The AM Forum

I feel like I'm living in Iraq. or 2 nights in a row the power has gone out at about 6pm and came back on at 1:30 pm. Only happens on our street - nowheres else. could the power company be switching us off by purpose?

Thats a possible 6 or 7 hours of time on the bench gone. I got some parts in today too.  >:( >:(

What does the power company say?

The power is flaky here too.  I don't bother to re-set my big 24-hour wall clock any more.  It's a PITA, and inevitably the power goes off within 3 days after I re-set it.  Or else, it randomly drops out for a few seconds at a time, and the outage time accumulates.  I have to use a UPS on the computer; otherwise I end up losing stuff when the power unexpectedly quits.  Once I lost a multi-page Word document because I had been typing away without bothering to periodically save, and the whole thing evaporated when the power flaked off for about 10 seconds.

Whenever we have a heavy T-storm, I can count on the power going off on my road, but I can look out across the field at the road about 1/2 mile away and inevitably they still have power.

Last week's storm was the first significant (>1 minute) power outage we've had in 13 years of living at the current QTH.  Was out for 12 hours.

Back in 1992-93, wHen I lived in Manila, we were VERY lucky to have 12 hours of power a day.  I lived on the 11th floor of an apt building my first year there; a generator ran the elevator and water pump and that's it.  After all the abuse it crapped out and it was a lot of fun to come home from work, climb 11 stories in the 90+ heat then not even be able to take a shower to cool off.

Cuba (2001-03):  2 weeks no power after a hurricane.  Thankfully we had a generator, but there were times when the generator didn't fire up - it very rare to have more than 18 hours of power a day there, hurricane or not.

Kenya (90-92):  usually 6 hours a day with no electricity.  And always turned off at 6 PM for some reason, not during the day when you didn't need it.  VERY aggravating.

I've visited over 70 countries and few have the reliability and quality of power we enjoy here.  We are VERY fortunate in this country  ;D

I remember smaller isolated towns and villages in Ethiopia where the power was on only for about 4 hours during the evening.  The primary use for electrical power was lighting, with very few electric appliances in homes.  Some people had a.c. radios, but I never saw fridges or washing machines.  No-one had TV's because there were no stations within receiving distance.  Larger cities had electric power 24/7, TV's and home appliances.