Category Archives: Family-Friends-Home

Post related to our family and close friends and projects around the house.

2015/07/25 (S) Monitoring

We started our day with our weekly ham radio breakfast in South Lyon. As we were leaving breakfast I called Chuck to see if he was at his shop. He wasn’t but said he could be there between 11 and 11:30 AM. We drove home, loaded up my car with the accumulated recyclables, headed over to Recycle Livingston, and then headed to Chuck’s shop in Novi. We arrived before he did and let ourselves in. I got his Dremel tool kit and pistol style soldering gun and we chatted for a while. He had a noon appointment with someone at a commercial building he owns in Livonia, and we had a long list of project tasks to take care of, so it was a shorter chat than usual. We stopped at the Lowe’s in New Hudson and bought a can of garage door spray lube and then headed home, stopping for fuel at the Brighton Shell station on Grand River Avenue at I-96.

At our ham radio breakfast Linda had rye toast and I had an English muffin for breakfast (our usual meals) so we were hungry by the time we got home. We had roll up sandwiches of hummus, Vidalia onions, and greens with a drizzle of olive in a whole wheat pita. Very tasty. We then got to work installing the wall-mounted track for the ZioTek monitor mounting system I bought from CyberGuys.

The north wall of the ham shack. Critical points for the mounting of the ZioTek track system are marked with green tape.

Conceptually the installation was simple but it took all afternoon. There is a kind of alcove at the north end of my office that serves as our amateur radio (ham) shack. The purpose of the ZioTek system is to support up to four monitors on the north wall above the two desks located there so that they are not attached to the desks or using up any of the desktop real estate. The walls in the office are 7/16ths inch thick T-111 exterior plywood with 1/2″ grooves on 4″ centers running the length of the plywood sheets. The sheets are installed vertically so the groves run vertically giving the appearance of vertically installed 4″ wide rough sawn boards. We finished the photo studio/office at the old house with this material so we knew we liked the way it looks. Being plywood it has once major advantage and one major disadvantage compared to drywall; you can screw relatively heavy things to it, but holes are essentially impossible to repair. What that meant for us was that we only had one chance to get the track in the correct location.

In this case “correct” meant: at the right height and horizontal location to be able to position the monitors exactly where we wanted them while making sure the track was level. To accomplish this I bought a 1″x6″-8′ poplar board to use as a mounting plate for the two track sections. (All of the trim in the ham shack/office is poplar.) We used pieces of tape to mark the locations of the corners of the three monitors on the wall and marked the centers of the VESA 100×100 mounting plates. When we knew where the horizontal centerline of the tracks needed to be we determined the horizontal location of the tracks relative to the right end of the poplar board, which would be installed flush to the vertical trim in the northeast corner of the alcove.

The ZioTek tracks will mount to the horizontal poplar board which will be mounted to the wall at the studs.

We set the poplar board in the utility hallway and positioned the two tracks on it. I butted the tracks together and slid one of the mounting plates so it saddled both tracks and kept them aligned. The tracks are 4.5″ wide and the board was 5.5″ wide so I very carefully positioned the tracks for a 1/2″ reveal along both edges. I then marked the eight mounting holes (four in each track) and removed the tracks. Using a brad point wood bit that was slightly smaller than the central shaft of a #14 wood screw I drilled holes that were as carefully centered as I could make them.

We held the board in position against the wall and used a 1.5″ #6 finishing nail through the right mounting hole to hold that end of the board. We then used a 4-foot level on the top edge of the board and secured the left end with a second nail through one of the mounting holes. We positioned the chair where it will be when in use and made sure we liked the height of the board. It looked and felt right so we proceeded to secure it to the wall.

The ZioTek tracks mounted to the poplar board mounted to the wall. Linda is vacuuming up sawdust from drilling.

Using a small carpenter’s square I marked locations for mounting screws one inch in from each edge of the board in vertical alignment with the small heads of the nails that secure the T-111 to the studs. The 8-foot long board spanned six studs so I had 12 holes to drill. I used a standard drill bit that was slightly smaller than the shaft of a #14 wood screw and drilled through the poplar board, through the T-111, and into the studs. I used a countersink bit to create recessed pockets for the flathead wood screws. We then secured the board using 3″ long #14 flathead wood screws. We applied a little soap to the screw threads to help them go in.

I pulled the two small nails out of the track mounting holes. Using the same drill bit I finished drilling out the mounting holes all the way through the T-111. We positioned and partially installed one track using 2″ long #14 flathead wood screws in the two end mounting holes. We then did the same thing with the other track. I slid one of the mounts so that half of it was in each track and partially installed the remaining four screws. I gently snugged up all eight screws, checking the track alignment as I went, and then torqued them down. The heads stick up above the inside surface of the track but the shuttle mounts are raised on the underside so they slide right over the screw heads without interference.

The first of three monitors to get mounted. This one is on the left end of the tracks.

With the track mounted to the wall we turned our attention to installing the monitor mounting arms and monitors. We used one of the long arms on the left, the short arm in the center, and the medium arm on the right. The other long arm will eventually end up on the far right or get swapped for the medium arm, but for now I only wanted to mount three monitors. We installed the nice Dell monitor that goes with my older Dell Precision laptop in the center and installed the two ASUS monitors to either side of it.

By the time we got the third monitor mounted the office was in more disarray than usual and we did not have time to clean up tools and put things back in order. Linda did manage, however, to run the vacuum cleaner and get most of the sawdust and wood chips sucked up. Our son had called during the afternoon with a last minute request for babysitting services from Linda and I decided to go too.

A view of the mounts for the left and center monitors. This is a substantial system.

We left at 6 PM for Ann Arbor and stopped at the Whole Foods Market to pick up a few things for dinner. We got two different vegan sushi rolls, a cold couscous salad, and some organic black grapes. When we arrived at Brendan and Shawna’s house a little before 7 PM Madeline was surprised and excited to see us. Brendan and Shawna left around 7:15 PM for an engagement party and Madeline was fine with the whole thing. She was still eating her blueberries and strawberries and then wanted Linda to read several books to her. We went upstairs to see how her crib had been converted to a toddler bed, allowing her to get up during the night to use the bathroom. Such a big girl. But not too big for pajamas that featured fairies.

After another couple of stories Madeline went to bed without a fuss. We then had dinner. The California rolls were OK but the couscous salad was outstanding and the grapes were very good. We sat on the couch using our iPads but I could not stay awake so I laid down and drifted off to sleep. I was awakened about 90 minutes later by the return of Madeline’s parents. Linda gathered up our leftover food and the roses the kids had gotten her as a “thank you” for babysitting on such short notice which gave me time to fully wake up. We were on our way by 10:30 PM and back home shortly after 11.

