Sandy/Frankenstorm

NogDog

Hope anyone else here in the great northeast is ready to hunker down and stay safe. Drop a note here when you can to let us know you're okay. I'm a few miles west of Manhattan in a 3rd floor apartment, and if the storm takes its expected track south of us, keeping the winds off my west-facing windows, I expect my most likely annoyance will be power outages. If so, I'll be glad I now have the new "paperwhite" Kindle with the illuminated screen. 🙂

Weedpacket

Good luck, all.

NogDog

I'm still without power (or internet). Stopped by a co-worker's place tonight to charge up assorted devices and hang out with him and his dog. The area around my apartment building was all flooded Monday night, but its foundation was built up enough that I don't think any of ground floor apartments got flooded.

dalecosp

Glad to hear that you are m/l "OK".

NogDog

I now have power, after a couple false (and teasing) starts earlier this evening; and my cable/internet came right back up. sigh of relief Surfing at will, again.

Bonesnap

My power went out in Toronto, but only my street (there were other sporadic outtages in Toronto). :mad: So I hit the local movie theatre and watched Taken 2, so I guess it all worked out. It was on by the time I got home. It was mostly just wind for us with some light rain. A friend in Buffalo said there was some flooding near his college.

Weedpacket

Just think: a good magnetic storm on the scale of the 1859 one would have the potential to knock out electricity infrastructure along, say, the North American east coast severely enough that it could be months before it's back up.

dalecosp

Weedpacket;11016491 wrote:
Just think: a good magnetic storm on the scale of the 1859 one would have the potential to knock out electricity infrastructure along, say, the North American east coast severely enough that it could be months before it's back up.

I'm well aware of that fact, but haven't got a good plan for handling it yet. I've actually been thinking of installing a steam plant somewhere on the place 😉

Weedpacket

dalecosp wrote:
I'm well aware of that fact, but haven't got a good plan for handling it yet. I've actually been thinking of installing a steam plant somewhere on the place

Taking your part of the grid offline for the duration is a viable defensive measure: you might not be able to prevent current loading from the storm, but you can at least avoid aggravating it.

Of course, if the same thing isn't done upstream as well then it doesn't really help if you still have a functioning power distribution system...

dalecosp

Yeah; hence the steam plant ... windmill, perhaps, also.

NogDog

Hmm...my phono pre-amp and integrated amp are tube-based, so maybe they'll survive and I'll still be able to listen to vinyl when my windmill-driven generator is running? 😉

dalecosp

Can't say that I know whether or not that'd be true. Not enough of an electronics guy. Want me to ask someone who is, or are you pretty sure already?

NogDog

dalecosp;11017121 wrote:
Can't say that I know whether or not that'd be true. Not enough of an electronics guy. Want me to ask someone who is, or are you pretty sure already?

Nah, I'm mostly messing around (though the part about my pre-amp and amp is true). In fact, tubes can pick up nearby radio signals, so who knows what might happen in a severe solar storm. (I'm trying to figure out how to shield my phono preamp now that I'm in a new apartment less than a mile from some antenna farm, as I can hear faint voices in the right channel now. 🙁 )

Weedpacket

NogDog wrote:
In fact, tubes can pick up nearby radio signals, so who knows what might happen in a severe solar storm.

I reckon bradgrafelman knows better than me; but the main threat is over power-supply lines and other long conductors (the longer they are the better they act as an antenna); isolated pieces of equipment would also pick up their share - you might find yourself unable to turn the gear off. (Think of a crystal radio turned up to 11.)

I'm trying to figure out how to shield my phono preamp now that I'm in a new apartment less than a mile from some antenna farm, as I can hear faint voices in the right channel now.

A Faraday cage? I doubt it would be enough in a storm, but it ought to muffle that interference.

NogDog

Weedpacket;11017167 wrote:
...
A Faraday cage? I doubt it would be enough in a storm, but it ought to muffle that interference.

I was thinking something along those lines, though no idea how fine the grid/mesh would have to be. (I'd want it to be as open as possible, in part for ventilation, but also so I can see the device and appreciate it's orange glow. 🙂 )