The AM Forum

Looks like the far end of the 75 meter reference dipole hais broken loose. Still in the air and can see the end insulator. It has been up since 1985 and have not been able to drop it for years. I think I will be able to lower it and check the center insulator. Rope was caught in a dead branch on the back side

‎12:42AM Just lost power, system auto-switched over to the generator, first time we've really had to use it since the installation last December.

Odd thing, the storm is not really here yet, perhaps tree down, or systemwide outage, or those space aliens they've been talking about on the Discovery Channel, not sure, either way, the lights are on, the radio is working...and oh yes, the internet is still up.

Lost power 5 times over 10 minutes at 7AM with just a normal light breeze. Its starting to gust now but rain comes and goes.

Lost half a dipole, driveway all cluttered up.

Power now out for 12 hours, but generator running smoothly.

The brook down the hill  in back from us is flowing heavy, but not as bad as I've seen it.

We seem quite lucky in this part of Maryland.

---

I understand things are quite bad down Steve/K4HX's way, the Tidewater area of Virginia. They have a lot of shallow root pine trees that are way tall. Soft ground, a little wind, and over they fall.

Report of major infrastructure damage to the power grid, much of which is above ground in that area.  Not just neighborhood feeders, but they're down too.  It may be a week before the juice flows again.

Cable TV is out, apparently both main providers (Cox & Comcast) have failed regionally. And most people are too far from either Norfolk or Richmond to pick up the pissweak digital "upgrade" television signals.

TO: AMFONE.NET
FROM: AJ1G
UNCLASS

SUBJECT: 28AUG1050 SITREP AT COMMSTA AJ1G STONINGTON CONNECTICUT:

1.  TOTAL LOSS OF ALL AC POWER AT OR AROUND 0500 LOCAL
2.  ESTABLISHED COMMS WITH W1VTP and N1SNG ON 3870 KHZ ON EMERGENCY
     BATTERY POWER WITH ARC-5 AND AN-GRC-9 AT ABOUT 0930 LOCAL
3.  COMMENCED SNORKELING AT 1005 LOCAL
4.   1 SMALL OAK TREE DOWN 1 LARGE MAPLE TREE LEANING AND WILL LIKELY 
      COME DOWN ON WIND SHIFT TO WEST
5.   LATEST  WIND REPORT FROM GROTON NEW LONDON AIRPORT WINDS   
       SOUTH 47 GUSTS 60 RAIN HAS STOPPED
6.    GOOD LUCK TO ALL

CO SENDS

On Long Guy Land...

One stupid tree got pushed over. Thin tall pine thing.
One problem though...
It is on the property line.
It fell to the neighbor's side and rests on his eaves...
He is not a fun/cooperative type. :(

The sole redeeming factor is that the top of a larger pine on his property
snapped and fell onto his roof too. So, he has to hire someone to get that taken care of no matter what.  So, he can't get too pissed off at me for the trees on the property line that he thinks ought to have been cut down already (they really should be - but until a few months back it wasn't up to me to decide...) making this all my fault... because HIS TREE broke too... geez.

Can't wait to see the bill for this... hoping he has a low deductible on his homeowners... otherwise it looks like I may be on the hook... dunno.

The joy of bleeding money for no benefit continues...

Other than that the great HURRICANE was more or less a bust... just a strong summer storm. I guess that's good.

                    _-_-bear

Of course when I get back upstate it will probably look like a giant elephant went a stompin'....

Bruce

I'm really jealous.  I do have an 8 KVA generator with the hookup needed but don't have the auto setup.  Gotta make plans on upgradine.  Get on the air!  We need a live status report

Al

Just took a walk outside and saw the stream and woods. 75 meter antenna is fine. It is just hanging low due to the slack I put on the line on this side of the stream. A bunch of little sticks in the yard. Rain should clear out soon.

Bear,

Couple years ago I had a similar problem.  Big branch on a Maple
out in the back of the acre fell into the neighbors side yard just missing
his camping trailer that was parked there. ::)

He came knocking on my back door all frothing & foaming, screaming
that I should get my "tree" off his property, RIGHT NOW!!   :o :o ::)

I checked with my HO insurance guy and he said that if the branch came
from a "dead" tree it was my responsibility however if it was a living
branch, IE had green leaves  etc, his insurance was the responsible route
for his clam. ;D ;D

YMMV, check your insurance carrier... 8)

running on generator power.  lost power around 615AM.  Dipole and vertical are still up. No damage to the home, property or trees.  Basement dry. No flooding from brook.  Lots of twigs and leaf debris. Aside from that, I can live with this clean up.

Storm is going by.  Anemometer is showing wind switching over to a N/NW/W 'erly direction from S/SE.  Barometer beginning to climb.  It's jumped .09"Hg in the last 20 minutes.  Lowest it got here was 29.05"Hg.

It was sweet Al, was downstairs cooking up a late night snack, the power flicked twice, went out. Heard the generator autostart, loud snap of the contractor as it pulled in, we had lights. Went back to the stove, started it again, and cooked up my snack. The generator shut off at 5 AM this morning when the power came back on.

If this happened last year, I'd have to go out to the barn, carry the generator over to the house, get it started, unreel 100 feet of extension cord, take the screen off an outside window, snake the power cord downstairs to a sump - basement floods, and I'd still be sitting in the dark.

I got my advice on the genset here, have a 20 KW model, runs on propane. With the water well and propane stove and furnace, we're off the grid!

I was on the air today, monitoring 75 and 40 meters, 75 seemed to crap out about 10 AM.

Still have the rest of the storm coming over, so more excitement may yet come.

Great photos Paul!

Thankfully Irene is gone and the damage was less than expected.

Winds backing down here now...tree that came down was not an oak, was actually a big crab apple that was torn out by the roots, must have gone down when the wind shifted to south by the way it fell.  The 17500 KW  Generac straps...even dried a load of clothes in the dryer this morning.  Son Ben  lost power over in Westerly RI early this AM also, running on my old 4 KW Coleman.  Son Dave in Vernon, CT never lost power.

