Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

I don't think I've ever (regardless of where I've lived) experienced
a deliberate power cut.  A drunk may take out a telephone pole or
a branch may fall on some high tension wires but no one has ever
said "sorry, we're turning the lights out" (for whatever reason)

That was exactly what happened in the UK in the early 1970s; we had a
rota of power cuts lasting 4 hours each.  I made up an automatic
lighting unit based on a car battery for my parents.  It used relays to
switch on when the mains went, then recharge at a fast rate until the
battery voltage rose high enough, then trickle charge.

I worked in animal research at the time.  The technicians brought in
portable paraffin heaters from thier own homes to keep the animals warm.
We worked by the light of paraffin lamps and adapted a pressure stove
with a bunsen burner gauze to act as a radiant heater.  One of my jobs
was to monitor the voltage of the telephone exchange batteries and warn
the exchange if they started to run down.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
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