Raynet members should always be prepared to operate without Mains should the supply fail; the potential Y2K problems merely highlight this. But, realistically, how prepared are we? If the supply failed now and you received a call-out five minutes later, could you operate from your house without mains?
Your reaction to this might be to say that in a call-out you would be asked to operate from somewhere like a Hospital or Rest Centre, not your home. This is only part of the truth. If we got called out, a likely pattern of events would be that you would receive a phone call which would tell you, amongst other things, to get on air on our normal frequency. Tasks would be allocated on air.
Y2K problems might present us with this situation writ large. The various supply utilies have put a lot of work into avoiding problems over the year turn, and the best guess is that there will be no power failures. As one of the voluntary services, however, we should not assume that things will run smoothly. Should the mains fail, it could take hours or even a day or so to fix it. The telephones could conceivably be out for the same time, rendering the telephone tree inoperable. During this time we might wish to maintain a listening watch on our normal frequency. This would require more than the odd half-hour of battery power.
It has therefore been decided to run one of the regular Monday call-ins as an Exercise where mains power is not to be used. The call-in chosen is the second one in the new year, that is 1999 January 11 at the normal time of 20:00. Members are asked to operate entirely without mains power. You will note that it will be dark, so you will need to arrange a torch or other battery lighting. (In a call-out you would need to write, so the fact that you can operate your rig in the dark is not good enough ) Please draw the curtains and close the door so you don't benefit from external lighting - no cheating!
One piece of information we intend to collect is a list of who can talk to whom on batteries, since people may be running less transmitter power than normal. This will be handled by Graham G0SCV since he has the best location and can hear most if not all members.
There should be no-one who cannot operate without mains - if nothing else, a handheld can be connected to the house aerial. If you cannot be heard on its low power then go back to mains, but please tell Graham that you are using mains so that he gets the record straight.
Chris Trayner G4OKW
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G4RDL