Pet peeves - Ugh!

[bladegrinder]

8 hours ago, Northmount said:

My son lives near a little town that has a cell tower on the hill above the town.  The town itself is in a dead spot, no cell coverage.  The school liked it for a few years, students couldn't use their cell phones!  Finally the staff and parents got tired of it so the school has put in a repeater.

Where he lives, he is in a valley.  Had to put a repeater and antenna on top of his 2 story house to be able to connect with one cell provider.  Others not able to connect with.  He had a buried telephone cable running past his place.  Couldn't get on it because all the pairs were already assigned.  Finally one of the phone company's techs came out and traced all the connections and found him a spare pair, so he now has a land line after several years without.  For internet service, he is on Starlink.  It works fairly well for him compared to having to use cell service with its costs and limitations.

 

I'm in the same boat, moved to the deep woods three years ago. my cell phone service is good but for internet I use a Verizon hot spot. it actually works great for internet, can watch Netflix with computor's running with no interruption''s and it's cheap, connected to my phone plan BUT...it's not on 24hrs. and even with the plan I'm on if I hacked it to work 24hrs a day I think I'd run out data on occasion.

Probably next year I'm going with Starlink, it just became available in my area a couple months ago. a little over a hundred bucks a month and six hundred for the equipment that you buy....that you set up yourself. my locale cable company wanted $9000.00 to run to my house, then two weeks later they were nice enough to give me the friend price of $7,500.00, no thanks.

After researching the satellite services available, Starlink came way out on top compared to Hughsnet.

[Northmount]

4 minutes ago, bladegrinder said:

Probably next year I'm going with Starlink, it just became available in my area a couple months ago. a little over a hundred bucks a month and six hundred for the equipment that you buy....that you set up yourself

It works.  The cable to his dish had a problem, they sent out a new cable and an upgraded dish, no charge.  I've thought about it too, even though I'm in a large urban location with fibre.  He is quite happy with his setup.  He would like to be on fibre too.  He and a group of other users along the foothills with poor or no service are looking at setting up a coop to own and run their own fibre, and tie into main fibre cables in 2 locations so they have a little redundancy.  Good question as to whether it will happen or just become a pipe dream.

[bladegrinder]

Retiring from the gas utility trade I can't tell you haw many cables I've seen cut. most times their marked but bad things happen, even a fallen tree can uproot and break cable. fibers always in conduit but that's no match for a back hoe. but then satellites fall from the sky too, ha, ha.

Right now I feel the less I'm attached in anyway with anything past my driveway I'm better off.

 

[Handstitched]

On 4/2/2024 at 11:28 PM, Northmount said:

so he now has a land line after several years

We still have a land line  as our mobile phone system  is so unreliable , a bit of rain or a bit of strong wind and the signal drops out. The land line is good for emergencies , also good to check for power outages , as that too is an issue in our town. My "Jenny "is on permanent standby. 

HS

[bladegrinder]

Yep, one of the first things I did when I moved here was install a Generac 2200 KW whole house generator and a 250 gallon LP tank. when hurricane Michael came thru my area didn't have electric for over two weeks. my line comes thru my woods about 1500 ft. with 100' pines on both sides of it. Haven't had any of them fall on it since the hurricane but when it come thru I had about a dozen and it took over two weeks to clear the downed trees and string new wire, only about 300' is under ground going from the last pole to the house. but honestly, I lost power during storms living in the city more often then I do living in the woods.

[Northmount]

8 hours ago, Handstitched said:

My "Jenny "is on permanent standby. 

 

7 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

Yep, one of the first things I did when I moved here was install a Generac 2200 KW whole house generator

My son has a Generac 2200 kW on natural gas with auto transfer.  He has 2 sump pumps in the basement and one in a well just outside the basement.  His house is in an area close to a creek, and only has about 6" of top soil on gravel, the ground water level gets pretty high during mountain snow melt and rain in June each year.  When they coincide, there is water from the creek across the road into his acreage.  Power poles in his area have fallen over during these rains and floods knocking out power in the area.  While we were putting in the generator, we got the heavy rain and huge mountain run off due to rain in the mountains.  He had a 2" trash pump running continuous to keep the basement dry.  The gas fitter wouldn't come out in the rain to make the last hook up, so we switched the generator to propane and brought in multiple propane bottles.  Was a really stressful few days.  Now it's all automated and fewer problems, but the gasoline trash pumps and hose are on standby just in case!

