 
martissimo
join:2001-12-01
Las Vegas, NV
clubs:
| the 2.4 GHz spectrum is going to be a complete mess at some point... though i certainly don't think that the mentioned lighting in the article is likely to be around any time soon. It's just the fact that the spectrum is not regulated much at all.
At least the faster 5GHz spectrum has a few hundred MHz set aside exclusively for communications equipment. Hopefully the FCC doesn't let it turn into the mess they seem to care less about in the 2.4 one | |
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homebrewer5
join:2001-01-23
Lowell, MA
|  Save The Night Sky!!!!
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Bavarian Berthold | |
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Chakthi
Galactica Is Back
Premium
join:2001-07-11
Dayton, OH
| Re: Save The Night Sky!!!! said by homebrewer:
As a computer professional and amateur astronomer I am all for any new lighting technology that will reduce light pollution. Ever see the poster of the USA at night? That's all wasted light being directed upward, which means more oil, coal and nuclear being used. Besides, sodium and mercury lights also affect RF frequencies. As well as your CD player and your radio and your toaster......
I've never seen the poster, but would like to see it to satisfy my curiosity. Do you have a link, or can you post a pic of it?
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Chakthi - DSLR Team Starfire - 108WU/575hrs | |
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barqsdrinker
What Can I Photograph Today?
Premium
join:2001-02-26
Apo, AE
clubs:
| Re: Save The Night Sky!!!! Try here: »antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970830.html It is a black-and-white version from 1997, but I think it gets the point across...
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braden
join:2001-12-12
Aliso Viejo, CA
| Here's the earth lights at night.
[text was edited by author 2002-05-08 19:33:12] | |
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Chakthi
Galactica Is Back
Premium
join:2001-07-11
Dayton, OH | Thanks for the links guys. It's amazing to say the least!
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Chakthi - DSLR Team Starfire - 108WU/575hrs | |
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA | Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Just wondering... | |
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barqsdrinker
What Can I Photograph Today?
Premium
join:2001-02-26
Apo, AE
clubs:
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? If you're using incandecent lighting, then, yeah. It is incredibly inefficient. Flourecents are much more energy efficient (for the same amount of lumens), but tend to add a blue-ish tinge to things and also tend to wash the colors out.
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? said by barqsdrinker:
Florescents are much more energy efficient (for the same amount of lumens), but tend to add a blue-ish tinge to things and also tend to wash the colors out.
Not the Compact Florescents, they are virtually the same color temperature as incandecents. I can turn on every light in my house (about 25) and still be using just 500 watts or less. Even with summer AC (new efficient unit), my highest electric bill ever here was ~$90. (Single person household) typical around $45... most people I know it is more like $110 typical
Water heater is also time controlled, and the fridge has a start current spike suppressor/motor speed vs load limiter.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? My next step is to get my roof redone with a new product called Snow Roof (an elastic plastic like overcoating of existing roof. It claims to be 90% reflective, and can drop roof temperature from 250 degrees to 80 (or actual temperature) That should help with the AC a lot.
(roof due for replacement soon anyhow and this can extend it a long time for much less than fully redoing the roof...plus the energy savings)
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA | Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? How much is a kWh in Florida? Here I'm paying as much as .19 per, depending how much I use. | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? said by animejunkie:
How much is a kWh in Florida? Here I'm paying as much as .19 per, depending how much I use.
Can't say for all of FL, here in KW it is a quasi City owned utility, and including "fuel adjustment" usually runs between $.10 and $.12/kwh depending on time of year.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA | Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? That's still pretty expensive. | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Not really most places I have ever lived (NE and here) is has been about $.09 before adjustment. With the exception of Long Island where like you it is about $.20 because the built a nuke plant that never got put in service and they are still paying off.
As to your original post.... $.19/kwh... yes you could save a LOT of money by converting your lighting. Though the bulbs cost $5-10 they also should last 10 years using a quarter of the energy. They are also MUCH cooler, which will also help with the AC costs. (instead of having 20 little toasters always cooking away)
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? It doesn't help I'm basically in the middle of a desert where I have to run AC from basically now through November. Without the AC my electric bill is about $40 cheapo lights or not, with the AC, $180. What did save me a ton though was turning off my PC's at night. Before I moved from the coast my electric bill was always $80, turns out half was computer power. | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Own or rent central or window/wall units?
That is an awfully big difference for just AC. If you own and they are older units replacing them could save you a lot. We use AC here a lot too especially April-October, some unrepentant snow transplants year round. 
I have a condo I now rent out, and the central died this year. (15 yrs old) and the tenants say their electric bill now is about HALF what it had been, and I think the new one is even a larger unit.
Even if win/wall units, if they are more than a few years old, are using a lot of extra energy compared to a new one... again as much as twice. (they have made huge strides in compressor efficientcy in that time...my new fridge use about half what the 10+ yr old dead one did too.
You could still probably cut $10/mo with the lights...which means you would pay off 1 bulb a month, and then for the remainder of their 10 year life the savings are 100% off the top. I have a few that are more than 10 years old. Most that failed before that, I broke moving. (Figure a PC uses about what a couple of incad. lights would as a comparison with what you said about that.)
And again with AC, incad.'s put out a LOT of heat...you can unscrew a running compact Flor. without any burn discomfort...that 75% wasted heat energy is all heat the AC has to pump out.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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[text was edited by author 2002-05-09 17:43:53] | |
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA | Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Own with central air (Trane). The house was built in 1990 but the A/C unit looks newer. The problem with central air is 1/2 the house is AC'd and I'm not even in there. Closing the vents and doors to those rooms doesn't seem to matter. | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Also especially if flat roof, (but for any really) I'd look into Snow Roof... I have a friend that has been installing it for a while now and he says the first coat (dark stuff) is "hell", but when the "Snow" coat goes on you could lie on it naked and not be uncomfortable.
