Check in ...East Coast BLACKOUT

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 18:46:20 GMT, Robert Perkins
wrote:

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 19:11:16 GMT, "Dave Stadt"
wrote:

One government nit wit gave out a WEB address on a news program for those
without power to log onto to get status of the problem. Announcer made a
comment about the guy being out of touch with reality and dumped the phone
line.
Uh... modern laptops connected to a land telephone line would have had
at least 4 hours of battery life for a careful user to shepherd all
the way through the crisis, to get updates.

But an AM or shortwave radio would have lasted much much longer.

Although the telephone companies use DC and *HUGE* battery banks there
were several that did go down.

I wonder how they backup the cell towers and how long the will stay up
without the power lines.

Of the modern countries the US is ranked as the lowest when it comes
to cell phones as the primary phone.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

Rob

Roger Halstead wrote:

Of the modern countries the US is ranked as the lowest when it comes
to cell phones as the primary phone.

That's because we have the most advanced landline system.

George Patterson
Brute force has an elegance all its own.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Roger Halstead wrote:

Of the modern countries the US is ranked as the lowest when it comes
to cell phones as the primary phone.

That's because we have the most advanced landline system.

George Patterson

I was in Ecquador a couple of years ago, and they have payphones sprinkled
around the country that have cell antennas right on the booth. Even more of
a surprise was the company sponsoring them. None other than "southern bell"
right down to the very emblem I get on my phone bill!
--
Jim in NC--

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
I wonder how they backup the cell towers and how long the will stay up
without the power lines.

You ever notice those little "dog houses" that sit beside the tower? It
houses a generator. Usually powered by natural gas so it's fuel supply is
virtually limitless.

--
Jim Fisher

Jim Fisher wrote:

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
I wonder how they backup the cell towers and how long the will stay up
without the power lines.

You ever notice those little "dog houses" that sit beside the tower? It
houses a generator. Usually powered by natural gas so it's fuel supply is
virtually limitless.

--
Jim Fisher


While we're on the subject of 'juice' so to speak, in every power outage
up here in the north country [upstate NY] the phones are mercifully
still much welcomed operation but, here's the thing, while it's common
knowledge that the phone system wires carry their own juice, well, even
those wires have to have a source for their power generation! Where is
it and note that even in extensive power grid failures like the nation
just experienced, the phones came through! So where is their source? Or
does the phone system commonly LOW DC voltage and thus absence of any
needed AC 'push' amperage [dunno, I'm asking!] permit a DC generator
system that can virtually run with no problems!? Any phone techs in the
house?

Of note...I have an ARO [amateur radio operator] amigo in Russia and we
converse doing the low power and rig/computer assisted RTTY [radio
teletype] thing and he believes it's utterly 'amazing' that Americans
and canadians have such 'up time' telephone and power generation systems
[despite the occasional grid foul-ups and assorted local woes ] where he
says in Russia it is a literal 'treat' to get uninterrupted phone and
power service for more than a few 'days' without one or both failing or
in fact being shut off [!] for one reason or another ...yet the attitude
there is 'so what else is new' where here [USA/Canada] it's good for
talk show circuit and blame mongering fodder ..... for days!

Doc Tony

"Dr. Anthony J. Lomenzo" wrote:

Jim Fisher wrote:

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
I wonder how they backup the cell towers and how long the will stay up
without the power lines.

You ever notice those little "dog houses" that sit beside the tower? It
houses a generator. Usually powered by natural gas so it's fuel supply is
virtually limitless.

--
Jim Fisher

While we're on the subject of 'juice' so to speak, in every power outage
up here in the north country [upstate NY] the phones are mercifully
still much welcomed operation but, here's the thing, while it's common
knowledge that the phone system wires carry their own juice, well, even
those wires have to have a source for their power generation! Where is
it and note that even in extensive power grid failures like the nation
just experienced, the phones came through! So where is their source? Or
does the phone system commonly LOW DC voltage and thus absence of any
needed AC 'push' amperage [dunno, I'm asking!] permit a DC generator
system that can virtually run with no problems!? Any phone techs in the
house?

Of note...I have an ARO [amateur radio operator] amigo in Russia and we
converse doing the low power and rig/computer assisted RTTY [radio
teletype] thing and he believes it's utterly 'amazing' that Americans
and canadians have

Whoops! Didn't hit the cap letter shift key there...make that to read
"Canadians" ! What's that? Bizzzzz! Honest typo above ...proof....why
would I correctly capitalize 'Canada' down below? So there! ;-)

such 'up time' telephone and power generation systems
[despite the occasional grid foul-ups and assorted local woes ] where he
says in Russia it is a literal 'treat' to get uninterrupted phone and
power service for more than a few 'days' without one or both failing or
in fact being shut off [!] for one reason or another ...yet the attitude
there is 'so what else is new' where here [USA/Canada] it's good for
talk show circuit and blame mongering fodder ..... for days!

