Topic: This morning was fun

[idolminds]

Wake up to a loud boom and a loss of power. Not lightning, but the fuze on the transformer by the street blew. We don't know whats up with that thing but ever since they put it in (at our neighbors request apparently) it blows at least once a year. Anyway, we're the only 2 houses that that transformer affects so BOOM...no power.

Took 2 hours or so to get it fixed. Who knows if they will investigate why its happening, but whatever. Power is on and we can now turn the fans on so we don't die of heat stroke. Also time to check out the new deals on the GOG sale! Oh...hmm, I cant dial. The phone line is messed up, nothing bit a weird crackle when I turn the modem speaker on. Ok, swap the phone lines! Same thing...oh no. Its my modem.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

So I had a weird problem. I can buy a replacement modem but it would take a few days to get here (or I could try my luck finding a local one but not may places even carry them anymore). I dont really want to spend that money, though. Especialy considering we're working on getting some high speed wireless in the next couple weeks it seems stupid to spend $40 on something I'm only going to use in that short period. But...come on, I'm also not going without the internet for those couple weeks either.

Luckily my dad is good at electronics so he was able to fix it, at least enough to have it up for now. But man, I was having a really bad day.

[Cobra951]

At my old house, we had a problem with squirrels.  They'd short something on the wires, fry themselves, and blow fuses on transformers.  Happened about 3 times.  Very frustrating.

The best news from your post: incoming high-speed wireless!  Man, I hope so.  It's about time you moved past the last century.

[W7RE]

We used to have power issues every time it rained. Without fail, every time it rained the power would go out, it made no sense. It was like this for a year or two. At one point the power company decided to move around the way the wires ran past our part of the neighborhood, and found something. At the top of a power pole, there was a squirrel who accidentally touched two connections together and friend himself. Every time it rained, his corpse would get wet and effectively connect those two contacts again. The power guy removed the squirrel and we stopped losing power.

[idolminds]

The best news from your post: incoming high-speed wireless!  Man, I hope so.  It's about time you moved past the last century.

Yes, very exciting. Not a sure thing, though. Its a wireless link, fine. But there are hills and the house is surrounded by trees which can block the signal. We are going to add an extension to our TV antenna tower to bring it to 30-40ft and stick the receiver on it. Hopefully that will get it up high enough where the trees won't matter so much. The good news is our neighbor uses this same wireless service and can stream netflix so if I can get it I should be good. That neighbor is on the other side of the road and down a bit, plus closer to the road. The only thing between their house and the tower is farm fields.

So thats the plan and I'm pretty excited. I mean, even if the signal isnt perfect the speeds will probably be a lot better than what Ive been dealing with so far. Plus it will save money overall since we wont need the extra phone lines and dialup accounts. Canceling all that would easily pay for a decent speed package.

[W7RE]

What will the latency be like though? Do you spend much time playing online?

[idolminds]

I honestly dont know. Right now I dont play much of anything online because nothing will really play well on dialup. Latency will be better than satellite, but I dont know actual figures. Hopefully it wont be too bad.

EDIT: This place uses Motorola Canopy tech, and doing a quick search latency shouldnt be too bad. At very least no worse than my current setup.

[Cobra951]

We used to have power issues every time it rained. Without fail, every time it rained the power would go out, it made no sense. It was like this for a year or two. At one point the power company decided to move around the way the wires ran past our part of the neighborhood, and found something. At the top of a power pole, there was a squirrel who accidentally touched two connections together and friend himself. Every time it rained, his corpse would get wet and effectively connect those two contacts again. The power guy removed the squirrel and we stopped losing power.

Yeah, man.  Damn suicidal squirrels taking the grid down with them.  Stupid things.   

[gpw11]

Yes, very exciting. Not a sure thing, though. Its a wireless link, fine. But there are hills and the house is surrounded by trees which can block the signal. We are going to add an extension to our TV antenna tower to bring it to 30-40ft and stick the receiver on it. Hopefully that will get it up high enough where the trees won't matter so much. The good news is our neighbor uses this same wireless service and can stream netflix so if I can get it I should be good. That neighbor is on the other side of the road and down a bit, plus closer to the road. The only thing between their house and the tower is farm fields.

So thats the plan and I'm pretty excited. I mean, even if the signal isnt perfect the speeds will probably be a lot better than what Ive been dealing with so far. Plus it will save money overall since we wont need the extra phone lines and dialup accounts. Canceling all that would easily pay for a decent speed package.

Hypothetically, could you not mount your antenna elsewhere and run a conduit/wire to you house from there? 

Does the fuse in a transformer make that loud boom noise, or is that only when the transformer itself actually blows?

[idolminds]

The boom is from the fuse blowing. Sounds like a shotgun blast.

And yeah, we can mount it somewhere else and run a line. We're actually already doing that, kinda. The tower is a good 150ft from the house so I'll need to get a nice long section of cat5 to run it to the house. We'll see if it works as is. If not while we have the equipment we'll probably try it in different spots and see if we cant get a decent signal. If I have to set up an entirely new tower for it then I probably will. It just makes getting the connection from there to the house harder, but not impossible.