2015/07/24 (F) Open and Shut

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I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee but I did not see Mara or Linda until after 9 AM. Around 9 AM I heard a knock at the front library doorwalls and heard someone saying “hello?, hello?, David?” I went out the front door and saw the front end of a red Ford Focus parked in front of our bus. I had never met this guy but he was not unexpected and I knew he was looking for David LaVoisne, who lived here with his wife, Maria, until we bought the house from them in February 2013. I knew this guy might stop by as he had once before when we were away and chatted briefly with our lawn care guy, Keith. I also knew that he had worked with David at the Ford Wixom plant before they retired.

We introduced ourselves and had a nice chat. I explained that David and Maria had sold the house and their Airstream motorhome, bought a newer motorhome, and were now full-time RVers. (As I recall they bought a used Foretravel.) Apparently they did not let all of their friends or former colleagues know what they were doing. I also mentioned that they had moved the few possessions they did not get rid of to their son’s house somewhere in the region and that they probably visited there occasionally.

Mara emerged about the time our visitor left. Unfortunately I do not recall his name. We all had breakfast together after which Mara went about her final departure preparations. She gave Linda a small fir tree and two small herbs. Linda transferred the herbs to her herb pots and gave Mara’s small pots back. She needed to top off her fresh water tank so I helped with that. The lock on the water fill door stuck in the open position so Mara got her can of dry lube and I sprayed a little in the lock by holding the protective cover open with the tip of the key. That did the trick, another quick fix to a small but potentially annoying problem.

When her rig was basically ready to go Mara made one last use of the shower, got dressed to travel, unplugged the power cord and stowed it away, and pulled in the slides. After hugs all around she climbed into the pilot’s seat and fired up the engine and Sabra (one of her two cats) climbed up on the dash just in front of the steering wheel. I guided her as she backed out onto our road. She drove down to the court, did a three point turn, and a few minutes later drove past our house in the opposite direction, back on the road again after almost two weeks at our place. It was noon, but she was only going as far as London, Ontario today. Linda got a text message later letting us know that she had arrived at the Moose Lodge and the border crossing on the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario had only taken 30 minutes.

After Mara was out of sight I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started a load of warm whites. I wrote out a list of parts I needed to finish the garage door opener installation and the monitor mounting system in the ham shack and then drove to Lowe’s in Howell.

I was back home by 1:30 PM and we had hummus and chips along with black grapes for lunch. We started working on the garage door opener installation when my phone signaled that I had a voice message. It turned out that I had one on the house phone too. Both messages were from Jarel. He had a few questions about dimensions on one of desk drawings so I called him back and we sorted that out. He retrieved the half sheet of walnut veneer plywood from Butch last night and bought 16 board feet of walnut.

In spite of the 85 degree temperature and what felt like high humidity, even though it was only 41%, we worked for about three hours and finished installing the opener on the small garage door. It was quite an involved process but it worked when we were done. The new opener has automatic reverse if it encounters an obstruction and an infrared sensor beam about 6″ off the floor.

At 5:30 PM we loaded the old garage door opener into the dump trailer. We then loaded the old OTA TV antenna pieces. Brad is picking up the trailer in the morning so we will not fill it but it we put the junk in it that we needed to get out of the garage and a few other things as well.

We took a break around 6 PM to have some water and get off our feet for a while. At 6:45 PM Linda made salads and cooked up some vegan Italian sausages. After dinner we planned to work for a while in the ham shack on the installation of the wall-mounted track system but we were too tired to start a project that was going to require decisions and careful attention to detail. We sat in the living room instead and used our iPads for the usual things. It was great having Mara here and we look forward to her return someday. But for now she is off on the next leg of her open-ended adventure and we have a lot of work yet to do to get our bus ready for the 2015-16 winter season.

2015/07/23 (R) Wrapping Up Mara

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Mara’s plan was to make this the last full day of her visit. Our day started without her as we had cinnamon raisin toast, juice, and coffee for breakfast. I got a call from Jarel with clarifying questions and ideas about the desk and the pull-out pantry. After a thorough discussion we had better ways to approach a few things. He also had a better feeling for the estimated cost of the project and I agreed to send him 50% as a deposit.

I typed up a short letter and printed off the graph that Steve made of the return loss for the M-302N V/U lightning arrestor. I packed the unit for shipping to Morgan Manufacturing and included the letter and graph. Linda wrote out the check for Jarel and got it in an envelope to mail. She then went to the library, Post Office, and Humane Society where she donated cat and dog paraphernalia that we had accumulated over the years.

While Linda was gone I worked in the bus for a while and Mara worked on travel preparations. I started by removing the old 3/4″ plywood floor from the refrigerator alcove. The original plywood bus floor appeared to mostly be in good condition but I will put a new secondary floor in the alcove to keep the refrigerator legs above the level of the new tile floor. There are a LOT of wires running along the floor of the alcove at the back wall and I may fashion a cover for them and seal up the holes at either end.

I removed the AC dimmer for the living room lights and the DPDT momentary contact DC switch from the floor-mounted walnut box where they were installed. The DC switch controlled the passenger side sofa footrest. I had to remove the wires from both switches to get them out. The AC dimmer was easy but the DC switch had four different color wires with spade connectors. I made careful note of which terminal each color went to and then pulled the spade connectors off. With the switches out I was able to remove the box and its mounting cleats from the floor and wall. This area will be tiled and the box will not be reused.

Out of curiosity I tested the switch with an Ohm meter to see how the terminals were connected internally. I also checked the wires with a DC volt meter to see how they were being used. Two of the wires were +12VDC and DC ground and the other two went to a connector that was originally plugged into the footrest. The switch applied 12VDC to the two load wires in one position and reversed the polarity in the other position, making the footrest go out or in respectively.

Last year I had removed two blank outlet covers on the walnut panel next to the co-pilot seat so I knew that these two switches were originally installed there and subsequently moved to the floor-mounted box. I unscrewed the 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood panel from the wall to see what was behind it. What I found was a LOT of wires and it was not a pretty sight. I re-installed the two switches in their original locations and re-routed some other wires so they went up over the HVAC chase.

There was still a large bundle of wires running along the floor at the base of the HVAC chase that I needed to re-route but I decided not to mess with those today. They are connected to four different switches and a doorbell and disconnecting everything was going to require careful attention to detail. I pondered the refrigerator some more and decided there wasn’t anything else I could do with it for now and that I was done working in the bus for today.

There is too much to do at the moment to just sit around so I decided to install the new garage door opener for the small garage door. New is relative; it has been sitting in the garage in its original packaging since we moved into the house, supplied by the previous owners. The old one has not worked correctly since we moved in and the previous owners bought the new one but ran out of time to install it. It turned out to be rather more complicated than I expected, with very comprehensive assembly and installation instructions. It also turned out to be a two-person project so Linda worked on it with me.