Local radio station, WBLQ 1230 kHz in Westerly doing a great job with public info storm reporting.  Its basically a one-man show run by someone who believes in keeping plenty of local news and community info content in the station format.   Most of the other local stations still just running their off the satellite canned music programming.

Early this morning, was listening around the BCB and 75 meters on my Grundig Yacht Boy battery portable.  Was amazing how quiet the background noise was with everyone's RFI generators shut down!

Yeah Chris, I had the R1000 on this morning off DC and thought the same thing -- WOW the amount of artificial noise we put up with. It has really crept up there in recent years.

Generator still on first tank, 6 hours after powering up. Average load.

The sun has come out, the blue skies are back, but the power might be out for quite a while.

20M Dipole still working but now Vertically polarized. 80/40 Dipole in woods still tuning fine but acts like something might be intermittent. Damage control will have to wait.  Gen on ready but knock wood  - no loss of AC.

Looks like it was not as intense as some straight line storms we have had. No trees down around me. Storm starting to wind down in Manchester NH.

Mike WU2D

Talked to my parents down in Waterford early this morning.  Tried to reach them again 130PM, no response.  Called the local PD and they stated half the town is without power and landline service.  Asked if they would check in on the folks since I couldn't reach them as the OM has a heart condition.  The PD phoned back about 30 minutes ago.  All is well and confirmed landline service is DOA.

Listening to the scanner it sounds as if cell phone service is spotty too.  

Repeaters are busy.

Took a short trip out of the neighborhood to survey some damage.  I couldn't get to far.  Rt 16 has wires down due to broken trees and limbs in both directions.  Power will be out here for more than 3 days.  It's a pretty good mess here.

I think next year I will be pulling a Bruce and have  standby genset installed. Got a 10KW portable and it's easy to setup up and runs 90% of the homestead. Just plug in the umbilical and throw the transfer switch but it would be better not to have to wait until rain stops to drag it out or get wet and risk getting electrocuted.

so far so good here. Many short duration power outages (< 5 mins) but the firetrucks have been back and forth in front of the place (we live on a main road) about 6 times.   Still waiting out the large pines. They've dropped a lot of boughs but nothing bigger than 2 inches in diameter yet...

My son is doing some intern work at the local ER.  It just happens to be the day he's scheduled to go since he's taking an EMT class.  I think he may have some interesting stories this evening after he gets home.

This happened to me. The insurance agent told me that if the tree fell on his property that it will be his home owners insurance and his liability to his own property that will pay for its removal as well as damage and that I have no liability. I said "huh??" He said Yes... That's Texas. Your mileage may vary.

Be sure, for sure.  Here anything that hangs over the property line belongs to them.  Anything on your side is yours.  He should have cut the limbs back by OK law.

From 11 miles south of Allentown PA:

Yesterday I slackened the 160, 80 and 40 meter dipoles.  High winds several times today, but they are o.k.  No trees down in the area that I know of.

A hard work day for me today.  We lost power at 1:50 am.  I never did get back to sleep.  I discovered in the morning at 5:50 am that the basement had about 2 ½” of water.  Never had this much before and never had the floor fully wet in the 21 years I've been here.

Set up the 5 kW Coleman MAXA 5000 ER Plus generator I bought before Y2K right outside the garage doors with a tarp and tent poles and stakes.  Started the generator about 7 a.m.  Babied the sump pump duty cycle all day to ensure that it didn’t get too hot.  Manual power management of all the breakers.   The dehumidifier running solid of course.  Power came back on at 2:00 p.m.  The wife bailed some too.  Finally incorporated the shop vac.  The generator used slightly less than half a tank for the 7 hours.  I believe the tank capacity is 5 gallons.

Now the floor is almost all dry and leaving the sump pump to cycle on its own as normal.  Most stuff is on those gray shelving assemblies but there were cardboard boxes of stuff that did get wet.  This will be a good thing to cause us to get rid of some junk.

Last night I made sure that the rain gage was empty.  The first I got out to it this morning it was full so I’m not sure how much we had but it was at least 7.75” onto ground that was already fairly saturated.

I have had a couple of cell calls from my son who lives in Williamsburg, not real far from Steve. They lost power  about 8:30 PM and have a couple of wet spots on the ceiling of their 3rd floor apartment. When we talked to them this moring, the power was still out. He said the parking lot there was littered with shingles. Cell towers were probably overloaded or damaged as they kept dropping out.
They were going to drive into the Colonial Village and feed a friends pet this afternoon. Haven't heard what they saw yet, waiting for the call.

Bill KA8WTK

Had night from hell here! ! ! !  Our power went out around 6:30 PM, long before the worst of the storm got here? ? ? ? Went outside and fired off the generator, and switched over to generator power. I had no choice cause the sumper pumper was cycling every 1-2 minutes.

After firing off the genny it ran for 20 minutes and crapped out. (I test ran it for 30 min the night before) Refired it and it crapped out again after 15 minutes, did this 3 or 4 times. Found problem to be a sticking electric fuel pump. Dissasembled and repaired the fuel pump and restarted it again. The genny than ran flawlessly for the rest of the night.

Since I was allready soaked, I walked up and checked in on a couple of the neighbors. Came back home and was really looking forward to some dry clothes and a plop onto the couch. As soon as I walked in the door, the YL met me at the door to tell me the sumper pumper had crapped out.

I ran down into the basement to find the water allready 6" deep! I franticly removed all of the junk from on top of the pit cover and extracted the pump. About that time, one of my neighbors called me to ask if there was anything I needed. (He was out in the mess) so I asked him to stop by Home Dumpo and snag me a pump. He went to 2 of them and both were sold out of them.

