If the power is restored via battery or generator, is it likely that trading is still disrupted as verizon fios is down for the same reason the brought down the electricity?
Where the heck are you guys living that you can expect to lose power for 4% of the year? I'm kilometers from the nearest streetlight, have an entire herd of elk roaming the property, and I haven't lost power for that long in the past 10 years, combined.
I know ppl in the Northeast that have lost power for about 17 days from Irene and the pre-Halloween snow storm alone. And they are not in the sticks. That's enough to drive me to consider a generator.
Live in Ridgefield Ct and had no power for 8 days from Irene and 9 days from Alfred the noreaster last week. Had a generator w a transfer panel to avoid killing people and ran it for 2 hours am,noon and pm. Couldnt trade regardless since internet connection down for entire week even when I had power in the house. In fact, even my neighbors who had the old fashion copper wire phone line from Verizon died afer 1 day. I always thought copper wire connection of days gone by are bulletproof during power outages. Was I wrong.
I bought this to use with my generator. http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-TCA1...WGPS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321236276&sr=8-1 Relatively easy setup if you know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, it can kill you. You are working with the power lines that come into your house, be dammed sure you know what you are doing. Ever since I installed it, no power outages. Grrrr.
Home Depot and the others sell portable generators the size of a lawnmower - it's very easy, just turn off your home's main breaker and plug the generator into a couple of outlets on different circuits. Just solder a pair of male to male extension cords, and don't draw too much power - and use common sense (like plug in before you turn on the generator).
I was trading via satellite! It's an ideal backup system, especially if you are in a plane or a car, you won't have any gogo inflight bills or 4g usb bills...
I just installed a 220 outlet and breakers at my panel to back feed the gen set. Turn off the main breaker and any other breakers that will overload the gen set. My gen set has a 220 outlet, so it feeds both legs of my panel. Turning the main breaker off is an ABSOLUTE MUST.