Search Results for: off the grid

Exede real world download speeds

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Real world Exede download speeds: Downloaded 8/20/2016 @ 10:58AM *Bandwidth speed conversion details here. We live off the grid (no power lines, no phone lines) and this download speed compares favorably with DSL in the nearest town (16 miles). Town DSL in the area is generally around 1.2 MB/s or 9.6 Mbps. However, please be aware there are significant drawbacks inherent to satellite internet (latency/lag, affected by weather, relatively high costs, limited monthly bandwidth).

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New tankless hot water heater

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I am looking forward to a visit from Martin Plumbing this morning to install a new tankless hot water heater! Our old hot water heater has performed well for over a decade, but there are some nice new models out today and I am excited to be trying one out. My family lives off the grid and a tankless (or ‘on demand’) hot water heater is a great match for an energy efficient home. 🙂

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Does Exede support streaming audio? [yes]

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Yes it does! Here is a photo showing two Android phones simultaneously playing music via Google Play’s streaming audio service: Pandora was also tested with good success. Likewise even two way communications (Skype) worked well. All of this was done via Exede satellite Internet while other users were surfing the web at the same time. This was in an entirely off the grid setting (solar power, satellite internet). Throughout it all performance was excellent. 🙂

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Cooler temperatures at night

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Notes from the farm: updates about daily life out in the woods and off the grid. This has been a hot summer with a number of dry spells. Thankfully the rains have been just frequent enough to keep things green around the farm. Likewise, the nights have generally been cool enough to be comfortable. Only a few nights has it stayed above 80. The past two nights have been even better, quickly dipping into the 60s and getting all the way down

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Exede satellite internet review

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Long-Term Exede Internet Review (May 2012-2016) NOTE: There is a a lot of information in the comments at the bottom of this review, feel free to ask your own Exede questions there or share your own satellite internet experiences! Thank you, –JD 2016.06 My Exede modem’s Ethernet ports recently stopped working. Currently waiting to hear back from them on when they will be able to replace it. 2014.Feb Still pleased with Exede, the speeds reach their advertised rates and the usage

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Info about WildBlue and ViaSat-1 upgrade availability

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As a current WildBlue subscriber-living way off the grid-I am particularly interested in their new ViaSat-1 satellite and the faster speeds / enhanced capabilities that it will provide. As such, here are some articles on the topic: UPDATE: from what I have read, WildBlue ViaSat-1 residential availability has started in Colorado (or will start SOON… like late Dec early Jan) and then nationwide rollout in February. If anyone else has better/updated info, please post in the comments… thanks!   ViaSat’s

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Small always on green RAID system for NAS

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Our family is looking to upgrade our “always on” network storage. Criteria include: energy efficiency, data protection, unobtrusive design, cost. Here is our past and future setup… Currently we use a Linksys NSLU2 with a 16GB USB flash drive. Pros: +super-low power usage (nice since we live off the grid) +compact size +simplicity +SSD (flash drive) for reliability +silent +cheap Cons: +SLOW Planned upgrade: Thecus N4100 Pro (2) 750GB 2.5″ 7200RPM SATA laptop hard drives Upgrade to 1GB RAM (supposed to

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Do DC (direct current) air conditioners exist? [yes, they do exist]

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UPDATED: 2011.06.16 added a new DC air conditioner producer… Recently I wrote about air-conditioning in off the grid environments. The approach I outlined uses solar panels which output DC [direct current]) and an inverter to convert to AC [alternating current] which runs a conventional air-conditioner. A commenter on twitter asked the reasonable question, what about using a DC air-conditioner instead? This is actually a great idea as it reduces the need for a heavy duty inverter and it also would be

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