By then the water was about 8-10" deep in the front of the basement, and I was starting to get a bit frantic. Figgering that "nothing from nothing leaves nothing" I took a stab at dissasembling and repairing the old pump. I didnt have much faith as it is 7 years old and they generally only last me around 5 years. After fighting with all of the rusty corroded screws, I was actually able to get it apart! !  I found that a big piece of cheese had been sucked in and jammed the impeller. I frantically reassembled it and dropped it back in the hole. (By then the water was close to 18" deep in that corner and getting deeper quick.) It fired off and ran flawlessly! Took about 1/2 hour non stop run to pump it all out. Yay! ! ! !

And then for the ultimate slap in the face, the power came back on around 11:30, so I had to go back outside to shut down the genny right as the storm was really raging! ! Go figger!!

Preparedness.................... Bah Humbug! ! ! !    ::)  ::)

"  I found that a big piece of cheese had been sucked in and jammed the impeller. "


I would have thought it would be an eggplant.

klc

Did your shed move any more Ralph?

I was thinking during the drive north last night that it would be nice to have a cold beer. I was just going over the kitchen looking for a snack and XYL mentions. "do you know there is a beer in the back of the fridge" NOOO break that baby out, left over from spring deerfield. AH....

Frank you will be hearing from a lobby that represents hungry mice.  

Seriously, nice catch twice, keeping the house afloat for power, and avoiding a flood from jammed cheese.

---

Power remains out here.  On the second tank of gas for the generator. Pam's off from school today because of infrastructure problems throughout the county, so she will be home and monitoring power.

Looks like we get about 14 hours from a tank with an average load. About the same as Tom/KLR on that Coleman. I cycle the water heater on and off, but everything else is normal. Haven't tried to run the dryer like Chris/AJ1G, that might be a  bit much.

Frank/GFZ -- I know what you're sayin' about a cold bee-ah,  refrigerators all running hi hi FB OM, see proof --

Kevin, had it been eggplant, I would prolly have been frying it   ;D  ;D

Frank,
You need a spare sump pump new in the box. Imagine the shack if you could not get it going.

Frank,
         The YL and myself both said the exact thing at the same time, word for word! ! !
It wouldn't be the first time that I have bailed the basement with a bucket......

As soon as Dumpo getz them back in stock, I WILL have one sitting on the shelf! ! ! ! !
(Then ,you watch, the old one will last for 10 years!)


I have done this before!! I replaced the battery in my '99 Ranger just for reliability sake in 2006. The battery whorehouse battery that I bought, lasted exactly 5 years (almost to the day!) The original Ford '99 battery is still going strong!! Go figger that one!

Yea but in 10 years you will be happy you invested in a spare as you drag your buzzard A$$ downstairs.
The 2003 Mercury GM my Dad gave me also still has the OEM battery. I was thinking the same thing. Only 42K miles though.

The batt in my '94 ford Ranger lasted 12 years.  Nice truck, but didn't run well after I rolled it.


klc

Dave,

Not that I can notice latterly but it might have sunk an inch or two
as that concrete pad it sets on just will not float in the mud...

Actually, there's  so much junk in there that it would take a 150mph
or so gust to move it.

I haven't looked to see if the R-7 survived that is attached to the side...
Amazing how much you can squeeze into a 12 x 16 foot box...
 

R. Sounds like you did OK.
Power still out here.
Honda genset from early 80s still running strong. Gets 11 hours/tank.

Tuesday afternoon -- power still out at home too.
School's closed.

Generator's doing well. Burned maybe a half a thimble of oil since 7A Sunday, stopping only to refuel. Running synthetic oil and a good filter too.

One thing I did catch was loose wires on the power cable.

Vibration shook loose the hold down compression screws inside the twist-lock 30A 240VAC plug.  Now tighten them each time while I'm waiting for refill tank to drain into the generator's tank.

day 3 with no utility power.  Running on generator. Beer is still cold.  Truck crapped out today to add to the stress level.  Head gasket let go on the way to work.  Got the yard cleaned up about 80%. Got  a couple of limbs to cut but otherwise in good  shape.  Judging from the damage around town and the priorities of the power company I don't expect we'll be online with utility power for another few days.  Gone through 15 gallons of fuel so far. Started turning off the generator  and running it only when needed.  Wife knows how to setup and start it.  Gonna sell it and get a standby system. Want something much quieter.  Screw this crap.  I get clean radio when power is down but background noise ruins it. It's coming up on 830P. Time to power down.  Neighbors must dislike me especially when I can run 80% of the house including water. Made noise baffles to mitigate noise. Oh well, pardon the pun. I start up the generator at 430A to shower and start the day.  Next blog, tomorrow.

AC Mains came back tonight !!!

Generator ran continuously except for 20min refuelings since 7A Sunday, and except for that minor cable issue (that I caught in time), the setup was flawless.

Bob where do you aim the noise?  Maybe relocate to a less exposed side of the house?  I put ours down by the garage at the far end and it blasts into the woods. It's not really that noisy anyway, with an oversize "forest service" type muffler on there. Has a spark arresting screen and an extra outer cage.

You might try re-fitting a bigger muffler on there. Most of the small engines have a standard pipe thread, and most models have an "optional" RV or forest muffler that will fit and is more quiet than the stock one.

Rain started here on Sat afternoon.  I generally never get any water in the basement.  But, in a storm like this I would get some and I have a pump for just such occasions.  All through the night I kept checking the basement, about every half hour.  My pump has a HB on/off switch so I have to watch it to insure it works.  By around 3AM I figure I would take one more look since there had been no water in the pump well, even though it was raining heavy all night.

I go down to the basement and everything seemed OK but I hear the sound off gushing water.  I rush over to where the pump is behind a rack of test equipment.  The water had come up rather suddenly.  The pump had turned on and was working perfectly, except for one slight technical problem.  I forgot to put the water hose from the pump out the basement window.  The pump was doing a great job of pumping the water out of the well onto the basement floor.

Good thing I went down to the basement when I did,  I figured the pump couldn't have been running for more than about 15-20 seconds.  A little water resulted in getting part of a 8x10 rug wet and some of the bare concrete floor.  No big deal, it will just air dry in a few days.

