The summer storm season is here. As I type this there’s a lightning storm passing overhead. My antennas are disconnected and my gear is unplugged and protected with good quality uninterruptible power supplies when in use. We get some extreme variations with line voltage here. A few winters ago line voltage had dropped to 107V AC and my UPSs, all 4 of them started beeping in unison. A quick call to Hydro One and they discovered most of our rural road had low line voltage – not good for appliances. I did lose 2 circuit boards in a front loading microprocessor controlled clothes washer either from low voltage or summer storm activity – the washer and dryer get unplugged if I think about it too.
I make sure when leaving the house, even on sunny days to disconnect the station. I’m located about 23Kms from city center. We seem to have a micro-climate south of the city and summer and winter storms that bypass the Ottawa manage to hit us out here.
On the bands: 10 and 6 have been open and lots of stations on if you manage to get on when those openings occur. There’s a slew of sunspots this week making for some great DX on the higher ham bands.
Photo courtesy of Sebastien D'ARCO
1 comment:
I have always made it a habit of total disconnect every day of the week, every month of the year, electrical storm season or not. I've seen lightening in a heavy winter snow storm.
Once in the 365 day a year habit, you remember.
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