[KYHAM] Re: BPL, Ham radio and the EOC

[wa4qal at ix.netcom.com]

Blake Bowers wrote:
> This is very much the point.  Why plan for refueling?  Won't you be
> needed doing something else?  Should we not eliminate jobs, instead
> of make more?

One of the scarcest resources during any disaster is capable
workers.  Trained workers are nice, but even warm bodies
are useful when thing really degenerate (Heck, we've even been
known to use cool bodies at times!).  :-/

> I just purchased a major site from AT&T.  This site, capable of
> withstanding a nuclear attack 5 miles away or farther, (sort of
> a subjective thing, but I digress) was complete with decon
> showers, shelter areas, disaster packs, etc.  30k square
> feet of cold war history, an Autovon site, as well as a
> microwave site, Echo Fox site, etc.

Majorly cool!

> The gensets, 2 225kw units, had two 10k gallon diesel fuel
> tanks buried underground.  Lots of backup.  Why would we
> plan a system with less?  Dual gensets, with a plan for a
> third.

Redundancy is nice, triple redundancy is even nicer, if you can
afford it.  However, it's usually difficult to acquire the funds for
everything that you'd like, and sometimes it's better to use the
available funds for redundancy of other items, rather than going
for triple redundancy of power systems.

One other concern about backup generator fuel sources that I've
not seen mentioned yet is the stability of the fuel.  Certain fuels,
notably gasoline, but this may apply to diesel, too, do not age well.
I've seen gasoline, after it has sat for a year in a sealed can, turn
to jelly.  And, from personal experience, I can tell you that gasoline
generators do not run on jelly.  I'm told that the problem has to do
with the gasoline molecules polymerizing into longer chains, sort of
the reverse of the catalytic cracking operation that most refineries
use today.  I'm also told that modern catalytically cracked gasolines 
may be more prone to the polymerization than the older style 
non-catalytically cracked gasoline.  I'm not sure if the same effect 
may happen with diesel fuel or not, but it's something to be aware of.  
10K gallons of jellified fuel could be a major mess.

Anyway, it's just something to think about.

Dave
WA4QAL