Fred

Storm finally past Sunday afternoon.  The wind didn't calm down until Sunday evening.  I could see a number of trees had fallen in the woods behind the house.  Of course the trees took down both my 40M and 75M loops.

I spent Monday and Tuesday clearing the trees off the antennas.  I got the 40M loop back up on Monday and the 75M loop Tuesday evening.

All set until the next time the wind kicks up.

Fred

Still no power today.

Bought a 30 gallon bottle of water at work for fresh water needs, the pool water is being used to fill toilet tanks. Listening to radio on the portable SW, nicest conditions I have heard in years.

We are a small town in the middle of the largest outage area so i suspect we will be on the tail end of the "nother week" the local utility projects. Road approaching our area is full of downed lines, but most trees have been cleared off the lines. have not seen a utility truck in the area at all.

My parents live nearby in an assisted living facility htey have running water but no power. At least I can take a cold shower each morning.

Hmmm, wow...I thought everyone in the world lives on Cape Cod.  Too bad for us I guess.
The silver tongued troll king "who speaks the truth" says the whole Irene thing was just a hyped up farce dreamed up by the media.   Maybe we should just narrow our weather scope of the world to be more of a parochial Cape Cod view. 

On a lighter note, a 65 foot Cherry tree trounced one leg of my dipole.  The wire and the feedline survived because I designed the ends for ice loading.  The bungee cord at the trounced end with PVC mast gave out nicely, thereby saving the antenner.

Cheers.

Diane just called and said our power was back on at about 1045 this morning.  Had been running the 17.5 KW Generac  continuously since about 1000 Sunday morning except for shutdowns between midnight and 0600.  Since Monday night,  also sent a 20 amp 120V circuit to my next door neighbor and another 20 amp circuit across the street to two other neighbors.  One of the neighbors is a retired electrician and the other is semi retired and works in the electrical section of the local Home Depot.  We set up a generator watch rotation to keep it fueled and running during times when Diane and I have been out of the house.

We had land line phone and DSL throughout the storm but both were gone come Monday mornng.  Stopped by the local AT&T central office serving the area and found out that the loss was caused by local network nodes between the neighborhood and the CO losing commercial power.  They lasted on internal battey backup for about 24 hours and then went down.   The old days where the phone service stayed up as long as the CO and copper were intact are apparently gone forever.  Also sounds like the phone companies do not have a backup plan to maintain thier networks on a local basis during an extended comnmercial power outage.  

HEY man that's a great public service you provided there running some lines to the neighbors.  I saw on TV where a street was split across two feeders, and the ones with power ran some lines across the street to those without. Pretty cool.

Very curious about the telephone company's infrastructure.  I pissed and moaned bitterly when they tried to take away my copper pair as they installed a fiber for TV and internet.  Eventually found out yes, I can and did keep the copper pair AND have the other two as a stand alone. 

Backstory is that the phone company is trying to abandon the old copper infrastructure. You cannot get a new copper pair for basic phone service anymore, in areas where they've dropped a fiber.  So powering the phones in your house is up to you after their little gel cell gives it up.

Your experience with the CO is troubling.  I'm about 15 miles from the CO, an old Bell System facility that has a diesel generator and a big tank from "the good old days" I suppose, when Ma Bell herself yanked the starter rope.

I have to think that's why our phone service stayed up, but maybe in areas where more recent COs have been built, they cheaped out with only a bank of batteries.

Most SLICs in neighborhoods are on bats. Sometimes the phone company would send out a gen truck to charge the bats. No so much any more.

I still get my landline in from the same copper drop that I have had for 35 years, but apparently in only goes as copper as far as the local network node (I dont know the real name for them).  What does SLIC stand for ?  My guess would be Subscriber Local Interface Controller....

I would think a network node would be a good candidate system to have a solar panel to augment the battery backup and/or a 12VDC input just for someone (even a  good samaritan local subscriber) to throw a car battery onto during an extended outage.  Probably too simple, and the corporate lawyers would find a liability reason to nix it.  I offered my 5KW backup genny to the AT&T CO  operator for just that purpose but was politely declined.

Day 4 no power still. Have gone through about 17 gallons of fuel. Purchased another 5 ga. today.  Hopefully this will be the last.  We now have another traffic light working. Thank you.  CT drivers suck and don't know how to handle a 4way stop sign. Other than that nothing new to add.  

The power companies outage map has shown some improvement for our town however, there's still severe damage to the main feeders running along Rt 16.  I've been collecting them and will animate them to show how the eastern half of CT got the shaft while the western half of CT got preferential service.

Paul,
I'm aiming the noise into the woods.  It's just when I walk the property I get concerned about a neighbor although I dislike the guy I have to respect him.  But the baffle is working yet still the noise is getting on my nerves and I don't like rubbing it in my neighbors face despite that I can run 85% of the house but don't.  Maybe tonight I will turn on every light.

I do cherish the quiet low HF bands.  I haven't heard them like this in quite some time.  I'm sure beside my neighbors electronics my household generates it's share of crap.  Need to look into that.  Then after that, being an astronomy nut, with all the outages and clear air the skies are absolutely dark.  The stars are incredible.  

Couple of emergency genny lessons learned/observations:

Kept blowing fuses (3AGC 10A) in the Generac's start/stop control circuit.  First blow apparently was it doing what it supposed to do to protect the circuit when Diane did not release the start switch after the engine caught and the starter started to grind.
Replaced the fuse with one from AutoZone, and everything was OK, but had several subsequent failure to crank on start instances where fuse was again blown for no apparent reason.  I suspect that the AutoZone fuses may have failed from vibration, they looked kind of flimsy.  Currently running with a 3AGC 10 time delay fuse and no problems so far.  Where can I get ruggedized mil spec 3AGC fuses?

Douched myself  and the genset this morning with gas on a tank refill from an old  5 gallon GI jerry can when I accidentally let the nozzle try to carry the weight of the can, and it of course popped out of the can...luckily the genny was shut down cold.  