We were working and Mara had started prepping dinner when a UPS truck showed up with four boxes. The delivery included: Mara’s refrigerator vent cover; the Cutco knives and scissors, and; the ZioTek track system for wall-mounting the monitors in the ham shack (2 boxes). The vent cover was due for delivery today but the knives were not due until tomorrow, so we were really glad to see them as two of them were for Mara. The monitor mounting system was also due for delivery today but I had temporarily forgotten about it.

The north wall of the ham shack/office. This is where the ZioTek wall-mounted monitor mounting system will go.

Mara was understandably anxious to see if the vent cover fit her base properly. It was a VentMate and appeared to be identical to the old one. She climbed up the ladder on the back of her motorhome and I handed parts and tools up to her. I then climbed up was well. She removed the old cover and we set the new one in place. It was a perfect fit! We put a small amount of putty under each screw head and then ran them down snug and congratulated ourselves on another job completed and well done.

With Linda’s help we put Mara’s kayak back in its custom carrier which fits in the receiver on the back of her motorhome (she does not tow a car). The carrier was built by a welding shop in Mesa, Arizona to Mara’s specifications and is made from 2″ square tubular steel and powder-coated black. The carrier holds the kayak diagonally across the back of the motorhome from lower left (driver’s side) to upper right. The nose of the kayak sits in a pocket near the driver side rear corner of the motorhome and the midpoint is nestled in a much larger cradle. A strap runs from the nose pocket up to the midpoint on one side and across the kayak to the other side where it is attached to a ratchet and has a hook on the end. With the hook engaged in a ring the strap is ratcheted tight and the kayak is secure for travel. Mara runs an anti-theft cable through an eyelet near the nose and attaches a lock for safe keeping. The tail sticks up higher than the top of the roof-mounted air-conditioner covers but does not extend beyond the passenger side wall. The tip of the kayak is 13′ 2″ from the ground.

We made good progress on the garage door opener but had to stop at the point where we needed to attach the motor housing to the ceiling as I needed to get some parts (angle iron and lag screws) that did not come with the unit. The front of the track was attached to the header above the door opening and we left the motor assembly resting on top of a 6 foot stepladder.

The pieces of the ZioTek monitor mounting system laid out on the floor of the ham shack/office.

While Mara and Linda prepared dinner I unboxed all of the monitor mounting components. I was curious to see the parts and wanted to make sure everything was there and undamaged, which was the case.

Dinner was Thai vegan spring rolls in rice flour wrappers. The prep work was in the cutting of lots of veggies (carrots, zucchini, onions, red and yellow peppers, Chinese cabbage, and mushrooms). Mara made two dipping sauces, one with ginger, hot peppers, and other things and one based on fish sauce (so we passed on that). Linda selected our bottle of Malvasia Bianco wine from the Heart of the Desert winery in Alamogordo, NM. It was white, which we thought would go well with the delicate spring rolls, but very sweet with a slightly thick mouthfeel, like a late harvest Riesling or a Sauternes. Perhaps not the best choice, but we finished the whole bottle anyway.

We chatted for a while after dinner but like most of our evening meals dinner was a drawn out affair with lots of conversation. Everyone was tired and the women turned in for the night. I went to my office and answered e-mails from Gary at BCM that I had seen earlier in the day. I then went to bed and tried to catch up on blog posts for the last few days but could not stay awake long enough to finish them.

2015/07/22 (W) Chucking Junk

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After our usual breakfast and coffee we sat for a while in the living room. This is part of our morning routine and I often use the time to finish up my blog post from the previous day but the last couple of weeks we have been busy and I have not always had time. We enjoyed the time until about 9 AM and then got serious about loading our “junk” into the Chuck It Junk Removal dump trailer.

Our bus refrigerator with the doors off in preparation for removing it from the coach.

Mara checked with Cummins Bridgeway and they told her to bring her motorhome in at 11 AM so she broke camp at 10 AM and backed out of the driveway at 10:15 AM. Cummins Bridgeway put several technicians and mechanics to work on her rig to re-install the genset, install new shock absorbers, and service the transmission (filter and fluid). She was out in a few hours and stopped at General RV to return the Camco refrigerator vent cover which did not fit her base on the roof.

The Chuck It Junk Removal dumpster trailer with some of our stuff in it.

We took a break from chucking junk and extracted the old refrigerator from its alcove in the bus, which was a 2-person job. I got some scraps of 1/2″ plywood to set in front of the elevated alcove base as I did not want to walk or slide the unit across the bus sub-floor, especially with the residual thinset mortar. First we had to walk it out a few inches which was hard because it only had 3/8″ clearance on each side. Once it was out far enough we were able to open the doors enough to remove all of the shelves and bins, which Linda took into the house and garage. I then disconnected the water and electric that ran up into the left (freezer) door at the bottom hinge corner for the ice/water dispenser and light. With those disconnected and pulled out of the bottom of the case we unscrewed the bottom and top hinges and removed the two doors. Linda collected all of the small loose parts as we went and put them in a plastic container as we knew we would have to reassemble the unit at some point.

The doors had 1/4″ walnut veneer plywood face panels and we wanted to salvage those to use with the new pull-out pantry. Normally you just remove the handle trim from the edge of the door and slide the panel out. The fridge door panel would not budge so we removed the trim from all four edges of the door. The panel had been stuck in place with strips of double-sided tape so we carefully peeled it loose. The freezer door had two smaller panels, above and below the ice/water dispenser, and they slide out easily after removing the handle trim. We carried the doors, trim, and panels to the garage and then walked the case completely out of the alcove.

The shelf I built for one of the storage bays on Mara’s Fleetwood Bounder.

I spent some time pondering what would be required to disassemble the refrigerator enough to get it out through the door of the bus but decided not to do anything until I had talked to Butch. Just before dinner I had a long chat with Chuck about the refrigerator swap and he reminded me that DTE Energy (the electric power utility for this region) will pick up old refrigerators and freezers and pay you $50 for them. Linda checked this out online and learned that they have to be plugged in and operating or they won’t take them, so we have a double incentive for getting it out in one, operating piece.

Our revised plan is still to get the case out in one functioning piece through the side window frame but it won’t be this weekend. The guy with the sunroom business in the building in front of Chuck’s shop is still in the process of moving to his new place and has trucks, cars, people, and junk all over the place making ingress/egress to Chuck’s shop difficult to impossible. The business is supposed to be gone by the end of the month so we will wait another week and plan for Saturday August 1st assuming I can get the window frame open. In the meantime I need to get back to work on the bus floor, so I will have to spend part of next week sanding and start installing the 1/4″ underlayment for the new vinyl tile.

Mara in our home kitchen with her wonderful pizza. This thing was truly good eats.

