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Posted on 11/06/2026 10:40:43 PM PST by BenLurkin
At 22:45 on 5 December 2015, the River Lune - which flows directly through Lancaster - had flooded, and the electricity supply to 61,500 people in the city went.
Households lost light and heat, some water supplies also began to fail because they relied on electric pumps. The railway station closed. So too petrol stations and shops. Most cash machines didn't work. Traffic lights failed.
The two communication systems that survived were copper wire landline telephones and FM radio.
...
If a Black Sky event takes out electricity, water, shops and communications, there is a good reason the government wants us to have our own supplies.
The much talked about "Be Prepared" campaign is designed to help ready us for all sorts of possible crises, but the government says there is no specific threat to the grid. Regardless, a Black Sky event is definitely at the backs of people's minds.
In a major emergency, we are being told to hunker down and turn on an FM radio, as thousands did in Lancaster. This is why the BBC has its own Black Sky plan.
100 people in the BBC will run a special emergency radio studio.
It will have secure lines of communication not dependent on the internet, and fuel, water and food to ensure it can operate without resupply for at least three days.
This emergency service will broadcast pre-arranged government messaging. The scripts have already been published online.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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If anyone wants on or off the Ping Me When the Internet Goes Down pinglist, kindly FReepmail me. Thanks!
Get to know your local ham radio operators whether active or not. They can be crucial in a crisis.
Monitoring a couple of local repeaters leads me to believe they are few and far between. Maybe I’ll look up an ARES net.
No.
Become one. It's not that hard, you don't have to learn Morse code any more.
There is a lot to learn to become an effective operator, but it's worth the effort.
“Get to know your local ham radio operators”
What is the backup power supply for hams?
This is called California when the wind blows a little bit. Recently here in the San Fernando valley the wind was blowing about 20mph and the power company turned off the power to 10’s of thousands as a precaution against brush fires. Some without power for 3 days...
20mph.
Interesting, here where I live in Virginia, Verizon is discounting their copper wire service.............my first thought was, no phone then when the power goes out. Cells are not usable in rural areas.
Batteries and solar for me. Every ham does his or her own thing, some have nothing, others, very robust systems.
In my case, my "backup" power is the grid.
I have 2 grid powered power supplies I tested once and haven't used them since except to power an Engel fridge.
None of my radios are connected to the grid or to my car batteries.
All are solar powered through Victron charge controllers into AGM deep cycle batteries then through voltage boosters to the radios.
I do this for reliability and as I volunteer for events, mostly rallies such as STPR, NEFR, Climb To The Clouds, etc., where we are in remote areas in the woods.
I have 2 pure sine 3KW inverters to power our System 2000 boiler and a few other things if need be.
I would not be running the kitchen fridge or mini splits, clothes dryer or washing machine.
Just become a ham yourself, you will find it worthwhile.
We’ll more sleep?
The bieth rate will improve?
AI
Skynet will be comotose?
comatose
Question-—What is the backup power supply for hams?
Your answer-—”Batteries and solar for me. Every ham does his or her own thing, some have nothing, others, very robust systems.”
-—”OTHERS, VERY ROBUST SYSTEMS”-—
I chuckled at that as in “I bet you can say that again”, I bet that some of the ham operators are determined to stay online and be helping no matter what the world throws at them and in fact are probably among the most knowledgeable and dedicated preppers alive, I expect if the big catastrophes hit that they will be in a world of their own as a major factor for the nation, and pleased to be doing it.
We’ve had outages that lasted up to 11 days. Nice and peaceful then. We don’t want communication as all we get is people begging for some of our water or food supply. We could run out of some food selection within 3 months though if the power stayed off.
Lots of Boogie Man stories out lately.
On some of the “prepper” forums the natives are getting restless. You can feel it in the air.
Someone, somewhere is trying to stir the pot.
I guess I will buy another can of beans.
Lots of talk of repeaters on some of these forums. The repeaters usually operate on back up batteries. Those won’t last long.
I can operate on a 12 v battery. There are a few of them in my kit. I have some small solar panels. If I only operate at small intervals (not ALL the time) I could stay in business for a long while.
Most of the people in my group have similar set ups.
Interesting, but worrying article from the BBC.
“ In the drive towards efficiency over the last five decades, we’ve lost backup systems, says Lord Harris.
An example of this is the new communication system being adopted by the emergency services, which will replace radio comms with mobile phone network technology, says Lord Harris, “so if the mobile phone goes down it will also impact on emergency services communications”.”
Broadcast scripts for UK emergencies:
“ While writing this piece last Saturday I had to break off for an hour because my street was suddenly plunged into darkness. We had a power cut.
I found my emergency torch, but the batteries had leaked. My candles had been pushed to the back of a cupboard and I had no idea where I had put my wind-up radio with its emergency torch.
It felt like an omen.”
DHS emergency advice:
Mine's solar.
I’ll want my MTV. Oh wait.
Nevermind.
“””””I found my emergency torch, but the batteries had leaked.”””””
Everyone should quit using alkaline batteries and start using the modern versions of rechargeable batteries that can go years without being recharged, ++they don’t leak and ruin your electronics++ and even without electricity you can recharge them in your car, or even in your (most versions) solar yard lights.
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