Generac Corporate Tech Support gets a big fat D rating.  Found out my set was puttting out over 140 VAC per phase.  No instructions in owners manual on how to adjust output voltage.  Phone center talking head said they were not authorized to provide that information to consumers.  Gave me numbers of "authorized Generac technicians" who were in fact dealers.  Enrique in an Orange CA lawn mower shop filled me in and faxed me the tech manual stuff I needed.

Bob - you should put up your Christmas lights and light them up too!

Just got home (last couple of posts were from the office).  Felt good to see all the lights on in our area, although US1 from our area down to Stonington Borough is still out.

Land line and DSL apparently came back with the power in the area.

Our Fridgidaire front loader washing machine is working normally again.  The PWM  motor speed control system apparently did not like the 140 VAC being put out by the Generac. Washer timer would advance, tub would fill and drain on the Generac, but motor would not run.  Probably has an overvoltage protection circuit in the PWM controller, in retrospect a good thing.

Still pretty pissed off at Generac tech support. The limited info their  "tech support" - Enrique the lawn mower repair guy in Orange CA sent me was incorrect.  Implied that the VR adjust pot was on a heatsink accessible on the back side of the generator electrical control panel.  Not there.  Must be inside the panel.  Never was sent an actual adjustment instruction.  Anyone on here know how to tweak it?  It's a 2008 17.5 KW portable, Model 005308-0

Check ur engine RPM! ! ! Depending on whether it is a 2-pole or a 4-pole alternator, it needs to be 3600 RPM for a 2-pole or 1800 RPM for a 4-pole. If the engine is running a little fast the voltage will be a little high and the frequency will not be 60Hz. The frequency being off could be what is driving ur PWM controllers nutso.

Also Generac stuff is kinda lower end, and most of their smaller stuff is throw-away with Chineese knock-off engines that dont quite make enough horsepower for the rated full output. General "rule of thumb" for generating electricity is to have 2 shaft HP (bhp) per KW of electric generated, and that hp output has to be at the generating speed.

Thanks for the info Bacon....made a few more calls to "qualified local Generac technicians" - have gotten nothing specific from them.  None have specific info on my machine.  Some of course want me to bring it in to them to look at, but I have no confidence they will do anything but easter-egg the problem by replacing modules on my nickel.  One guy said he was not absolutely certain but that he thought my VR and governor were non-adjustable.  WTF?  If it's running out of spec, how do you bring it in then?
I agree that if engine speed is high, voltage could also be high.  From the schematic, my machine has an electronic governor for speed control that controls the throttle, and a voltage regulator that controls output voltage by adjusting field excitation.  There's got to be some adjustments somewhere  in there.  Had another telecon with the Generac call center and have a case number assigned to me, waiting for a call back from someone who hopefully knows his stuff.  Next call will be to their CEO if I can figure out how to get in contact with him..
Paid nearly 3K for this unit, I don't consider that throw away money....

Chris,
        throw a frequency counter on the output and see what the output frequency actually is. That might tell the whole tale! And generally the engine speed governor on most small and industrial engines is mechanical. It may have a load sensor and an electronic "Idler" that cuts back on the engine speed when it senses there is no load.

Chris,
I had the same problem with my Generac. It's 7 years old. I received it that way when I purchased it.  I'm sure it didn't come from Generac that way but determined that it was a result of shipping.  It was shipped on it's side so the engine and gen head weren't suspended normally causing the small sense cable going into the electronics to become disconnected. I had check the output voltage on both phases prior to connecting anything just to be sure it was good to go. Glad I did.

Because the unit was shipped on its side and the motor and gen head are mounted on rubber the cable was disconnected from the voltage control circuit. The wire harness was a bit short.  Plugged it back in, put it back together, tested and both phases were normal.  Also noticed on the voltage controller that the voltage was adjustable.  I bumped the output up to 120V from about 110 to aid the well pump.  One other thing I did was build a voltage meter panel at the hook up so I could check both phases before throwing the transfer switch.  

OK on the Christmas lights. Actually, one of those automated Christmas light displays would be more fitting ;D

Bob,
My brother is still out, Columbia off RT66

Bob -

Thanks for that heads up!  I finally got through to a real engineer or tech rep at Generac and he told me where the VR adjust pot is on my machine - inside the control panel on the VR module along with a LED VR status indicator.  Just need to walk it down a tad with the machine shut down, run it and see what you get... Repeat as necessary...I will definitely look for the disconnected sensor cable you described - If I find the same thing they will be getting soem feedback from me for sure. Also going to hang my HP counter on the output to check the speed.  The tech told me its unlikey that the speed is off - speed is not adjustable, it should be reasonably  close to 60 Hz /3600 RPM unless there are mechanical problems.  Going to work on it tonight - latest projected track for TS Katia is a little unsettling.  Took a big jump to the west although it hopefully it will still recurve and stay well offshore.

Chris,
I wish you the best of luck on your fix.  Hopefully it is something straight forward like mine.  If I remember right the controller is fairly simple so troubleshooting to component level shouldn't be too bad assuming the controllers are similar.  I checked the speed on mine both times when I had the issue.  RPM was 3600 and freq was 60cycle.  Voltage was just way off.

Frank,
We're still out however, CL and P is working its way down Rt16.  They have some work ahead of them though.  My circuit is trash.  I don't think we'll see power for another day or 2.  I was hoping we'd see utility power today but I was disappointed.  Had to refuel the gas cans again. 

FWIW, I started running 89 octane in my generator.  I noticed that the muffler no longer glows dull red in the dark plus it seems a bit quieter.  Might be something to consider.

Bob,
My cousin emailed and said RT156 is up so it is something in the neighborhood.
There are many western union splices older than me. Some are even on the secondary side. I only have them on the primary feed in my circuit. Pole pig and secondary fairly new.

