Except the building they were in had been 'walked away from' leaving the UPS's online
You know this how exactly?
Personal hands-on examination of the setup, multiple times, during the period when the buildings were empty.
The UPS output breakers were all still on, and the batteries all had that 'swollen sides' effect they get when they've been completely flattened and left that way for months, and sulfation makes the plates swell. Also the building had been left with internal power & lights on for months, then at some point the external mains power was switched off. It's true, I'm _assuming_ at that point the UPSs got loaded until dead.
supporting lights, etc.
Lights? Oh really?
Yep. You know, those things in the ceiling that let you see where you're going, even at night. For a long time they were mains powered, then mains was cut off, but there were still some lights. Maybe those were running from some other battery backup system, and the big UPSs were only supporting something else. Nonetheless, the UPSs were run down till dead.
The UPS units were quite new, I think only a few years old
You sure?
The manual with them said 1995; building demolished in 2010. OK, so the oldest they could be is 15 years. They still looked like new, having been housed in a nice clean place. And 15 years counts as a 'few years' for things like that. What did they cost new anyway? Since it seems you know of them.
The UPS units could easily have been extracted before the demolition, so it was purely a matter of official bloody-mindedness
Easily? If so easy then why didn't you extract them?
You're assuming I didn't try, in multiple ways. It wasn't possible, and not for reasons of physical logistics.
This was the old Channel 7 site in Sydney, for those that know it.
Better than you may imagine. Perhaps you can comment on the multi year logistics effort to migrate the facility, dispose of redundant equipment et?
OK, lets talk about that.
* Big old fully gimballed steerable dish on top of the tower. Said by a suit onsite when I enquired: "has been sold for $100K" (just by the absurd amount I knew he was lying.) It was still on top of the tower when the tower was collapsed. (Judging by observing the crushed weather shield in the rubble, though the dish and mount itself seemed to have been sent off for scrap.)
* Three 1 MW diesel generators and complete grid handover system - destroyed.
* Four 120KW UPSs (according to the docs, though I only found 3 of them.) all bulldozed. Could have been extracted by a couple of people in a day's work and some lifting gear, easily.
* Countless 19" racks, all destroyed.
* Piles of tech docs and manuals, including the entire doco on the station's infrastructure. You think the National Library wouldn't have liked to get the complete doc set from a historic TV station? But no, bulldozed.
* At least it seems most if not all of the technical equipment was removed before the demolition. Judging by notes left about the place, a lot of it was given away to friends. Which is good to hear.
So, you were involved in this. Tell me, did you ever advertise any of the above, on public forums, for reasonable 'take it away' prices?
Someday I'd really like to find out _why_ it was felt necessary to destroy all that stuff.
Did you avail your self of any of the opportunities to purchase/obtain redundant equipment? No? Neither did anyone else including salvage operators.
Actually I _did_ and the demolition operators were flatly opposed to the idea. There was a long period when the site's ownership was indeterminate, and I had no luck even finding someone responsible. Later when Meriton was the owner, every contact effort was completely futile. I got the impression they wanted to see it all destroyed.
Grand ideals and economic realities do not always coincide. I'd love to see everything re-purposed or recycled too. In a tunnel vision view it is easy to point blame at owners and contractors. The reality is however that none of that stuff was ever going to fit/be welcome in yours or anyone else's shed.
Speak for yourself. The UPSs would have made a *huge* difference to my primary project. For which, lacking them, I actually have to obtain/built something like one (though not that high a power.) They absolutely would have fit in my 'shed', and having three would be fantastic. One to dismantle to reverse engineer it, one to modify for my purpose, and one as a backup. Undertaking a major hacking project on a single unit is pointless, because your effort is wasted if you break something.
The diesel generators - are you seriously claiming that no one in Australia would have wanted them, for just the retrieval and transport costs? Including the room full of manuals and spare parts? I doubt it. You sure you're not trying to justify the incompetence of the people responsible for this wanton destruction, so you/they don't feel bad?
Seriously, where was the ebay.com.au listing, for "120KW UPS, works, starting bid $1, onsite pick up only, weighs 1000Kg. Four available."
There wasn't one, was there?