Mara and Linda made another pizza for dinner and it was every bit as good as the first one. Mara has been a wonderful house guest. We have left the house open to her and she has made herself comfortable in the kitchen and using the hall bathroom and laundry. It helps that Linda is not possessive about the kitchen. Whenever we have visitors who want to help in the kitchen Linda welcomes their participation. It’s been fun for both of them and they have each learned a few knew things and deepened their friendship.

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

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Our morning got busy right away. We had breakfast and I made coffee while Linda entertained Madeline. Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, dropped off the dumpster trailer at 9 AM. Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up at 9:30 to cut the grass. Linda took Madeline to the Mill Pond to use the playscape and Mara started scrapping old caulk and putty from around the base of her refrigerator roof vent. I tried using another set of tools for removing the stripped screw in the stop block on the bus to no avail. I even managed to break off two drill bits in the hole I was drilling in the screw. The more I work on this the worse it gets.

When Linda and Madeline got back Madeline had lunch and then laid down for her nap. The three adults then had vegan hotdogs for lunch after which I put the finishing touches on my design drawings for the pull-out pantry. Mara and I then went on an errand run.

Our first stop was the FedEx store in Novi where I made copies of all of the drawings for the desk and the pullout pantry. We then stopped at General RV to return the refrigerator vent cover as it did not fit the base section on Mara’s roof. They had a Camco cover that claimed it would work, and looked like it might fit, so she exchanged them and got a small credit. When we got back at 3:15 PM Brendan and Shawna were already there. They got Madeline up at 3:20 PM and stayed until about 4 PM. After they left I got up on Mara’s roof to help with tasks there.

First we checked the refrigerator vent cover. The mounting holes lined up but the flanges (shields) on the long sides were not wide enough to fit outside the base flanges. The proper fit requires the upper flanges to be outside the lower flanges by at least 1/4″ so heat can escape and extend below the lower flanges to keep rain from getting into the refrigerator cavity. I was going to install the 24″ x 24″ piece of thin sheet steel for the magnetic cell phone booster antenna when I discovered that the antenna would stick to the old satellite dish. We experimented some more with the location of the inside antenna but could not improve on yesterday’s placement. The performance was as good as with the metal sheet so I decided not to install the metal sheet. Mara then caulked around the refrigerator vent base and touched up a few other spots around tank vent caps.

Linda grilled a variety of veggies for dinner. I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir wine and we ate outside. It was cloudy and 76 degrees F with light winds; very pleasant and bug free. We had fresh strawberries with the meal and dark chocolate for dessert. We eventually moved inside to chat but did not stay up late as I needed to be up early in the morning and on my way to Indiana.

2015/07/19 (N) Another Buddy Visit

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Linda was up at 6:30 AM to get showered before Madeline woke up at 7 AM. Once Madeline was up they got busy right away making vegan blueberry pancakes. I was up at 7:20 AM, got a quick shower, and was dressed and seated at the table just in time for breakfast. The pancakes cooked especially well this morning although I would like to try them sometime without the blueberries cooked in. After we were done eating I made coffee while Linda and Madeline prepared vegan sloppy Joe’s in the crock pot for lunch.

Mara has been getting up when she feels like it and eating breakfast by herself. By 9 AM she was outside emptying the passenger side storage bays on her motorhome. She spent the rest of the morning going through the stuff she had removed, deciding what to keep, organizing it, and putting it back. I gathered up our laundry, sorted it, and started a load.

Aunt Meghan (our daughter) and Uncle Chris (her husband) arrived at 10 AM and I brewed another pot of coffee. This was the second buddy visit of Madeline’s stay (the first was Cousin Katie on Friday). Meghan provided a lot of child care during Madeline’s first 18 months and Madeline adores her “buddy.” She took Meghan on a tour of the house showing her where various things, like snacks and kitty cats, were to be found. It was a sure sign that Madeline is finally feeling very comfortable at our house.

Having other adults around gave Linda a break and some time to finish preparing lunch, although once Madeline realized Grandma Linda was at work in the kitchen she had to help. I went out around 11:45 AM to fetch Mara. We all sat down at noon and enjoyed a simple but delicious meal of vegan sloppy Joe’s (based on textured vegetable protein aka TVP), corn on the cob, raw baby carrots, and black grapes.

Madeline had very busy days yesterday and the day before and got up a little tired this morning so by 1 PM she was more than ready for her nap. Meghan and Chris had things to do and took their leave. Mara went back to work on her rig and Linda laid down for a nap. I tended to the laundry and then went out to work on our bus and Mara’s motorhome.

I used the Speedout set to try and remove the screw with the stripped head from the stop block on the passenger side fixed glass frame. I was not successful with this tool so I switched gears and worked on Mara’s cell phone booster system. I climbed on the roof and she handed me the 12″ x 18″ thin galvanized sheet steel plate. I took it to the front of the roof, set it down on the fore-aft centerline, and positioned the 4″ magnetic mount antenna in the center. I dropped the coax over the edge by the driver’s side window and climbed back down from the roof.

Mara opened the sliding side window and screen by the driver’s seat and I passed the coax in to her. Inside the rig we positioned the amplifier on the driver’s seat and started experimenting with various positions for the inside antenna. We found one that worked well and left it for her to try. I checked the laundry and then laid down for a nap.

I skipped dinner as I had a SLAARC meeting at 6:30 and had to leave before 6 PM which is when Madeline was having her evening meal. Our ham radio club meetings start with social time from 6:30 to 7:00 PM. The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by president Harvey (AC8NO) and I agreed to act as recording secretary. Linda was not able to attend because she was taking care of Madeline so I gave the treasurer’s report in her absence. The meeting adjourned at 7:10 PM. We reconfigured the room for the program which was a presentation and debrief of our recent field day activity. Larry (K8UT) reported on the N1MM Logger Plus networked computer logging software. Steve (N8AR) reported on the radios and antennas and conducted the debriefing.

I got back home before 9 PM. Madeline was asleep and the ladies were each enjoying a glass of Pinot Grigio on the back deck. I poured one for myself and joined them. The mosquitoes eventually appeared and we retreated indoors. I reheated the bowtie pasta from the other night and finished it for dinner. We said “good night” at 10 PM after which I checked e-mail and websites and then headed to bed. I wrote for a while before turning out the lights.

2015/07/18 (S) RV Shopping

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Madeline was awake at 7 AM and Linda got her up shortly after that. I slept in until 8 AM. They had already eaten breakfast by then so I made coffee and had cinnamon raisin toast. Metropolitan Baking Company makes a very tasty cinnamon raisin bread. We all sat in the living room while Madeline played with various toys and I worked on finishing yesterday’s blog post.