Well,its more than just an out of adjustment trim pot.  Something appears to be whacked in the VR module.  The voltage adjust pot is a cheesy little plastic trim pot floating on the surface of a mass of epoxy potting material on the front of the module.  When I first started trying to bring the voltage down from an indicated 150V no load the pot had no affect over its full range of travel. With the pot set at the minimum voltage setting, I was able to get it to regulate at about 86V by first dropping the machine speed and voltage down with the no load low speed idle switch.  At no load idle mode, was seeing about 60 volts out.  Shutting off the no load idle brought voltage up to 86.  Tried slowly bringing up the voltage with the trim pot - could get up to about 100 V, but then voltage would suddenly jump up to 150 and hang in there even after I turned the pot back down to minimum.  Going back into no load idle mode would then bring voltage back down to 60 and then if the pot was at minimum, turning off the no load idle would bring voltage back up to 86.  But every attempt to bring the voltage up over 100 ran into the jump up to 150.  My first guess is tbat the pot is crapped out.  Got the exact same results when I ran with a heavy load (clothes dryer). Maybe i can dig the wiring to the pot out of the epoxy and replace the piece of crap Generac used with a a quality trimmer, or a pot I can mount on the front panel so I can adjust it directly from there.  I can't see how that little POS pot could hold a setting in a high vibration environment like a generator.

Frequency in normal mode is rock steady at 60 Hz regardless of load as read by my HP counter fed with a 6V filament transformer powered from the genny output.  Drops to about 40 Hz in no load idle mode.  No indication of binding or lost motion in the governor servomotor actuator.

Will be an interesting call to Generac in the morning - if the VR module has indeed failed, it did so after less than 10 hours of operation.  Golng to try to get them to send me a new VR module gratis, but not optimistic since the unit is now over 3 years old on a 2 year warranty.

Chris,
        Stories like this make me so glad my genny is as old as it is! ! !  It is 64 years old! It is a 1948 U.S. Power and light unit with an old Hercules BXB 2 cyl water cooled engine. Water cooled with full pressure lubrication, a 4-pole alternator and a governed speed of 1800 RPM @ full load It will most likely still be running when I no longer am! The nicest thing about it is that all is controlled by the engines governor and it has NO electronic controls.

I keep debating about replacing it with something more modern, but stories like this really make me scratch my head  ??? It has been faithful to me for over 30 years.

I had a couple Generac generators and they were pure crap.  The engines were undersized and had to run at 3600 RPM as opposed to every other I have that runs at 1800 RPM, they had no block heaters so they would not start in the cold and every time we transfer to them they did not work. Replaced one with a 25 kW Kato and the other with a 35 kW Onan and have no problems with them. I have a total of about a half dozen Onan and Kato ranging from 25 to 150 kW at different transmitter sites and had never had any experience of such poor quality systems as the two Generac systems that I had. Those two systems were purchased back in the early nineties when Generac first appeared and would hope the systems they produced after that were better quality but myself the first thing I look at today when purchasing a generator is if it runs at 1800 or 3600 RPM, if it runs at 3600 that’s a reason for me not to buy it. Think of you car engine and how well it runs at 1800 verses 3600 RPM

Not to mention how much longer it will last at 1800 RPM vs 3600..................

I dunno, man, my Mazda runs best around 4500rpm, top of 4th?
YEHA !

Glad to see everyone made it thru FB, more or less.

Back on the web for first time since the storm. Still no power - running on generator a few hours a day only.  It turns out this is the only house on the street without power now.  There is 3-phase all the way up the street and stops 100 yards away.  Only the center lead and ground runs here and is dead. The outside leads are hot and the other houses are tapped on.   The bastards left the center lead hanging and took off. Who knows when they will return.

Winds were about 75-80mph up on the tower tops from the look of the element bending during the storm. Antenna damage was almost nil. Two Yagis twisted a few degrees in their mounts - no problem. One dipole wire snapped, but repaired easily the next day.  So all set here.

We have found out that the CT Power Co has maybe 1/2 the repair crews as other states. Taking too long. They will have hell to pay once the media works 'em over later on. 

Had a chance to study for a big exam coming up, so took it easy all week. Nice break from the computer and TV anyway... ;D

T

Wondered when we'd here from the mountain top. Glad to hear that you're okay and made it through with minimal damage, Tom. Hopefully they will get back to restore your power soon.

We have found out that the CT Power Co has maybe 1/2 the repair crews as other states. Taking too long. They will have hell to pay once the media works 'em over later on.

I saw our First Selectman last Friday morning before the storm hit.  He said he was really worried for the power lines because  CL&P was THREE YEARS behind on their tree trimming in our town.

I wonder if the guy with thsoe big ex Desert Storm govt. surplus diesel gennies will be at Nearfest in a few weeks.  I'm ready to s***can the Generac as soon as I can.  For the near term , the VR modules are only about 75-100 bucks on the Internet...going to line one up now...

Diesel generators are never in short supply from Government Liquidators, prices run around $300 to $600 for 5 kW units but beware they are used and drained of fluids! Lots of 3 kW units with sound baffle housings been selling lately. Think the government dumps them after between one thousand and fifteen hundred hours as a matter of cost effectiveness. You have to set up a user account but you're not required to post a bid bond and can pay by PayPal, and if the lot requires an end use certificate (EUC) I found that just putting down "Ham Radio" works. This is their web link:

http://www.govliquidation.com/index.html

I have not bought generators from them but bought lots of other weird junk.

Day 6, Day 7, I don't know. I lost count.  W1RKW is now back on utility power.  Power was restored at 645PM today.  Liz and I went out to dinner and left a dead house and came back to seeing the front light over the garage lit.  Utility and tree crews were down the road about a 1/2 mile doing work when I came home from work  I had a good feeling then and when we left for the Marlborough Tavern up by K1JJs way.  Came home to a garage light lit by non-generator power.  Right now have all the windows open. The only sound right now are the evening bugs, crickets, katydids, etc. No more drone of the thumper B&S engine or the occasional beep of the security system.  Had a good meal and drank a couple of 807s and I'm ready for a long no stress peaceful sleep. Everyone else who is powerless, I wish you get restored utility power soon. 

