survivors 1975-77

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
Shortwave Transceivers are located in every Radio Amateurs house, all
it would take is a copy of the yearly callbook (like a phone
directory) to be able to locate and recover all that equipment

And electricity, of course.

That's located in one of the millions of portable generators kicking
around, also most Amateur radio sets operate on 12 volts DC so they can
be used in cars, so you'd only need a means of charging car batteries

Car batteries have a limited life. Very much so if left to go flat.
As regards gennys most would only run them when needed. So you'd need to
set a time for this radio communication 'hour'. Assuming you can still
tell the time, of course. ;-)


Add some EDTA to each cell, and give the batteries a long slow charge.

http://www.sweller.co.uk/mz/electrics/elc_edta.html

Leisure Batteries as used in Caravans have a much longer life than car
batteries

Steve Terry

Steve Terry wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
Shortwave Transceivers are located in every Radio Amateurs house, all
it would take is a copy of the yearly callbook (like a phone
directory) to be able to locate and recover all that equipment
And electricity, of course.

That's located in one of the millions of portable generators kicking
around, also most Amateur radio sets operate on 12 volts DC so they can
be used in cars, so you'd only need a means of charging car batteries
Car batteries have a limited life. Very much so if left to go flat.
As regards gennys most would only run them when needed. So you'd need to
set a time for this radio communication 'hour'. Assuming you can still
tell the time, of course. ;-)


Add some EDTA to each cell, and give the batteries a long slow charge.

http://www.sweller.co.uk/mz/electrics/elc_edta.html

Leisure Batteries as used in Caravans have a much longer life than car
batteries

Steve Terry



Only if it's an open type battery rather than a gel filled type more
common nowadays. Either way a new battery sealed up and stored will last
for ages, generator broken? get another one off the palletfulls you have
stored in the warehouse!

In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
Car batteries have a limited life. Very much so if left to go flat.
As regards gennys most would only run them when needed. So you'd need to
set a time for this radio communication 'hour'. Assuming you can still
tell the time, of course. ;-)


Add some EDTA to each cell, and give the batteries a long slow charge.

http://www.sweller.co.uk/mz/electrics/elc_edta.html

Leisure Batteries as used in Caravans have a much longer life than car
batteries

No they don't - over a properly use car one. Ie, not allowed to go flat.
Deep discharge types may well have a better life under those conditions -
but have other disadvantages.

--
*I started out with nothing... and I still have most of it.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

The message
from Sofa - Spud contains these words:

Steve Terry wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
Shortwave Transceivers are located in every Radio Amateurs house, all
it would take is a copy of the yearly callbook (like a phone
directory) to be able to locate and recover all that equipment
And electricity, of course.

That's located in one of the millions of portable generators kicking
around, also most Amateur radio sets operate on 12 volts DC so they can
be used in cars, so you'd only need a means of charging car batteries
Car batteries have a limited life. Very much so if left to go flat.
As regards gennys most would only run them when needed. So you'd need to
set a time for this radio communication 'hour'. Assuming you can still
tell the time, of course. ;-)


Add some EDTA to each cell, and give the batteries a long slow charge.

http://www.sweller.co.uk/mz/electrics/elc_edta.html

That sounds a little bit bogus to say the least. At best, it might
represent a remedy for a battery that has "Died prematurely due to
neglect" where the soft soluble sulphate (a normal event in a freshly
discharged battery) has been allowed to linger long enough to crystalise
into the much less soluble form which resists conversion back to lead or
lead oxide by the charging process.

Unlike other common secondary cell based battery technologies (such as
NiCd and NiMH) you can't allow a lead acid battery (or cell, for the
pedantic of mind :-) to remain in a discharged state for any length of
time (a 24 hours maximum often being the percieved wisdom - I suppose
there isn't really a set period and that the sooner a discharged lead
acid cell is placed on charge the better, within minutes is preferable
to within hours which is preferable, yet again, to a matter of days).


Leisure Batteries as used in Caravans have a much longer life than car
batteries

Leisure batteries (or marine batteries) are designed specifically to
better cope with the rigors of regular deep discharging events, unlike
car batteries which, put quite simply, don't.

Only if it's an open type battery rather than a gel filled type more
common nowadays. Either way a new battery sealed up and stored will last
for ages, generator broken? get another one off the palletfulls you have
stored in the warehouse!

Not if they're distributed pre-filled with electrolyte as seems to be
the practice in these 'oh so modern times'.

At one time, it was normally the garage or service station's job to
apply the final stage of the manufacturing process of introducing the
electrolyte (the batteries being delivered in a 'dry charged' state). In
this state, if sealed from atmospheric ingress, they could last decades
on the shelf.

I suspect the reason for the change was down to lead acid car batteries
becoming a commodity item (losing the state of 'preciousness' that
they'd formerly enjoyed) in a greatly expanded market which provided a
more predictable turnover in the distribution network.

Assuming you can find stocks of batteries in their dry charged state,
what you're suggesting _would_ indeed be true.

--
Regards, John

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , Steve Terry wrote:
The last hundred years of knowledge is stored on many mediums
from books to hard drives to USB sticks, it's not all going to get
lost.

How long do you estimate a USB stick or HD would survive? In the
context
of books, not a lot. Same with all electronic storage media.