Linda and Madeline left at 10 AM for the Howell Library. The plan was to let Madeline play in the children’s area, which has a lot interesting things to do for children her age. After selecting some books and DVDs to bring home they were headed to Meijer’s to do some grocery shopping.

I continued working on my iPad until Mara came in the house. We had a chat about blogging and I showed her the Feedly app on my iPad. She has attended workshops put on by The Geeks On Tour and has their training materials. I think Blogger is probably the right tool for her and Picasa is probably the right way to manage her photos. They are both Google products so they work well together and they are free to use. There are downsides to that, especially for professionals, but for most people it’s a great solution.

Mara and I left around 11:45 AM and drove to General RV in Wixom. This was my first visit to their new facility and it is nice. The parts department is larger and better stocked than the old one and is bright with natural light from large south and west facing windows. We were asked several times if we needed assistance but we were never pestered. They did not have any of the white Dicor self-leveling caulk we were looking for but one of the employees checked their stock and brought out six tubes. Mara bought four of them along with a new Norcold refrigerator roof vent cover, a small roll of Eternabond tape, and some concentrated RV wash/wax. I picked up eight brown circular adjustable air vents for the bus. The ones in there now are black but I think the brown will look better with the new floor tile. We won’t really know, however, until we install them.

We drove to Lowe’s in Howell where I bought two pieces of 12″ x 18″ thin galvanized steel plate and three rolls of 3M double-sided tape suitable for outdoor use. The plan is to put one of these on the roof of Mara’s motorhome and possibly put the other on the roof of our bus to allow the use of the magnetic base cell phone antennas that came as part of the weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster systems. Once the steel sheets are affixed to the roof I will caulk around them. First, however, I will just set the sheets up there and see what sort of difference the system makes.

We stopped at O’Reilly’s auto parts store and Mara bought some 10, 15, and 20 Amp mini fuses. These fuses have a small LED that glows if the fuse opens. They were more expensive than the regular ones, but that is a very handy feature and I may stock up on these the next time I need to buy fuses.

Back at the house Linda informed me that when the storm blew in it pulled the sun umbrella out of the table on the deck. We put the glass top back in the table and re-installed the umbrella. This has happened a couple of times and we have been lucky that the glass top has not broken. Mara returned to her rig. She had left her patio awning out but it was not damaged.

Linda got Madeline up from her nap at 3 PM and read her a story about flying in an airplane. Madeline then played with her toys for a while. Around 4 PM Madeline wanted to bake a cake. Linda was planning on this anyway but it was nice that it was Madeline’s idea. They got busy in the kitchen and I sneaked off to my office for a while.

Madeline had dinner at 6 PM so I came up from my office while she ate. Meals are a social time and I was ready for a break anyway. After dinner Linda helped Madeline get cleaned up. I slipped back down to my office while they watched an Elmo DVD, but by 7 PM I was done working on the pantry design for the evening and went back upstairs. Linda was reading the airplane ride book (again), after which Madeline played (with) the organ after which they drew for a while and then played with the Play-Doh. Madeline is a busy girl.

I was just getting ready to go ask Mara what temperature to preheat the oven when she came to the house with an armful of ingredients for the pizza. She has a recipe for a wheat-free (gluten-free) pizza dough that she wanted us to try. It calls for cheese and eggs so to make it vegan Linda had her buy Daiya mozzarella shreds and gave her egg replacer to use. The other ingredients include almond meal, chickpea flour, golden flaxseed, onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, olive oil (EVVO), and water.

It took another 25 minutes to get Madeline to bed but once Linda had her tucked in I opened a bottle of Nebiola wine from the St. Clair Winery in Deming, New Mexico. I often write that I am not a fan of red wines and continue to not like dry wines with lots of tannins. The Nebbiolo, however, is one of the nicest wines I think I have ever tried. That probably means it is too sweet for most red wine drinkers, but I did not find it to be sweet; I found it to be smooth and complex.

We ordered a couple of things from Amazon on Wednesday and they showed up yesterday. When I unboxed the Notier capacitive touch screen precision stylus I was surprised by what I found. It’s a 2-part housing that unscrews and the cover screws onto the other end of the bottom part, which is needed for comfort and balance. The stylus tip is small but has a 1/4 in clear plastic disc on the end. It was on sale for $11 and I decided right away I would not return it. Besides, I had not actually tried it yet. So I finally tried it while the pizza was cooking. It is an amazing little device! It is, indeed, very precise and works with a delicate touch so I will have to re-calibrate my “typing” style, but it just goes to show that you never know until you try.

I lost track of time but it was somewhere between 9:30 and 10 PM when the pizza was ready to eat. It was, however, worth the wait and might be the best vegan pizza I have ever had. The recipe is definitely a keeper. We each had a chocolate cupcake (with sprinkles) while we finished our wine. We then adjourned to the living room and talked until almost 11 PM. It was a very full day for all four of us and everyone was tired but satisfied. It’s nice having family and friends here.

2015/07/17 (F) A High Pressure Situation

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We closed up the house yesterday and turned on the air-conditioning as the forecast for today was upper 80’s with humidity to match and the forecast for tomorrow is a high of 90 with very high humidity. Linda did not sleep well again last night but that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning. The sites where the dermatologist had removed things itched, which did not help. Nonetheless, we were both up by 8 AM and, as usual, I made coffee and we had granola. I prepared a travel mug of coffee and left at 9 AM for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi. Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline were due to arrive at 10 AM and I wanted to be back as close to that time as possible.

As I was working on the design for the pull-out pantry yesterday it became very clear that I needed more accurate measurements of various details of the new refrigerator in order to make sure the doors could open and the pantry could slide in and out. It was a good thing that I checked as the measurements were not exactly as published and the specifications did not show exactly where the doors were hinged or how much clearance they needed to swing on the hinges. Now I know, and it is a bit more than I originally allowed for, so it was a good thing that I checked.

I got home at 10:15 AM and the trio was already there. Mara emerged from her rig a few minutes later and joined us. Brendan and Shawna stuck around for a while but not long enough to get Madeline down for her 1 PM nap. They had been talking to her all week about staying with Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce and she was prepared. She was busy playing with Linda and did not seem concerned when her parents left for a music festival in Chicago. They will retrieve her on Monday.

Our older grand-daughter (and Madeline’s cousin), Katie, arrived around noon so Madeline had one of her buddies here. Madeline enjoyed her lunch and voluntarily laid down for her nap. Katie signed up to sell Cutco cutlery and accessory products and asked if she could come practice her sales pitch on us. We had agreed to let her do this, of course, and Mara joined us by her own choice. The selling involved a lot of demonstration and use of a few of the knives in side-by-comparison with our existing knives, some of which were already Cutco brand. Linda ordered a pair of kitchen shears and a santoku trimmer knife. Mara also ordered a pair of shears and Katie was able to throw in a birdsbeak paring knife which Mara will get as Linda has one. They agreed to just split the cost of the total order in half.

