First Outage
Power at our house, and I'm assuming others in my neighborhood, went out around 2pm. Came back on after about 20 minutes. Will that be the end of it? I hope.
Luckily, I have one of those UPS power packs and had plenty of power left to shut down this computer. Couldn't figure out, at first, why I lost my internet connection since the phone lines use their own power source. Then I realized that the DSL modem runs on PG&E power.
Breaking with tradition, I decided to try that 1-800 number for reporting power outages. Couldn't use our regular phone because it's cordless and needs external power to run it. Tried my cell phone. It wasn't working.
Last resort: The phone upstairs in Connie's sewing room. Didn't realize until now it's an old fashioned dial type phone. I've had that phone for probably 30 years. Worked fine as far as calling in to PG&E but, since it's an old dial phone, couldn't use their menu (press 1 to report an outage). Guess we'll have to get a better back up phone for upstairs.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 2:22 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Don't ever throw that phone out.
I have one of those for just this reason.
Fred, this is just the beginning of a major storm track that could last two weeks or more.
Get battteries.
What? Don't throw the dial phone out? What reason do you have for keeping an old dial phone?
I also have the old push button, tone- type phone, but it doesn't work. If it did, I could of pressed 1 to report the outage. With the dial phone, I can't. Why should I keep the dial phone?
Dial phones suck.
What you need is a UPS on the cordless. Cordless phones draw so little power that one for a computer will power a phone for many hours.
I have a 5HP generator. It's not even that loud. At least, not with my stereo on.
We've had one outage so far. But other than the dire warnings, the storm isn't particularly unusual - windy, yes, but...
Wait! Let me get this straight!
Is it a storm track?
Or a storm tract?
Mr. Nice wrote, What you need is a UPS on the cordless..
Actually, I do have one on the cordless. It never occurred to me to leave it on yesterday. I usually turn the power pack off since it will just drain power if the equipment it's connected to is left on and not being used. Didn't think about it at the time.
I have one of the larger UPS on this computer and a smaller one on the phone. Wasn't originally meant for the phone. I used to use it for my old 600mhz e-machines computer, which I gave away.
I'll have to remember to leave the power pack on next time the power goes out and try the phone.
don't panic, this is normal Humboldt weather. Just have a bunch of newbies that are used to the drought we have been having of late.
You don't need a dial phone, just a phone that is hard wired to the phone line. We have a push button phone that worked fine through the power outage and we could still enter info at various prompts.
That's what I've been saying: The dial phone doesn't work with automated menus so we were unable to contact the power company about our outage. The dial phone works fine, other wise.
The push button phone we have downstairs is wireless and needs extra power to transmit the signal. So, if the power goes out, the phone doesn't work. The UPS should be enough to get that phone to work for a short time, though.
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