Flashaholics: LIGHTS OUT March 26th, 8:30PM

Just a reminder that tomorrow night is your opportunity to test your power outage preparation skills for one hour - At 8:30PM your local time, turn off anything and everything that requires mains power, get out your flashlights and lanterns, and dig in for an hour of blackout entertainment. Some points to consider:

- Do you know which light you'll use in specific locations? It's something you might have considered when you bought a particular flashlight or lantern, and now is your chance to see how well it will actually work..

- Are you still able to get information? Once you've got everyone armed with the right flashlight and each relevant area of the house lit, you're going to need some non-AC-powered way to know what's going on beyond earshot; is your battery-powered radio ready, and do you know where to tune it for news?

- Are you having fun yet? Flashlights alone are fun for we flashaholics, but everyone else might want something a little more engaging; the aforementioned radio can have some entertaining content if you look around, and don't forget board and card games, which are always more fun in the near-dark..

The wife and I will be relaxing under a ceiling-bounced Quark MiniAA Warm while listening to the Phil Hendrie show on the radio; what will your house be doing?

(This thread is for discussing tips and techniques for the actual Earth Hour event, not the possible political or economic implications of the concept. MODS: as this thread deals with only the 2011 event proper, if you must merge it with previous threads, please wait until Sunday.)

EARTH HOUR Tonight!

Maybe next year , but we could have all Flashed The Bird -the ISS that is!.
International Space Station

One is supposed to turn off all the lights tonight and all LED'ers could have been out there at a particular pass of the ISS , lets say number 69 for instance which is easy to find out the time it is overhead at your home via the net or software and when all is Dark on Earth and the bods on the ISS are having a look out the porthole they would be seeing Fairy Lights and DUH?

Paul-----

Re: EARTH HOUR Tonight!

I will agree this idea , but I only do it myself .

Unfortunately, with as many street lights and apartment area/flood lights that are around me, it'll hardly be noticeable even if all the residents on the street turn off their own lights. Otherwise I'd blast the TK30 up and down the street for a moment. There's still hope though, because thunderstorms are predicted all day today so maybe there'll be a real outage for earth hour!

On a side note about entertainment, I've found that my ancient (1980s!!) Nintendo Game Boy will run a long, long time on four NiMH 2500mAh, making it an ideal power outage companion. Back in the day, I had bought an external NiCad pack for a power solution rather than having to keep putting disposable cells in it (pretty smart for a little kid huh? ) but today's high capacity AAs completely trounce that old NiCad pack!

I'll fire up my Hi Gain 4D with Luxeon drop-in for some ceiling bounce while I cruise the shortwave bands on one of my Grundigs. Might dust off the passive loop and see what I can DX on AM.

Stress_Test said:

I've found that my ancient (1980s!!) Nintendo Game Boy will run a long, long time on four NiMH 2500mAh

Click to expand...

That's a good idea actually; I have one of the original Game Boys and also one of the final-old-generation models that runs on 2xAAA, I wonder if they'd be roughly even on NiMHs..

ypsifly said:

I'll fire up my Hi Gain 4D with Luxeon drop-in for some ceiling bounce while I cruise the shortwave bands on one of my Grundigs. Might dust off the passive loop and see what I can DX on AM.

Click to expand...

If you're two hours ahead of Pacific, point your shortwave antenna generally west and tune to 13760Khz, get all the latest propaganda from The Voice of [North] Korea english broadcast. On AM, point west and tune to KFI 640 AM, hear the comedy styling of Phil Hendrie (which is what I'll be listening to.)

In related news, 8:30PM has come and gone in New Delhi, and so much of the city observed the event that they reported a savings of nearly 300 Megawatts of power. And the Sydney Opera House went dark, as did over two million Australians..

i kept tv on.. watched "wild hogs" movie. and was ready to use zebralight h501w if i needed.. didnt. (with eneloop)

last year i think i had 20 flashlights on.. on MAX! they were or felt much brighter than my normal ceiling light. so i had to turn off 10 of them. still was bright.. but atleast i saved energy.. until i had to recharge them batteries. and the electic company curses us as people shut down their lights.. they need to reroute the electricity somewhere in hopes someone needs it. (i have understood that: high use peaks are bad for them. and so are the sudden low demands too.)

Re: EARTH HOUR Tonight!

[contents of post removed; comments of that type belong in CPFU. - DM51]

Re: EARTH HOUR Tonight!

2 threads merged.

Re: EARTH HOUR Tonight!

Had a Quark Mini AA warm lighting up the living room, a Quark Mini AA neutral helping my wife with her homework (plenty bright enough to read and write by in ceiling bounce mode), and a Fenix P2D Rebel on medium giving the master bath a cyan/chartreuse glow. We listened to Phil Hendrie and had pizza (gas oven) the whole time, fun stuff..

And this is the third year in a row I seem to be the only one on my street who's aware of the event..