Doc Tony

In article ,
While we're on the subject of 'juice' so to speak, in every power outage
up here in the north country [upstate NY] the phones are mercifully
still much welcomed operation but, here's the thing, while it's common
knowledge that the phone system wires carry their own juice, well, even
those wires have to have a source for their power generation! Where is
it and note that even in extensive power grid failures like the nation
just experienced, the phones came through! So where is their source?

All telco gear that I've ever heard of runs on 48V DC, supplied by huge
banks of lead-acid batteries. The batteries are constantly being
recharged from commercial power (what's known as "float service"). If
you lose commercial power, there's supposed to be enough battery power
to keep things going for 24 hours.

In addition, central offices and other switching facilities have
emergency backup generators. As soon as the commercial power goes down,
the generators are supposed to crank up and keep things going for as
long as the diesel fuel holds out.

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. I remember something like
10-15 years ago, a major long-distance switch in Manhattan went down. I
don't remember the details, but it was a combination of a generator
either failing or being taken out of service for testing and an alarm
being disconnected. Power was lost and the switch kept on chugging for
about a day on battery without anybody noticing. Eventually, the
batteries were drained, and the switch died (at which point somebody
finally noticed). Unbeliveable stupidity. I assume heads rolled over
that.

Roy Smith wrote:

In article ,
While we're on the subject of 'juice' so to speak, in every power outage
up here in the north country [upstate NY] the phones are mercifully
still much welcomed operation but, here's the thing, while it's common
knowledge that the phone system wires carry their own juice, well, even
those wires have to have a source for their power generation! Where is
it and note that even in extensive power grid failures like the nation
just experienced, the phones came through! So where is their source?

All telco gear that I've ever heard of runs on 48V DC, supplied by huge
banks of lead-acid batteries. The batteries are constantly being
recharged from commercial power (what's known as "float service"). If
you lose commercial power, there's supposed to be enough battery power
to keep things going for 24 hours.

In addition, central offices and other switching facilities have
emergency backup generators. As soon as the commercial power goes down,
the generators are supposed to crank up and keep things going for as
long as the diesel fuel holds out.

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. I remember something like
10-15 years ago, a major long-distance switch in Manhattan went down. I
don't remember the details, but it was a combination of a generator
either failing or being taken out of service for testing and an alarm
being disconnected. Power was lost and the switch kept on chugging for
about a day on battery without anybody noticing. Eventually, the
batteries were drained, and the switch died (at which point somebody
finally noticed). Unbeliveable stupidity. I assume heads rolled over
that.


Thank you, Roy! I've often found that questions float around [this one
in fact came up during the recent outage] which folks, myself inclusive,
take for granted the known 'phones still work during power outages' BUT
when my wife asked me the 'why' of that, well, it was one of those
tongue-in-cheek but true nevertheless '...can't say I'm familiar with
that, honey...' [*translation: dunno!] chestnuts. ;-)

Doc Tony
;-)

Roy Smith wrote:

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. I remember something like
10-15 years ago, a major long-distance switch in Manhattan went down.

I was working for Bell Communications Research at the time. As I recall, it
was a CEV containing multiplexing and digitizing equipment. A lot of Wall
Street traffic went through there. It did not have its own backup generators,
and, as you stated, someone disabled the alarm after it went off. Normally,
field crews would be sent out with portable generators before shutting the
alarm off, but someone screwed up.

Yes, heads rolled.

George Patterson
Brute force has an elegance all its own.

"G.R. Patterson III" writes:



Roy Smith wrote:

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. I remember something like
10-15 years ago, a major long-distance switch in Manhattan went down.

I was working for Bell Communications Research at the time. As I recall, it
was a CEV containing multiplexing and digitizing equipment. A lot of Wall
Street traffic went through there. It did not have its own backup generators,
and, as you stated, someone disabled the alarm after it went off. Normally,
field crews would be sent out with portable generators before shutting the
alarm off, but someone screwed up.

I believe Roy is referring to the ATT toll tandem and DACS. There
is a very bitter irony to the story. ATT had a deal with ConEd to
"load shed" ie if ConEd got overworked, ATT would go to diesel for
short periods to ease the strain. {Many large customers have similar
deals; they get big price breaks for doing so..}

ConEd called, ATT shed load, and later returned to the grid.
BUT..several of their rectifiers ('battery chargers') on that floor
failed to restart. The trouble was, none of the power people were
there -- as they were all at a training session .... for the new
power failure monitoring system...

By the time a power employee got back and heard the alarm, the
batteries were too near exhausting to recover. It took hours to
bring everything back up, during which all three NYC airports were
down since the DACS [an electronic patch panel for leased circuits]
ran all of FAA's circuits.

One result was a crack in the FTS2000 sole-source contract. This
debacle forced OMB to allow FAA to rent some service from others.


--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433