That is where most of my heat infiltration comes from. Otherwise concrete block house with shaded windows.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA
| Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? LOL, like the Flintstones. I have a concrete tile roof...typical planned community cookie cutter stuff similar to this »www.williamlyonhomes.com/wlh/com···ty_id=23 in this same development.
Unfortunately their ads fail to mention the 3 hour / day communte and the fact that it's 10 miles to the nearest grocery store. Not to mention the supplimental property taxes which total 2.5% (of sales price). Gotta love California. Going to my 'hood though you would think you left SoCal and arrived on Venus...'bout as hot and just as far. Meanwhile, no cable modems, no DSL...go figure.
[text was edited by author 2002-05-09 18:24:27] | |
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| | | | M_Martin
join:2000-10-31
Germantown, MD
| said by KrK:
I also did some basic caulking and weatherstripping (but I still have more work to do, because I still feel drafts).
Did you check outlets? You can get a lot of draft around electrical outlets and light switches. There are foam "gaskets" you can buy at a Home Depot (or similar) store to fix that.
Also, I'll second the previous post mentioning a timer on the water heater. I looked at the label on my water heater recently and noticed that the "energy use" sticker claims it's rated at an expected 4990 kWh/year. I checked a year's worth of electric bills and the total for a year was about 16000 kWh. If the water heater uses as much energy as claimed, that's over a quarter of my house's energy use! A timer will keep it from cycling the heating element during long periods when you don't need to have hot water handy (at night, and during the day if nobody's home). Of course, a tankless water heater would be better. Best would probably be a solar water heater, or perhaps a geothermal heat pump or fuel cell unit with hot water co-generation. | |
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animejunkie$
The Experts Of Justice
Premium
join:2002-05-08
Corona, CA | Re: Is there something wrong with my old lighting? Electric heat of any kind is expensive. I chose natural gas for range, heater and water heater. | |
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pH1
Rawr
join:2001-12-31
Canada | said by animejunkie:
Just wondering...
Yes!
Old lightning makes you SICK! | |
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russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA
| Tempest. Teapot. Is this the stuff that uses a microwave source to excite a luminescent gas? It's been around for a while, never really scaled well in either direction -- everyone is probably going gaga over a press release designed to attract capital. I doubt it will be used enough to cause a problem. No one wants a light source that leaks microwaves in that band anyway, so it's going to have to be shielded (like a microwave oven). And any interference is likely to be a continuous signal on a single frequency.
Astronomers tend to dislike light for basically the same reasons other people like it, so this technology is unlikely to reduce light pollution. It should have characteristics similar to other fluorescent (including vapor) lamps.
Incandescents, though much maligned, interfere the least with radio frequency devices and provide the best color rendering index. | |
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DonChicago
Copper-Free Last-Mile
join:2002-02-10
Lincolnshire, IL
| Re: Tempest. Teapot. said by russotto:
Incandescents, though much maligned, interfere the least with radio frequency devices and provide the best color rendering index.
In practice, this color rendering claim is simply not true. The published CRI for compact fluorescent and T8 fluorescent lights with electronic ballasts is significantly better than standard OR improved incandescent light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs almost always produce too much long wave radiation for good color balance. It has been possible to achieve excellent color rendition, color balance, and far superior efficiency with fluorescent lights for many years. The improved phosphor technology developed over the past few decades, allows ighting designers to customize the lighting to meet a variety of applications that require accurate color rendition and balance. | |
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| | russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA | Re: Tempest. Teapot. The CRI for a standard incandescent bulb is 100. Some of the more efficient HIR bulbs have a slightly lower CRI around 98. The best (most expensive) fluorescent lights are in the low 90s.
Color temperature is another matter. | |
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justin
Australian
join:1999-05-28
Brooklyn, NY
Host:
IPv6
Business Connectiv..
Home/Office setup ..
Console/Handheld g..
Console Tech
| maybe not lighting but other things... I experienced terrible interference with my home 802.11 network as a result of being in the city. Checking the airwaves revealed only a few nearby access points, I can't imagine the mess if half the nearby apartments had 802.11 and bluetooth and 2.4ghz phones..
mind you only an idiot can miss the connection between lack of FCC regulation, and exciting useful wireless gadgets and explosive growth .. all they need to do is point the consumer electronics industry at another wider band that does not allow satellite radio providers or other idiots to invade it or complain about it, and things would really get going ...
all this spectrum available .. and below 5ghz the only bit of 'ok, you can build what you want here' is a tiny slice at 2.4ghz? Madness.. total madness.. 95% of civilised modern cool end-user communication technology crammed into this tiny little 2.4ghz chunk, and the rest of the real estate is for 20th century junk like commercial radio, car and taxi service, tv and the military ?? bah! | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: maybe not lighting but other things... said by justin:
all this spectrum available .. and below 5ghz the only bit of 'ok, you can build what you want here' is a tiny slice at 2.4ghz? Madness.. total madness..
You forgot the old 49mhz (original cordless phones) band and the even older 27mhz CB range. (BOTH PRETTY TINY TOO)
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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homebrewer5
join:2001-01-23
Lowell, MA
|  Compact Incandescants
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Bavarian Berthold | |
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linksys4
join:2002-05-10
Munster, IN
| We have to watch ourselves
- With all things wireless it seems that the FCC has done an awsome job of slapping everything into the same spectrum area.
Typical situation - turn off the @#%* Hub im tryin to make a call, but hub isnt working either because somebody wants popcorn and the microwave throws off enough EMI that the neighbors have bought a 900mhz phone just to stay connected to the world. | |
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