Mara was anxious to work on the roof of her Bounder and it needed to be cleaned before it was caulked. It was a hot, humid afternoon and pressure washing the roof seemed like the perfect use of such an otherwise miserable day. I got out the pressure washer and hose and got it hooked up. Mara put on her bathing suit and we both climbed up on the roof of her motorhome. I adjusted the spray nozzle to a fan pattern that would clean from 12″ away without damaging anything, showed her how I would approach the job, and left her to do the work. Actually I sat in the shade on the porch, offered helpful advice, and occasionally moved the pressure washer.

Madeline finished her nap while we were working and came outside several times with Linda to see what we were doing. She and Linda walked around the back yard and saw geese and a snake. They also saw a young deer from our bedroom doorwall. Our home in the country is a different and exciting place for her as it is for us.

When Mara was done spraying off the roof I sprayed off the sides of the rig to rinse off the dirty water that had run down the sides. Mara then put out the patio awning and I sprayed off both sides of it as well. When we were done we got the hose off of the grass and put the pressure washer back in the garage. Mara was very pleased with what she accomplished. Not only did she get something done that needed to be done but it was another thing she took care of herself instead of paying someone else to do it. I get that.

I worked some more in my office and then came upstairs for dinner. Mike (W8XH) had called and confirmed that Steve (N8AR) was expecting us at 8 PM. I left at 7:30 PM and drove to Steve’s place southwest of Howell. Mike and I arrived within a couple minutes of one another and were there for a little over an hour.

Steve is a PhD electrical engineer who worked for Bendix and was involved in communications projects for space programs. He has a lot of test equipment that you will not find in most ham shacks and he knows how to use it. In this particular case he used his Hewlett-Packard Network Analyzer to do two-port radio frequency through-measurements of my two Morgan Manufacturing lightning arrestors.

The first thing Steve noticed was that the center contact on one of the N-female connectors was spread open a bit. Unfortunately any spread is “a bit” too much. At radio frequencies these contacts need to be tight. We crimped the contacts back together as best we could so we could proceed with the testing, but Steve strongly suggested that I replace them with high quality parts. As expected, based on my operating experience, the M-302N V/U arrestor did not look good when tested. Steve captured the resulting return loss graph and put it on a thumb drive for me. I will e-mail it to Morgan with a cc: to KF7P Metalwerks and request a new one. If the new one isn’t any better I will request a refund. I should not have to rebuild stuff like this and the poor performance may be a design flaw rather than a manufacturing defect.

When I got home around 9:30 PM Linda and Mara were still up and chatting away in the living room. I joined the conversation until they both decided to retire for the evening. I spent a few minutes in my office after that taking care of e-mails and then went to bed. I wrote for a while but was too tired to concentrate and went to sleep.

2015/07/16 (R) RV Work

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We were up at 6 AM and by 6:25 Mara had started the engine of her motorhome to pull in the slides. She disconnected the electrical cord and we helped her back out of the driveway at 6:40. She was pointed west so she had to drive to the end of our street and use the circle to turn around. Her destination was Cummins Bridgeway in New Hudson. When she made the appointment they said the closer to 7 AM she could arrive the better. They estimated she would be there 3 to 4 hours.

Mara’s Fleetwood Bounder parked in our pull-thru driveway. Linda in green jacket, Mara in red.

Linda did not sleep well last night, a common side effect of eating too much too late in the evening, and went back to bed once Mara was safely on her way. I decided to stay up and clean the coffee maker before making coffee.

I wiped out the upper housing and cleaned the nooks and crannies with Q-tips. The upper housing is undoubtedly designed the way it is to make it structurally adequate with a minimum of plastic but it was equally obviously not designed with any consideration for being able to clean it. Like many things, it leaves me wondering if the designers ever use the products they design or what sort of functional specifications they work from and who develops those. I think the Bauhaus had it right when they declared “form follows function.” My guess is that commercial equipment, while less “stylish” than consumer goods, has cleanability and serviceability as primary design considerations.

I remembered that we had a one gallon jug of distilled white vinegar in the bus so I got that and ran eight cups of it through the coffee maker. I added four cups of water to the used vinegar and ran it through again. I then ran 12 cups of RO water through the coffee maker. By the time I was done it was approaching 8 AM so I ground up some of the Sumatra Mandheling beans (not decaffeinated) and made seven cups of coffee. I normally make 8 – 9 cups but this was full-strength stuff. I’ve been making 11 cups while Mara is here but it turns out that she does not drink much coffee so I will be back to my usual 8 – 9 half-caff servings going forward.

I enjoyed my first cup of coffee while finishing yesterday’s blog post and starting this one. I enjoyed my second cup while researching hardware for mounting a small table to a wall so that it is essentially cantilevered, which is the table arrangement we need for the bus. I found a 2-piece aluminum extrusion that might be the solution for attaching the table to the wall. It is 30″ long and can be cut to length but I do not think it will not be strong enough by itself to support the table. I found an angle bracket on Rockler that might be the additional piece I need. It is 12″ x 18″ with a notched corner, made of 1/8″ steel, and powder-coated black. A pair of them will support 1,000 pounds so one in the center would be more than sufficient. An alternative would be a wood strut angling back to the wall but we are not willing to have a vertical table leg. I have not decided whether the table should be removable but I am leaning towards a more permanent installation.

Linda eventually got up but neither of us were hungry so we did not have breakfast. I went to my office and ordered the ZioTek monitor mounting system from CyberGuys. I then e-mailed Ewa at AFC Industries and thanked her for the second quote but let her know that the price was way out of my budget. I finally settled in to work on the custom desk design for the bus and eventually finished it (I think). Linda left around 12:30 PM for her dermatology appointment.

Now that we have base station antennas cabled to the ham shack I tend to have the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band (VHF/UHF) radio on whenever I am working in my office. It provides a pleasant diversion from my other tasks and is actually useful. Somewhere mixed in with everything else were a couple of QSOs with ham buddies and an attempt to coordinate with Steve (N8AR) and Mike (W8XH) about testing my two Morgan lightning arrestors at Steve’s QTH.

This toad was sitting on a rock by our front porch.

Our bus had settled in the rear and was clearly out of level. The reason it had settled was that I forgot to switch the suspension system to Level Low and shut off the air to the engine accessories. It was of no consequence but it bugged me so I started it, let it air up, re-leveled it, shut it down, and switched off the batteries and engine air accessories.

Mara returned from Cummins Bridgeway around 1 PM and I guided her back into her parking spot. They did the routine service on her motorhome engine and generator but found several things on the genset that needed to be repaired. She agreed to have the work done so they removed the genset from her rig and will reinstall it next Wednesday. They also inspected the motorhome and gave her a list of other things that needed to be fixed, some right away and some eventually. She did not have them do any of that work as she wanted me to look at the list first. The added service work means Mara will be visiting with us for at least another week, which pleased us greatly.

