonderful travelling folk thinking the diesel for the generators is availble free of charge. Hey who needs a key to the compound/locked storage when you have a whizzer or a pair of bolt croppers.
Hello,
At my QTH in Granada, southern Spain, the blackout lasted 13 hours. Fortunately, I have commercial battery-powered radios and have been able to stay informed, but most people don’t; they get their information from social media and internet stations, including radio colleagues, especially young people. Here, I connected my KX2 to my antennas to listen on emergency frequencies. I even chassed some summits. Thanks to those who were interested and asked about our situation.
Today, the news is talking about “la noche de los transistores,” which, translated would be “the night of the analog battery-powered radio.” Without a doubt, when everything fails, the radio is always there. I hope our leaders learn this lesson.
73
Do not recall was that on this forum or I’ve borrowed that from elsewhere 