Chris,
        While looking for something else, I found this thread on an engine forum. in it there is the skizmatic for a Generac voltage regulator board, and lots of other good stuff about Generacs

http://www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85631

                            or this

http://www.smokstak.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=90

Lots of good stuff over there on smokestack!  The regulator described is not exactly what I have, but reading the posts is a good tutorial..I like this one on how to check your genny frequency against the commerical power frequency without a frequency counter. 

Re: FAQ: How to Setup the Frequency & Voltage on a Genset
A GOOD WAY TO SET ENGINE SPEED/GENERATOR FREQUENCY.

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST BE CAREFUL WHEN DOING THIS OR YOU COULD END UP BEING A CRISPY CRITTER!

Since the North American power grid runs at a very accurate 60 Hz frequency, it is about the best standard you can get for checking your generator frequency.

Here's how you do it. First and -very- important, connect the neutral of the genset to the neutral of your commercial power source. Do the same with the grounds.

Now, take a couple of identical (say, 60 Watt) 120 volt light bulbs and hook them in series so you have, in effect, a 240 volt light bulb. The reason you need 240 volts worth of bulbs is that, when the generator output sine wave is exactly opposite the sine wave from the commercial power, there will be twice the line voltage across the lamps.

Now, connect one end of the series string to the 120 volt hot lead of your generator and hook the other end of the series string to the 120 volt hot lead of your commercial power. With the generator -not- running, the light bulbs should be at half brightness.

Now, start the generator. The light bulbs will vary from full on (240 volts) to full off (zero volts) at exactly the difference frequency between your generator and commercial power.

If your generator speed is close, the bulbs will flicker. To find out if you're fast or slow, nudge the governor a little fast and see if the flicker rate increases or decreases.

- If the flicker rate increases, you are running fast and need to adjust the governor a little slower until, without any other load, the lights go on and off about twice a second. This will mean that you're running at about 62 Hz.

- If the flicker rate slows down when you nudge the speed upward, you need to adjust the governor up until the lights are -very- slowly changing brightness then increase some more until the lights flicker about twice a second.

Now, if you have a way to load your generator to near full load, do so, leaving the bulbs connected. The flicker rate should be about 2 cycles -below- the 60 Hz of commercial power or about 58 Hz.

I've used this method of adjusting genset speed several times and it works well.

Take care - Elden

"Lots of good stuff over there on smokestack!  The regulator described is not exactly what I have, but reading the posts is a good tutorial..I like this one on how to check your genny frequency against the commerical power frequency without a frequency counter"

It may not be exactly the same, but it may just as well work, and it didn't look like it would be much to build................................

I have a replacement regulator on the way from partsfortechs.com in Lebanon PA - nice folks.  I am definitely interested in a homebrew regulator that will at least allow me to adjust voltage from a front panel control - while I am at it I should add a built in voltmeter and a low voltage output to a BNC to drive a frequency counter directly.

glad you guys have power. CL&P site says we are back up. Heading south to check out stinky fridge. Two partial containers of ice cream, graded cheese that is almost full. XYL bummed because she just bought it and guess what we plan to eat later. I think there is butter on the door and barbie stuff in jars.
I might be on 494 kHz this weekend.

Its reported that there are still about 157000 people without power in NYC and the tristate area almost a week after the hurricane.

As of yesterday there are still small pockets of power outages around my location here in Central NJ.

I expected the worst here but the only damage I had was a rope support for my horizontal loop that snapped but I restrung that fairly quickly with better rope.


Sam / KS2AM

anyone know if there is any type of maintenance required for the generator head?  I know there are brushless gen heads and probably require little to no maintenance but what about those with brushes. I think mine has brushes.

Also, one thing I noticed while on gen power, one or two lights in the house would occasionally flicker. Those were incandescent lights too.  Most other incandescents did not.  CFL exhibit no flickering.  The trusty Fluke DVM wasn't fast enough to measure any spike. And the home brewed meter panel didn't show anything either.  So don't know what's up with that.

It's funny how hams get the most important things fixed first... ;D   I did the same thing here, even as the winds were still blowing.  

The rest can wait.

A guy from CL&P stopped by yesterday to "look" at the damage here.  I could fix it in 10 minutes if they let me climb the pole. The HV wire slipped off the insulator and is touching the ground wire.  He didn't even know what 3-phase was. Probably an office bean-counter sent out to look good.

Everyone on the street feeds off the hot outside leg - while this house is on the dead center leg. They opened the switch down the street.  I guess it makes for better QRO voltage regulation being the only one on that leg, so no complaints.

The guy had a blank look when axed when the truck would be out. I guess that means we are last on the list being the only house on the street without power. I figger by Wed-Thurs if lucky.  Sometimes we get the short lot.

T

Tom,

Sorry to hear you're still without power.  Don't climb the pole and touch any 3ph power lines :o

We never lost power here but I haven't been on the air since the storm.  I had some very large tree limbs come down in the woods out back.  Of course they took out both the 40M and 75M loops.  You're right, I got right to work putting the antennas back up.  But, it did take two days to clear the trees first.

Hope you get power soon.

Fred

Bob - my 2008 17.5 Generac is brushless except for the DC field winding..I would think the brushes last a long time.  Would want to be sure the commutator isn't oxidized - my garage gets pretty humid in the summer and I have seen some yard tools rust from moisture over the long haul in there.

I loosened the rope supports before the wind started but that didn't help in this case.

Many hours after the hurricane passed and the winds subsided a breaker somewhere in the neighborhood popped and we lost one phase throughout the neighborhood (we have 208 3-phase in my immediate area).  So depending on how your house was wired you may have lost half your power as I did or all or none of your power.  This has happened before here but unfortunately because of all of the hurricane related problems it took them a couple of days to get out here to fix it.

Hi Chris,
I have the same issue with humidity.  It doesn't take much to oxidize something.  WD40 is useful for that type of thing.  I spray it onto a rag and wipe things down.  Looking at the manual, Generac for this model calls the generator head an alternator.  As far as I know alternator do have brushes and a commutator so I guess they are subject to elements.  Considering I had not run the generator for at least 9 months it did perform for the most part flawlessly.  I just had that occasional flickering on 1 or 2 light bulbs that had me puzzled.

