Turning off the lights etc for one hour is NOT going to make one ounce of difference until we adopt those principles and act for the other twenty three hours in the day. Here in ‘the Hovel’ if it’s not being used it’s “OFF” at the plug. Not on ‘Stand by’. Think I’ve said it before……“I hate paying!”

One small idea I used at a prior QTH was to use a battery bank (6 x 2volt in series) hooked up to a 240 volt charger set to operate between 11pm and 7am. That’s off peak power and it's about one third the cost of normal day load power. It was great — I had most of the lighting small appliances in the kitchen, the radio shack and computer all running off the batteries via an AC-DC converter. The quarterly power bill dropped from around $250 down to $170 over night!

Unfortunately, we can't use the same here because the meter in the box at the mains is antiquated and I do not have the off peak power meter (mainly used for hot water) so it's expensive to leave the power on on anything that’s not necessarily being used.

One day in the future, after I’ve brought the new rig, set up the new tower and a myriad of other luxuries, I want to install a solar power system on the roof. Then they can stick their power bill up who knows were.

The Global warming thingy is, I’m sure, a real problem but for who or why I’m not sure… There is as usual too much information available from those who purport to be experts and the meaning of 'expert' is of course “slow leaking drip”. That is the problem which ever way you look at it — whether it be the pro or anti global warming — those who we empower to lead us are just too damn slow to react.

Think tanks, committees and any number of enquiries only lead to more experts wiggling out of the wood work to further confuse the issue. The old saying of “I’ll try any thing once” and if it works I will adopt it until technology changes to the extent were the need for “I’ll try any thing once”, is again needed.

Having said that, if the change is not to my liking or of any benefit to me then I revert to the old tried and true method. I’m not anti leadership — I think George W’s and “The Gang of Thugs” backing him, move into Iraq was a good thing.

But enough is enough. The long haul is too costly to everyone on this globe — be they for or against it. Or is it, as I suspect, a grab for “old” energy reliance there by again failing to act in respect of new sources of energy development. One wonders what new energy could have been invented, developed and put into use had George and the Gang of Thugs backed out long ago and used the enormous amount of money that it’s costing instead of keeping face.

I think back to days of the JFK sixties and the Man on the Moon statement... We all thought he was nuts but the technology invented to make that happen was enormous and we still benefit today. But turning off the lights for an hour every year and the obstinate attitude of our leaders is no doubt leading us all down the path warming to chill our hearts.

Jon