OK centres of learning based on books would have to be developed,
as the monastery's were in the middle ages with people coming from miles
around to study

Learning based on books has developed as society developed. However, in
the
situation being envisaged, namely the sudden collapse of society as we
know
it, people wouldn't be interested in "developing" anything for some time,
probably many years. There'd be widespread panic as people accustomed to
our
modern technology-based way of life suddenly found themselves in a
situation
they had no idea how to cope with, their most pressing concerns being
fresh
water, food and warmth, all things that we take for granted. The towns
would
be full of rotting corpses and the roads probably blocked by cars
belonging
to people trying to get away from them. Any survivors lucky enough to live
in
a farm or other habitable place in the country would probably defend it to
the death, preferably yours. Nine tenths of everybody you knew would have
gone, and there'd be no means of communicating with anybody further than
shouting distance, so you wouldn't know which of your former friends and
relatives were still alive, or where they were. You'd suddenly feel very
alone. Believe me, books, never mind fuel and generators to power the
technology needed to read a hard drive or a USB stick, would be the last
thing on anybody's mind for a very long time.

I'm not so sure about that.
The first few years would be pretty desperate but when things had settled
down a bit, say 5-10 years later, the people who had survived and now
managed to exist by primitve farming methods would still think of teaching
the kids to read. They would realise how important it was. Remember
it would have been the books on crop rotation and animal husbandry
looted from the local agricultural college that taught them how to farm in
the first place.
They wouldn't have thought like medieval peasants in that passing
farmimg techniques down by word of mouth would be enough. If your
kids can read there will always be far more information available to them
than their parents could possibly make them aware of.

Col

In article , Steve Terry wrote:
You brought up a good point about "Communication", in the film "The Postman"
A post apocalyptic America recovers because Kevin Costner inadvertently
reinvents the pony express mail, linking up isolated communities which
eventually restores the USA and civilisation (at least their idea of it)

Everything I've read about this film suggests that everybody but me thinks
it's rubbish, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who was impressed. It was
indeed an ingenious and original idea, and quite plausible. New forms of
communication have transformed society in the last decade or two, so it's easy
to imagine that simply providing communication to a society that effectively
had none at all would have an enormous effect.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

In article , David wrote:
After the initial die-off, when survivors have exhausted what supplies they
have and the stench of decay becomes too much, there will an exodus though
never complete; some with less sensitivity and stronger stomachs will always
stay to take advantage of the resources in the city. Having lots of rotting
corpses around isn't actually as big a health risk as is usually thought,
provided you take reasonable hygiene precautions of yourself, your immediate
living area and especially any food and water you use.

Where would you get drinkable water in a dead city? Bottles in supermarkets
wouldn't last very long after it stopped coming out of the taps. You'd have to
move to the country to find a clear stream.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

Í think we should remember that the survivors would, presumably, be a random
sample of the population. Now, if you think about the generality of the
population, the majority of people would have no idea how to operate a
generator, for instance. They certainly wouldn't be able to identify the
home of a radio amateur by looking at the aerials, then sort out the
necessary gear for mobile comms, then use it. The skills market would change
dramatically, but it would still exist.

Bill

"Sofa - Spud" wrote in message
...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Steve Terry wrote:
Shortwave Transceivers are located in every Radio Amateurs house, all
it would take is a copy of the yearly callbook (like a phone
directory) to be able to locate and recover all that equipment
And electricity, of course.

That's located in one of the millions of portable generators kicking
around, also most Amateur radio sets operate on 12 volts DC so they can
be used in cars, so you'd only need a means of charging car batteries

Car batteries have a limited life. Very much so if left to go flat.
As regards gennys most would only run them when needed. So you'd need to
set a time for this radio communication 'hour'. Assuming you can still
tell the time, of course. ;-)

But with literally millions of them , charging them regularly you'd have a
limitless supply for many decades. I've had batteries last nearly ten
years in my old vans . Get a new one off the shelf in a car parts place ,
charge it up , use it a few hours a day and it'll last a decade I reckon.


Nope, new ones are supplied dry charged empty, and start degrading
when filled with sulphuric acid / deionised water, so store them unfilled
as supplied to dealers

Used batteries that can't be immediately used, i would empty and store
the acid /water in drums for later use.

Steve Terry

"Roderick Stewart" wrote in
message .myzen.co.uk...
In article , Steve Terry wrote:
You brought up a good point about "Communication", in the film "The
Postman"
A post apocalyptic America recovers because Kevin Costner inadvertently
reinvents the pony express mail, linking up isolated communities which
eventually restores the USA and civilisation (at least their idea of it)

Everything I've read about this film suggests that everybody but me thinks
it's rubbish, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who was impressed. It was
indeed an ingenious and original idea, and quite plausible. New forms of
communication have transformed society in the last decade or two, so it's
easy
to imagine that simply providing communication to a society that
effectively
had none at all would have an enormous effect.
Rod.


I wasn't impressed with the movie, mostly just another vehicle for Costners
career

But it did reflect how the pony express helped turn the divided and lawless
West of the mid to late 19th century, very quickly into the much more
united and civilised early 20th, projected into an apocalyptic near future.

Violence is often born out of the sort of fear generated by being isolated
and out of touch with loved ones that provide the hope needed to keep going

Steve Terry