Really enjoyed and appreciate your video. I am just starting my off grid build. Now I have 427 new questions to answer. I am concerned about how I will be able to communicate with my family who live within 150 miles from me here in Texas. Can you advise what system will do that? 73s David KS5CTR
Firstly, I would like to say I found this interesting. The station operational equipment / software overview was informative on it's use. However: 1. Is it really necessary to title it "Electric companies hate this off-grid ham radio station"? Why do you need to resort to this sort of tactic to get views? It demeans your knowledge and effort in putting your station together. 2. "Off-grid ham shack energy strategy" - you glossed over this quite a bit. It felt more like an infomercial than a (expected style) documentary. More information on how you calculated your power requirements and why you chose your power supply options, how you wired from end to end, why you used certain types of equipment (eg vertical vs horizontal wind power generation) was expected and was why I watched this. I felt let down. 3. Power shutdown (which was one thing I was looking for ) was shown, but, while the cable was red so obviously +12v line, where in the system was it located? Same with the fusing?? Any in the negative line?? 4. While watching I was looking for lightning protection info. Maybe i missed it? 5. You mentioned your Winlink was critical to you to keep in operation, and your setup should keep your end running, but what about the link end? Operating on 2M, you must connect to a remote digipeater somewhere. Is that remote station set up for long term off-grid operation? If not, it will be off air and your station will be sending packets in the wild. Thanks to others for comments regarding fusing. Very helpful. All in all, interesting, but for me, of limited use. 73 es gud dx de vk3ua
What is to see in the video, is just to show what is possible to do by within oneself I think. It is really intresting, but mostly useless. And often many people fear an electric blackout, which will normaly not happen. Only in times of special things like heavy catastrophys and war. To that the influence of the Sun is often over-soaked. And the Carrington-Event is just a fairytale like Loch Ness.
Carrington Event? Pish. Couldn't care less. If something like that happens it's going to be the end of civilization anyway. I'm more concerned about realistic problems. Blackouts happen all the time. I just had one here that lasted 15+ hours. Some people in the area were without power for 3 - 4 days. Whether one wishes to admit it or not, the grid is already being pushed to its limits because of increasing demand and little is being done to increase capacity or upgrade antiquated distribution equipment. The number of multi-hour long blackouts because of weather events, wild fires, etc., along with deliberate rolling blackouts to try to rein in out of control energy consumption is increasing every year.
You live in a country-side area. Those electrical blackouts are not often here, but it can happen too. And what I ment with a big blackout is, that a town is completly down for days. These are the scenarios what some overmotivated HAM-Radio emergency operators sometimes await.