 

[kgg]

8 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

Yep, one of the first things I did when I moved here was install a Generac 2200 KW whole house generator

Having a generator is a must when living out in a rural area. Last summer I had to replace my Briggs 10,000 watt whole house generator. I did look at the Generac generators but $20,000 wasn't in the cards. The old generator finally gave up the ghost and to repair it would have cost more then a brand new unit. The old one had 930 hours run time on it so I didn't feel to bad. This time I got smart and built a generator house with AC lighting, DC lighting and with my batteries on flood charge all the time. No more standing outside during a snow storm, wind storm or pouring rain. Open the shed door, turn the DC lights on, start the generator and way to go, comfort.

kgg

[bladegrinder]

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

[Northmount]

21 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

10kW Generac at Home Depot $5000 CAN

22 kW $7500 CAN

Auto Transfer switch 100A 120-240VAC $1200 CAN.  Probably over sized, but a reference point for interest.

[kgg]

22 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

$20,000 wow, how big of a generator were you looking to get?

 

37 minutes ago, Northmount said:

10kW Generac at Home Depot $5000 CAN

In Ontario a 22kw(propane)/ 19kw (LG) Generac is about $7500 at Homedepot but...then it will cost another 10-12k for installation (site location /preparation) / approvals (electrical / propane / township / protected lands / insurance) / inspections (electrical / site / propane) for it to be allowed. Other then the site preparation most people are at the mercy of the certified electrical / propane contractors that will be needed. A neighbor last summer had one installed and said by the time it was all said and done you couldn't buy a pack of smokes out of the what was left over from 20K. The way around this for a lot of us is a portable 10kw multi fuel generator (gasoline/propane/LG) for about $2500 installed in a prefab 100 square foot shed for about $1000. The drawback is you don't get auto start / auto transfer.

kgg

[bladegrinder]

Ok, I forgot you were in Canada so the price would be higher. I also didn’t take into account the propane tank or piping, at the time of my install I worked for a natural gas utility that also did LP and I got the tank, piping and fittings from there at a good price. I did all the installation of the tank, underground piping and final connections myself so I saved a lot there.

[bladegrinder]

I also have a 8500 Kw portable I bought years ago to run my well in the woods when I just had a camper there. Then I converted it to run on natural gas and had a hose connected to my meter at the house in the city, to the back yard where my electrical panal was and back fed the panal thru a 50 amp breaker. One time it ran for two days non stop

[bladegrinder]

Well, I got starlink. took about a week from ordering it to delivery. setup was fast and pretty uncomplicated, once the dish is in place, cable run and router plugged in you just set up your account in their app.

at this point they can tell the equipment is on and they know who you are. the app walks you thru adjusting the dish in real time, that was pretty cool, as you turn the dish is shows it on your phone, once you get it into an outlined rectangle it tells you your set. then it's just going to your phones, computers and TVs and setting them to the starlink wifi.

it comes preset at 5 ghs or you can change it to a split signal 5 ghs - 2.4 ghs. I added some cameras that only ran on 2.4 so I'm running a split signal. some older things only run on 2,4 so it's good it comes with this option.

The signal is good even during storms and bad weather although it did drop once last night during a really bad thunder storm. I live in the Florida panhandle by the Georgia border and we've been having some really bad storms and tornadoes, watching the weather radar it showed a tornado passing thru my area when starlink went out for about 10 min. we got 5" of rain from that storm last night.

I've been running a Verizon hotspot with my phone plan for three years, I did a couple speed test before and after on two different days so far......

