Re: Getting distant tv stations

In article <i5hja2p19e5f1htu3r7g4nvsv9kfn9e3pg@xxxxxxx>,
Neon John <no@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The main, overwhelming risk in rural areas is fire (other than those
places that flood, of course) and the rates reflect that. An
insurance industry funded group called ISO rates areas according to
the quality and distance of fire protection. The lower the ISO number
the better. At my restaurant I have a rating of 1 because the main
fire hall is one block over and it's equipped with every firefighting
gadget known to man. At my cabin, the rating is either 9 or 13, I
forget which. My cabin is 17 miles of winding country roads away from
the nearest volunteer fire station and even that one is more good
thoughts than an actual firefighting unit. The result is that
insurance on this $40k vacation home is more than on my $200k
restaurant with all its high powered appliances.

This ISO rating is what motivates people over here to form and equip
volunteer fire departments even in very low density populated areas.

BTDT - Watched the landlord's house burn down from the inside out about
3 years ago. Cause never determined. Discovered at 2:30 PM, give or take
about 15 minutes.

First fire-truck rolled onto the property a hair under 45 minutes after
I caught the presence of mind to set the video camera up on a tripod.
Air attack with 2 borate bombers and a chopper on standby to dip in the
lake with, was on it in 13 minutes, but they couldn't do diddly with it
except cirlce and watch to make sure it didn't take off into the brush.
Tile roof does just as good a job at keeping fire *IN* as it does in
keeping hot embers from a nearby brushfire *OUT*, so it behaved itself
that way, but it cooked *EVERYTHING* inside, including a small dog tht
didn't respond when called from the door looking onto the hallway with
the ceiling falling in flaming chunks. I got the other two out. I didn't
have a clue whether anybody else was in there, and it was all I could do
to grab the two dogs and haul them out before the radiant heat started
frizzling my eyebrows. It wasn't until half an hour later I managed to
rasie the landlord on the phone and find out that he, his wife, father,
and a houseguest were all in the next town over waiting on him buying a
new cell phone at the mall. Mine was the first incoming call it caught,
seconds after the salesman finished connecting it to the old number's
account.

If I were the superstiitous type, I think I probably would have buried
the phone and sown the ground over it with salt... But I digress. Pardon
me... I didn't realize I was still coping.

By the time the first splash of water got turned on it from the arriving
trucks, the house was two walls and the stairwell to the basement still
standing. By 4:30, the outside wall of the bathroom extension (about
12x10) and the steel handrail from the basement stairwell, along with
about half of the 12x12 inch main floor center joist and its kingposts
were the only things that hadn't fallen into the basement as burnt or
burning rubble, and the joist and posts were burning merrily, with the
basement turning into a bed of coals big enough to EASILY cook 50 head
of cattle on whole.

I do not, will not, and cannot fault the FD for a slow response. After
all, *I'M*, someone who drives a route for a living, and travels this
road *AT LEAST* twice a day, and I can't drive *DOWN* the roads they
have to come *UP* and get to *THEIR* door in my *SEMISPORTY* car in less
than 35 minutes, longer if I get caught behind a tourist. It's a simple
terrain and distance problem. Superman would have a tough time covering
that much road on the hills and switchbacks that have to be traversed,
let alone "mere mortals" toting full tankers - UP THEM IN GRANNY LOW!

Flooding? Nah... Until the oceans rise a *WHOLE BIG HEAPIN' LOT* more
than I expect anytime in the next few millenia, flooding isn't going to
be a problem around here. Hillslides from heavy rains? Maybe. Flooding?
Uh-uh. I'm 700+ feet above and behind the top of a 700 foot tall dam,
perched on the side of a mountain, with 800 feet between the base of the
dam and the current top of the ocean. I'm thinkin' serious no flood
worries. :) I wonder if the owners could even get anybody to take their
money for flood insurance? Easy money, and probably super-cheap premiums
:)

Oh, and TV reception here? Forget it... Mountains taller than us
directly in line between here and the one place practically *EVERYBODY*
has their transmitter towers. We're *RIGHT* in the RF shadow of those
mountains when they're "lit" from that position. Which makes the entire
concept of TV reception a joke - One with a particualrly brutal
punchline: The *ONLY* station that I can get to come in as more than a
ghost - using everything from a folded halfwave dipole to a re-tuned
discone to a Winegard yagi on a 15 foot boom moved 1.5 degrees per step
- on terrestrial broadcast is a religious station. Strike 1. Looks
catholic from the little I watched. I'm agnostic leaning toward
atheistic. Strike 2. It's a *SPANISH LANGUAGE* religious station, I have
practically NO functional spanish, and have no reason or inclination to
learn any - particularly of the religious persuasion. Strike 3. Yer
outta dere!

It's satellite TV or no TV in this little valley, and I opt for "no TV".
That's all I need - To update Bruce, or John, or whoever it was a few
years ago, "257 channels and nothin' on." :)

--
Don Bruder - dakidd@xxxxxxxxx - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd> for more info
.

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