gotta love threads like these, and gotta love the people that need to convince themselves that their $3,000 honda generator was made by GOD himself and since they bought one, - everyone else should buy one too. especially had to laugh when someone suggested buying a generac over a another brand with a real honda engine. let me remind everyone that pride of ownership is a huge factor here, and if you ever take a trip to a honda dealer, you will find a long line of equipment in the back room waiting for repairs. so just because you bought one of the most expensive generators around, doesnt mean they dont break. so seriousy - get over yourself. i know this is an old thread but the issue will go on forever. my personal feeling if i were to buy another generator, is to buy the same deal the OP described. many suppliers offer generators with real honda engines for about $200 more than a similar sized unit with a honda clone. AND - even the honda clones these days are extremely reliable if broken in and maintained properly. what many people dont know, is the clone engines are designed using expired honda patents, and have come a long way in recent years. the karting world even has a separate racing class for them, and a 6.5 hp engine can be modified to push almost 20hp and rev up to 9000 rpm. that being said, a clone motor will have NO PROBLEM running a generator at 3600 for the occasional black out and power loss so long as you use common sense to maintain it. i dont care if JESUS HIMSELF built your honda generator, if you leave the same gas in it for 4 years - your carb will need to be cleaned. now - i am not saying that honda and honda clones are of equal quality and reliability, but something has to be said for a $650 ETQ generator with a pure sign wave, that makes more power (7250 cont) and will keep my lights on just as well as a $3,000 Honda with 5000 cont watts.. furthermore, after your 2 year warranty expires on your $3,000 honda, you can enjoy the $100 an hour labor rate, and $1200 repair bill god forbid you ever need to bring it to a dealer for repair - THAT YOU WILL DO since you spent so much money for the "best" me on the other hand - if my $650 generator gets used 3 times in years, i will feel i got my moneys worth out if it, and it it dies - i will toss it the garbage or sell it for parts, and buy another brand new generator with another 2 yr warranty for less than you paid for the labor alone on your repair bill.. - unless your a contractor using the thing on remote jobsites for 30 weeks out of the year, you have no need for a $3,000 portable generator anyway, because this is who these things are made for. for $2400 you can buy a 12kw whole house standy unit at costco made by generac, thats completely automatic, runs off natural gas, and is big enough to run 2 central air units along with most of your home. lastly - I hate to break the news to all the honda guys, but honda is not the "top of the line" when it comes to reliable generators. i work for a major utility company, and you will not find ONE honda generator on ANY utility truck.

Yeah, you're right with the carbon block. The flow rates would not be suitable for POE - my mistake. I'm not surprised that you find customers that are worried by "bacteria". I think many people hear that word and get afraid - I said so earlier. The fact is the vast majority of kinds of bacteria are harmless to humans. But I'm sure lots of folks would be scared by seeing a petri dish full of them just the same. I'm sure lots of folks would be suprised how many things they consume and touch would also cause a petri dish to overload with bacteria. Our goal though should be accurate information. If someone's fears still prevent them from doing something that's their choice. We should distinguish between bacteria that is a hazard to people (pathogenic) and ones that aren't. Water, air, objects, and food are all full of bacteria and we need to understand the actual health risks. Trying to avoid all bacteria is impossible. Trying to reduce harmless bacteria is wasting money that could be spent on efforts that actually do provide a health benefit. The link below is very interesting. It is an article from Water Conditioning and Purification Magazine. The article is titled "Bacteria in Drinking Water - Public Health Implications" and is dated July 2002. It is a consensus review of material from a NSF International and World Health Organization (WHO) International Symposium. The article specifically talks about activated carbon and the growth of bacteria - among other things. It's fairly, uh er, dense, reading but if there's any hardy souls still reading this thread they might find it interesting. I encourage anyone to read the entire article, and, for that matter, peruse other material on the site. But, for those who want the executive summary, below are some choice parts. Oh, I have no association in any way with this publication or it's authors. I'll note this article talks about tests with POU devices, I'll be doing another post shortly with another reference that talks about POE and POU jointly. This article at least clearly shows that changing from POE to POU will not prevent drinking "bacteria". It talks about the health risks of this bacteria and I believe that POE and POU have largely the same health risks. POE carbon-based devices are not nearly as common as POU so I'm not surprised these large organizations don't focus as much attention on them. In the quotes of the article below, know that "HPC" is a measurement of naturally occurring bacteria. ************************** "Interestingly, HPC levels in foods haven't raised the same concern as in the drinking water industry. It's not unusual to find very high numbers (>50,000 cfu/gram or ml) of HPC bacteria in a wide variety of foods such as pasteurized milk, cheeses, meats, yogurts and fresh produce. HPC bacteria consumed with food is generally several orders of magnitude larger than those consumed in water. A million HPC bacteria have been documented on a single gram of leaf lettuce and carrot sticks.(1)" *********************** "Granular activated carbon (GAC), commonly used in the water treatment industry, is known to concentrate bacteria and their growth substrates. As water passes through the GAC, bacteria may also be released. Point-of-use (POU) treatment devices have been shown to reduce the level of waterborne gastrointestinal disease and remove known microbial pathogens. It's not uncommon, however, to note a significant increase in HPC bacteria post treatment, possibly several-fold higher than the influent water. Re-growth of bacteria in POU devices occurs frequently during periods of non-use." **************************** "In addition, HPC bacteria didn't survive well at low pH (i.e., conditions of the human stomach). In fact, only 1-2 percent of HPC bacteria were found to have possible virulence factors, but still weren't associated with human disease." ************************** "Several large epidemiological studies were conducted in an attempt to define the public health impact of HPC bacteria in drinking water. The first was conducted in the United States and showed that a large number of households using various GAC POU devices had high HPC levels but no demonstrated health effects.(5) Likewise, a recent study conducted in California attempting to correlate HPC in tap water to gastrointestinal illness provided no such evidence.(6)" **************************** "In summary, an overwhelming body of evidence from human feed studies, animal studies, epidemiological studies, risk assessment, and virulence data all confer there's no medical rationale to control HPC concentrations in drinking water. The general consensus at the HPC symposium was that such common bacteria in drinking water wasn't associated with a significant public health risk."

I feel your pain...two weeks ago I did too all nighters too the west coast...the last one coming home on a Saturday morning...we had all kinds of sick, hacking, coughing people...I couldn't wash my hands ENOUGH...sure enough...by memorial day I was feeling it coming on...I stayed on the couch for about 3 days...cold chills...fever..i groaned I ached so bad... After almost 36 years of skyhagging...I can tell you It's a dirty enviroment...I'm surprised I'm not sick more...but I'm really religious about not touching my face and I probably wash my hands about 17-20 times during the course of a four hour flight...i know...sounds alot doesn't it...but you can't be too careful!! I also think I've built up a pretty strong immune system because of it!! I'd try the airborne..and wiping down the seats and armrests and maybe a mask if you want to take it that far!! Also be sure to drink lots of water!! There's something to be said for keeping yourself hydrated!!

I have to add, though, that in the case of Oscillo, I had no faith that it would work. Although I've had some amazing results from homeopathic remedies (prescribed by a skilled homeopath), I've also experienced some that were duds--at least as far as my treatment was concerned. So I bought the Oscillo thinking it was an interesting concept, but definitely not expecting the results I got. I still can't say with certainty that all of my improvement was due to Oscillo, but I think it's a possibility.