La logistique est l'art de bien ordonner les marches d'une armée, de bien combiner l'ordre des troupes dans les colonnes, les tems [temps] de leur départ, leur itinéraire, les moyens de communications nécessaires pour assurer leur arrivée à point nommé. (Baron Antoine-Henri, Jomini)
On this page, I will describe some of the logistical issues (transport, facilities, procurement, technical information etc.) and services (water, electricity) involved in reconstructing the old hut located on the Maiensäss at Luven used as a radio station in Switzerland.
As a point of departure, there are no municipal services on the farm in South Africa where the radio shack is being constructed. This is a very good thing. This was the exact condition at the original Maiensäss hut located outside Luven during WW2 (and after). Farm huts located there had no services and conditions in the huts were very rudimentary. The operators had to make do with a diesel generator and water had to be carried to the radio shack, there was a nearby fountain. A pit latrine was used in the alpine hut, however, the reconstructed hut uses a flush toilet connected to its own septic tank.
In any event, the idea of some government instituted facility pretending it must provide me with water, and electrons flowing in copper wire, or even a sewerage system is plain crazy. Tomorrow they may want to prescribe how many times I have to breathe per day. Therefore the motto on this farm is; if you want to do anything, do it yourself.
The world and its peoples are far to reliant (and dependent) on manipulated and abused social "necessities" driven by government agendas. In this respect I am a bit like Henry David Thoreau, who said "All good things are wild, and free". This of course does not always apply to vintage radio equipment! I had the good fortune to visit the pretty little town of Concord, Massachusetts, located approximately 30 km west of Boston and visited the pond where Thoreau had built a small cabin to live in. Perhaps you have already, but in case not, if you get the chance read some of his works, and perhaps start with "Walden", it will do you good.
Since moving to the farm we have done a lot of work. We had to do much fencing for the horses, I built a stable and an arena. The soil is quite shallow at most places on the farm so many of the post holes I dug with a crowbar. Fortunately the layer of rock below the soil is a mud-shale, and can be broken up with some effort...
We installed four additional water tanks; we now have eight 5000 l tanks that are filled by roof water, or if need be topped up by a nearby stream. Water from these 8 tanks are pumped to two similar sized holding tanks which then gravity feed water to the house.
I have started work on a much larger solar system, which is still in progress. Stage one entails installing 16, 255 watt solar panels (maximum output is about 160 watt per panel). These will feed a combiner system that contains the fuses, switches, ground fault interrupt, surge arrestor and current meters for the solar panels.
Finally, the 16 solar panels (4 sets of 4 each) have been installed. These face north-west at an angle of 43 degrees, i.e. optimized for winter. Power output in the summer will be approximately the as that obtained in winter.
The solar panel combiner box was constructed and installed (Figure 13). The battery bank consists of 8 Trojan SAGM205 absorbent glass mat (AGM) batteries, connected in a series/parallel configuration to create a 410 Ah, 48 volt system. This capacity is a bit less than what I originally had in mind, unfortunately the Rand/Dollar exchange rate has deteriorated once more, so I could not afford a larger battery bank. The batteries were charged individually before connecting them in two strings of four batteries each. This ensured the bank was balanced as far as possible at the outset.
Four additional panels were installed a week later and I plan to install an additional four facing north-east. This will give us a total of 24 panels, with a peak capacity of about 3.3 kW.
The good news now is that finally we can run the washing machine off solar power! Test have shown we can have up to 2.8 kW when the Sun is overhead and the sky is clear of mist, firebreak smoke and cloud. So, it does take a bit of power management, and one needs to be aware of what solar input power is available before using equipment that consumes much electricity.
The system can also manage a KWS-1 transmitter and 75A-4 receiver without any problems. When the last string of solar panels have been installed, one will have a reasonable amount of power even during misty or cloudy days. The system has an output of about 500 watts when overcast weather is experienced. It could be lower even, down to 200 watts if the clouds are very dark and non-transparent. These are exceptions however, and one learns quickly to adjust your consumption on days like that.
During July I installed a small 50 liter geyser in-line prior to the main 150 liter geyser. The two are thus in series. When the sun is shining, and adequate excess power is available (normally from about 10:30 am) the small geyser can be powered directly from the solar power system. The effect of this combination is that the main geyser now draws hot water instead of winter cold water. This makes a huge difference in the final water temperature and hot water capacity. The main geyser is heated by the sun via a heat exchanger and evacuated tubes. In the summer the system copes well, but it suffers in the winter as the winter water which it draws can be close to freezing point! Whereas the system previously battled to get our hot water heated to 50 degrees Celsius, the main geyser now easily reaches 60 degrees Celsius. The whole family is of course very impressed with this new tandem geyser set-up, all powered by the sun.
I now have 24 solar panels installed. Sixteen face north-west, inclined at an angle of 43 degrees from horizontal. An additional four faces north-west at an angle of 15 degrees, and four others face north-east also at an angle of 15 degrees. One loses about 4% per year in efficiency due to the fact that the panels do not face true North. This combination is a very good compromise for power delivery throughout the year. Peak power has been measured at about 3.6 kW. This may improve as the sky is currently a bit hazy due to smoke created by the many firebreaks in the area being burned during this time of the year.
If you are interested to see how the solar panels are performing, click on the link below. It will take you to "VRM World" . This is a way to publicly share VRM site data through a searchable world map. Of course access to site configuration, precise location and any private details are excluded!