As far as ants go. I did not lower anything.  I left the dipole up under regular tension.  The vertical which lives in the woods in a small clearing survived 100%. 

We were pretty lucky here.  The winds for the most part skimmed the tops of the trees.  At the 15ft. level my anemometers recorded winds as high as 7mph.  One of my neighbors was not as lucky.  He's 50ft. higher in elevation and suffered tree damage on many trees. Fortunately, none hit anything.

Power was restored quite fast yesterday.  A team of 6 trucks showed up and worked about 1.5 mile stretch of Rt. 16 above and below our intersection in about 150 yard increments.  Three trucks cleared trees and guys on the ground did away with the cuttings while the other 3 trucks worked power lines. They worked the 1.5 miles in about 3 hours and had power restored soon after.   Talk about team work. Everyone who lived along the road was watching and amazed.  There were cheers all around. I was amazed how fast they worked. 

There's still work to be done.  They did what was necessary to get power going.  Many sections of Rt.16 have growth on the lines.  I imagine in the near future the power company will be cleaning up that mess.  They had better or they're asking for more headaches.

Glad to hear you are back on the grid Bob...Diane and I just came in from an all day clean up in the yard - small branches, leaves and small twigs were everywhere, but all up now.  Tomorrow we start cutting up the crabapple that came down and what I can of the big maple that lost one of two big trunks 15 feet up.  A tree service is going to come out later in the week to drop it and then I can finish cutting it up.  Stonington moved the brush pile at the dump to just inside the entrance - making it a lot faster for everyone to get in and out. 

Looks like Katia is going to stay well offshore...that's a relief!

Looks like youse guys in CT took a similar hit. Glad to hear thangs are getting better.

Well,  three trucks showed up today and re-tied the HV line to the insulator in 10 minutes. They popped the switch and power is back on.

Remember the CCC youth groups of the 1930's that did outside projects all over the country?  With the ecomomic depression going on now, wouldn't it be neat if Obama brought it back to convert ALL pole power lines to underground?  Make it a national project like going to the moon... ;D

Though, I doubt most workers would be suited to do that kind of work without intense training. Just a thought anyway. We are living in the "dark" ages when 60-70mph winds on the east coast can bring us to our knees.  (pun intended)   Just imagine if this happened via an ice/wind storm and we had pipes bursting and people freezing.  It really pays to have a generator.


I haven't even looked at the beverages. They must be beaten up bad from fallen trees. I'll wait til the rattlesnakes go away first.

Sam: The 3-phase stops down the street. There is just a single line and ground run up here. The others have a different tap than me, so I can be down and they up.

T

Frank,
         If you knew it was coming, why didn't you clear out the fridge beforehand? ? ?
Isn't that kinda like closing the barn door after the horse got out? ? 

No stinkie fridge but the ice cream was melted and refrozen. We didn't have much stuff in the fridge, yup I was stupid. No real damage minor issue with antenna when a branch from across the street broke the end of a vertical wire. Many trees down. State park got nailed and lost about 10 feet of beach line. Our beach gained sand but the jetty took a beating holding back the waves. Looks like another repair job this year.
Loks of out of state trucks doing repairs. SE CT got nailed pretty hard.
150 wind clips and 60 lag bolts held the roof on. 

Yesterday figuring Katia was moving away, I prepped the generator for storage. Drained the gas out of the tank. Then ran the engine to get the last drop of gas out.  Put a bit of marvel mystery oil in the fuel line. Closed the choke and cranked it a few seconds to coat the innards, removed the starter battery, sealed everything up and stuffed it into the corner of the garage for the next event.

Frank,
Waterford Beach and Harkness took a real beating in the storm.  A good portion of the sand at Waterford Beach is gone.  Just bedrock showing.  Even a couple of the dunes down near Ocean Beach took a big hit.  I 've never seen that before for all the years I go down there.

Man, I have not been to Harkness in about 40 years. What a beautiful area.

Just FWIW, this current storm (happening now as I type) has been played down somewhat by the local news media. But in the small snippets last evening about local flash flooding, they said that we have "officially" gotten more rain between tuesday and wednesday than we had gotten from Ireene! ! ! ! !  As of yesterday evening we had gotten over 5.75" of rain in the last 24 hours! ! ! !  And it rained cats, dogs, skunks and cows here last night. It literally came down in buckets all friggin night, and it is still pouring as I'm typing this. (Not supposed to clear off till the weekend! ! ) It will be interesting what the final rain tally will be from this "non event"! ! ! ! ! !

I have allready laid the keel for the ark........................

we had 6 inches over the road on the ride in this morning. hopefully the sun comes out this afternoon.

Local damage reports continue to come in from the hurricane. Looks like at least 40 homes destroyed in my county.

http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-over-40-homes-completely-destroyed-in-james-city-county-during-irene-20110901,0,7718482.story

Neighboring York county was also hit hard.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-irene-historical-context-20110829,0,775042.story


From this article, it likes like my locality has some of the greatest wind speeds.

"Irene's maximum wind gusts were 67 mph in Newport News and 61 mph at Fort Monroe, but as high as 76 mph in Williamsburg and 71 mph at the Richmond airport."

Finally had a chance to replace the VR in the 17.5KW Generac.  115V Line to neutral both sides of the line vs over 140!  Original VR apparently WAS fried, although hard to imagine after less than 10 hours of previous run time.  Going to do a little post mortem necropsy to figure out what failed on it.

Have been clearing up the mess left from the two dropped trees.  Tree service dropped the maple that hung up 15 feet up - had them only do that and left all the rest of the cleanup to me to keep the cost down.  They did only what I cant do with a 16" chain saw.  Should get a cord of wood or more from the effort to help offset the tree service charge.

You want to see some high water ?

Flood shot was taken Friday the 8th.

Drained by Sunday.

Good thing the bridge is a lattice, flow-through design or it probably would have gone downstream.