I went over the list with her and we discussed the relative importance and urgency of each repair. One of the items involved the caulking on the roof so we both climbed up there to have a look. I also wanted to scope out how we might install her weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster system. While we were on the roof I was able to rock the rig side-to-side quite a bit just by shifting my weight. One of the other items on the diagnostic list was shock absorbers and I indicated that I thought that sounded appropriate, especially given that the back ones reportedly had cracked/broken mounts. They also noted that the transmission fluid was low and that the filter and fluid should be replaced. I encouraged her to have these taken care before she left as Cummins Bridgeway is a very good service facility.

The other items were things that could wait but the caulking of the roof was something Mara could do herself. She likes to take care of as much of her rig as possible and she will be here through at least Wednesday, so she has time.

Linda got back from her out-patient surgical appointment with bandages in seven different places. We visited for a while and then I left the ladies and returned to my office. I started on the design of the pull-out pantry for the bus and quickly realized that the very expensive Fulterer heavy-duty pull-out pantry slide I ordered from Rockler was too wide for the space we have available. I came upstairs and groused about it for a while until Linda and Mara urged me to try canceling the order. I called Rockler and spoke to someone in customer service. I won’t know until tomorrow at the earliest, and probably not until Monday, if I was successful in intercepting the order before it shipped. If not I will have to pay to ship it back and may have to pay a restocking fee. Although I do not have anywhere else I can use it at the moment, between the restocking charge and the cost of shipping I may just keep it and find a use for it.

Linda made a large salad for dinner and we chatted during and after the meal. It had been an early, long, hard day for all of us. Mara returned to her rig before it was dark and Linda headed off to bed shortly thereafter with me not far behind.

2015/07/15 (W) Prime Wednesday

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It was brisk when we got up this morning, with the temperature in the upper 40’s (F), light breezes, lower humidity, and clear, blue skies. When the weather in Michigan is at its best it is near perfect.

After our usual coffee and granola we spent a little time browsing Amazon.com looking at their “Prime Wednesday” sale. Neither of us are compulsive shoppers or impulse buyers and scrolling through thousands of items on a slow Internet connection looking for something we can’t live without at a price we can’t pass up is not our idea of fun. I have things I need to order, like the multiple monitor mounting system for the ham shack, but it quickly became obvious that I was not going to find those items for sale as part of Amazon’s special July 15 Prime Sale.

Mara was up and took her garbage to our trash to can and returned to her rig. Linda then took our garbage out and moved the can to the street. By 10:30 AM Mara had not yet emerged from her rig, so I went to my basement office and resumed work on the custom desk design for our bus. I still need to design the pull-out pantry but I finally ordered the Fulterer top/bottom slide mount from Rockler and had it shipped directly to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana. It is a serious piece of hardware that will support 450 pounds, so it should be more than adequate for the task.

Mara eventually emerged from her rig and the ladies left for 12 Oaks Mall and Mara’s first ever appointment with Renee in the J. C. Penney’s Salon. They were gone quite a while, tacking on several stops at pet and food stores before returning home.

I received a second quote for a wall-mounted monitor mounting system from AFC Industries. It included itemized pricing and an offer of a 15% discount but was still way too expensive. Though more expensive than a desk-mounted pole system I decided I to order the ZioTek wall-mounted monitor mounting system from CyberGuys. Being wall-mounted it will get my monitors completely off the desks, leaving room for ham radio equipment to slide underneath and all the way to the back edge of the desk (and beyond). It will also isolate the monitors from the desk so they won’t move if the desks are bumped. Another bonus is that I can move the desks to get to the cables at the back of the radios without having to move the monitors.

The monitor mounting system is a significant purchase so I wanted to make sure the components would work the way I need them to. I measured the three monitors that will initially be mounted using the system and then made a scale drawing to see how they would fit. I added all of the items to the shopping cart and was getting ready to complete the purchase when I noticed that a 5% discount was available if I joined their e-mail club. I signed up, received an e-mail, and confirmed my intention to join but the 5% discount did not show up in my shopping cart. I called the 800 number and was told it would take 24 hours for the discount to be available so I cleared all of the items out of the cart and will re-enter them tomorrow.

I finally settled in to my design work but took several breaks to talk to friends on the Novi and South Lyon repeaters. The Morgan Manufacturing VHF/UHF lightning arrestor was once again degrading my signal to an unusable level/quality so I once again disconnected the antenna and radio coax and joined them together with an N-female to N-female barrel adapter. Once I did that I was able to transmit and receive to/from both repeaters full-quieting.

I exchanged a couple of e-mail updates with Jarel Beatty, the cabinet maker in Logansport, and finally quit working around 5 PM. I came upstairs and found that the weBoost cellular booster systems had arrived from Amazon so I unpacked the shipping box and opened them. I had not realized when we ordered them that they were designed for use in a car with an inside antenna that requires the phone or other cellular device to be 18 – 36 inches away. That is not very far and it is a fairly small range. As the name implies, however, it is designed for use while in motion which is what both we and Mara need/want. I decided to temporarily install one of them in Linda’s car to test it.

Sitting in the driveway in a relatively bad location my phone was in 3G mode with a weak, but usable, signal that hovered around -115 to -118 dBm. With the booster turned on my phone switched to 4G-LTE and the signal strength improved to anywhere between -103 to -94 dBm. (The less negative the signal strength in dBm the stronger the signal.) That may not appear impressive on the surface, and it was certainly not the 50 dBm gain that is claimed for this device, but it was actually a significant improvement.

“dB” is the abbreviation for “decibels” which is a logarithmic scale. Logarithmic scales are useful for representing quantities that vary over a large range, like cellular signal strengths. A change of 3 dB represents a factor of two, i.e., a doubling or halving of the quantity. Thus a change from -118 dBm to -115 dBm (decibels to a millivolt) represents a doubling of the received power. It is still a weak signal, but it is twice as strong. Going from -118 to -103 is a change of +15 dBm and is five doublings (-118 to -115 to -112 to -109 to -106 to -103) which is an increase of 2x2x2x2x2 = 32 times. Continuing from -103 to -94 is another +9 dB change representing three more doublings (-103 to -100 to -97 to -94) for a total gain of 32x2x2x2 = 32×8 = 256 times. Starting from a signal in the -118 to -127 dBm range that is potentially the difference between useable and not useable. (BTW: a change of 10 dB is a factor of 10, so going from -115 dBm to -105 dBm and then to -95 dBm represents an increase of 100 times.)