 

                                                                Download speed                                Upload speed

Verison hotspot.........                                    1.34                                                  1.97

Verison hotspot.........                                    3.13                                                  1.67

Starlink.......................                                   140.3                                                 12.8

Starlink.......................                                  224.9                                                  23.6

The starlink does fluctuate, my highest reading was  over 300 download and over 30 upload. the readings posted above were in the first 12 hours of set up.

So......I got to say this to me is kind of unbelievable being in the deep woods and getting signals like this. I'm glad I finally bit the bullet and went with starlink.                     

 

[Northmount]

31 minutes ago, bladegrinder said:

when starlink went out for about 10 min. we got 5" of rain from that storm last nigh

A few weeks ago, my son's Starlink went out.  He had 16" of snow overnight.  So the dish goes into a horizontal position searching for the satellites. Told him he needs to set it to dump the snow!

[bladegrinder]

I've read that the generation 2 dishes had heaters built in, I don't know about the gen 3 I've got but on the app it does have a place where you can activate a heater for melting snow.

What I need where I live is an anti hurricane - tornado button.

[Northmount]

9 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

I've read that the generation 2 dishes had heaters built in, I don't know about the gen 3 I've got but on the app it does have a place where you can activate a heater for melting snow.

What I need where I live is an anti hurricane - tornado button.

His has a heater, but not enough for a dump like 16" of snow.  His must be up to Gen 3 as it was replaced last year (for free, including newer type cable and longer cable).

[Sheilajeanne]

You might want to put your fancy heated satellite dish out of the reach of the neighbourhood cats!  

 

[tsunkasapa]

1 hour ago, Sheilajeanne said:

You might want to put your fancy heated satellite dish out of the reach of the neighbourhood cats!  

 

We have heated water dishes for the cats. I think they drink it as fast as they can just so they can lay in the dish.

[fredk]

[bladegrinder]

They’d have to climb up a flag pole to get on mine ha, ha. 

[Carnivore]

One thing that really peeved me about the metric system was when I discovered that there are only 10 eggs in a metric dozen, talk about your shrinkflation.

[Northmount]

7 minutes ago, Carnivore said:

One thing that really peeved me about the metric system was when I discovered that there are only 10 eggs in a metric dozen, talk about your shrinkflation.

The metric system adopted by Canada (The International System of Units (SI)) does not define a dozen.  It's not a metric term.  SI Practice Guide is available at https://www.csagroup.org/store/product/2701339/

It's your Vernon grocer/supplier that is decreasing the number of eggs per carton, and likely keeping the same price as what your dozen was.  You should have noticed this long ago.  Packages are getting smaller, and prices are going up at the same time.  Compare a 5 cent chocolate bar from 1960 size wise and price wise today.  More shrinkflation!

That's the real pet peeve.

[fredk]

I used to get timber at certain builder merchants. You had to order the timber by the 'metric foot' (= 30cm) so you/I always ordered slightly more than needed to make up for the lost 5mm. But when the office worked out the bill it was always in imperial feet!

[Sheilajeanne]

1 hour ago, Northmount said:

The metric system adopted by Canada....

Eggs are still sold by the dozen here in Canuck land. Here's how Canadians measure things. This isn't a joke - it's quite true!!    I have no idea what my weight is in kilograms, or what my height is in centimeters, I still measure things in cups and spoonfuls when baking, and my oven measures heat in degrees F...

Edit: the chart makes one mistake. The grocery store sells meat by the kilogram, but since a kg. is 2.2 lbs. it's pretty easy to guesstimate the weight in pounds. Most food and beverage packaging is metric, too.

 

Edited May 19, 2024 by Sheilajeanne

[fredk]

Although we adopted the metric system we still buy fresh food by the pound & ounces. Pre-packaged foods are in kilograms and grams. Fuel and most other liquids are in litres, but down in pub you buy a pint. We're bi-lingual

Last week I asked my butcher for about 1/2 a kilogram of mince beef. He gave me a blank stare. I said - about 500 grams. Blank stare. Give me a pound of mince. Instant action