We had decided at dinner last night that we wanted to go to The Blue Nile restaurant while Mara was here. The best time to go turned out to be this evening, so Linda made an online reservation for 7:30 PM at the Ann Arbor location (there is also one in Ferndale). We tested the weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster on the drive to/from Ann Arbor and it definitely made a difference in the signal strength we saw on our phones.

It wasn’t until we got part way down Main Street that we realized that today was the opening day of the Ann Arbor Art Fair. The last place I wanted to be driving, parking, or walking was at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, not because I dislike art (we love art), and not because I dislike art fairs, but because I dislike congested traffic and crowds, which the AAAF has in abundance. Surprisingly, we were able to park in one of the parking structures a couple of blocks from the restaurant. After fighting our way through the pedestrian traffic I was even more surprised to find the restaurant essentially empty. The Blue Nile is slightly outside the portion of Main Street where the AAAF takes place and streets to either side that are closed off to vehicles during the AAAF. All of the restaurants and the beer/burger joints in and around the AAAF venue were doing a brisk business, especially if they had outside seating (it was a very pleasant evening), but the restaurant was open and the host was very gracious.

The Blue Nile serves Ethiopian cuisine. Some of the tables are upside down rope baskets with four chairs and two side tables. We always ask to be seated at one of these because we always order the Vegetarian Feast which is, in fact, vegan. The Feast comes on a large round tray covered with a layer of Ethiopian sponge bread (made from teff flour) with small piles of the seven different vegetable-based dishes on the menu surrounding a pile of (optional) salad in the center. Beverages and platters of rolled up sponge bread are placed on the two side tables (we had water and Ethiopian spiced tea). The meal is eaten by tearing off suitable sized pieces of sponge bread and picking up the eight different selections from the tray. Before the food was brought to the table we were given hot, moist towels to wash our hands. Nice touch.

The food was amazing and the experience somewhat more communal than sitting at a standard American table and eating with utensils. The waitstaff was gracious and attentive and it was a wonderful experience for all three of us. Mara asked one of the waitstaff to take a picture of the three of us, which they gladly did. She then uploaded it to her Facebook page along with a brief description of her visit and meal. One the drive home she already had 12 “likes.” This is the side of Facebook, and other social media, that is fun.

It was getting dark by the time we got back to the house but we took the time to unload Mara’s kayak from its special mount on the rear of her motorhome that is installed in the tow receiver. The kayak mounts diagonally from the lower driver side up past the roof on the passenger side and the tip is about 13′ 2″ above the ground. She was leaving at 6:30 AM the next morning to drive to Cummins Bridgeway to have her main engine and genset serviced and would be traveling south on Hacker Road to Grand River Avenue. The last time we did this we clipped a branch in the southbound lane on Hacker just north of Bendix Drive not far from Grand River Avenue. I was concerned that she would catch the same branch and damage her kayak which is why we took it off the rig.

Once the kayak was off the back of her rig and sitting in our yard we said a quick “good night” and all trundled off to bed as 6 AM would come all too soon. I wrote for a while in bed but was too tired, and full of food, to stay awake.

2015/07/14 (T) Red Chili Wine

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Storms moved through the area overnight with more lightning and thunder than rain, or at so it seemed. The storms were triggered by a cold front, behind which we had a cloudy day with periods of rain. Linda was up at 7 AM and read quietly until I got up at 8. I made a full pot of coffee (Cafe Europe half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then joined her in the living room.

Linda was checking Dr. Michael Gregor’s speaking schedule and saw that he will be at Wayne State University in December and will be one of the keynote speakers for the 2016 Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruise. We have not heard him speak in person, and will not be here in December, so that would be another reason to go on the cruise again. By 9:45 AM Mara had not emerged from her rig so we went ahead and had breakfast. Linda then went for a walk and I went to my office and worked on the design of the custom desk for the bus.

Mara finally emerged at 10:30 AM and we chatted for a while until Linda got back. Our chat was briefly interrupted by a call from Mike (W8XH) on the Novi repeater so Mara got to see ham radio in operation. My reception was weak and noisy and according to Mike my transmitted signal wasn’t any better. The only thing that has changed since we tested this late last week is that I got the repaired M-302N VHF/UHF lightning arrestor back from Morgan Manufacturing yesterday and re-installed it. Mike is going to help me do some more testing, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that these units are defective by design and I will have to replace them with something else. I am disappointed to say the least.

It was another cool, cloudy, rainy day, just the kind of day for staying inside and getting stuff done. Linda and Mara both had things to do and settled in at the dining room table to work. Mara has been focused on planning her upcoming travels and spent much of the day making reservations. Linda worked on the bookkeeping for our GLCC chapter and SLAARC ham radio club (she is treasurer of both). She also renewed our Coach-Net emergency road service and our Harvest Host membership, which had expired, and probably took care of a lot of other things that I don’t even know about. Except for an occasional break I worked on the custom desk design until 6:30 PM. On one of those breaks I needed to measure something in the bus so we gave Mara the inside tour.

When I came upstairs Mara was taking advantage of the unlimited hot water available in our guest bathroom to have a nice long shower. We know from personal experience what a luxury it is to take such a shower when living in an RV. Linda had started preparing our dinner so I opened the bottle of Hatch Red Chili wine. This wine, from St. Claire Winery in Deming, New Mexico is one of the more unusual wines we have ever had but we really like it. It is a slightly sweet red wine with no tannin, a hint of chili flavor, and heat in the back of the throat on the finish. We had vegan mock Italian sausages with sautéed onions and red peppers and the wine went well with it. I had mine on a hotdog bun with mustard. Mara had another serving of her beef stew, which she is trying to use up, and Linda put out a plate of whole, fresh strawberries.

One of the nice things about having visitors is that meals take longer to eat as we linger at the table in conversation. Mara returned to her rig around 9 PM to have some quiet time with her cats before going to bed. Linda decided to watch a couple of TV programs and I went back to work on the desk design. I called it quits around 10:45 PM and went to bed to work on this post. The overnight low is forecast to drop into the upper 40’s which should make for excellent sleeping.

2015/07/13 (M) weBoost

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Linda got up before I did and went for a long walk. I was up by the time she got back and made a full pot of the Sumatra Mandheling coffee I just got from Teeko’s. Mara eventually joined us for coffee and then breakfast.

Mara wanted to get the engine and generator serviced in her Fleetwood Bounder motorhome and asked for recommendations in the area. There were three relatively convenient options but we had her contact Cummins Bridgeway in New Hudson, in part because she has an Onan (Cummins) generator and in part because we took our Itasca Sunrise motorhome there and were always pleased with the quality of the service. They said they could take her on Thursday and she set up the appointment. They estimated three to four hours so she plans to wait for it.

Mara was also interested in a mobile cellular booster for her motorhome, and I have been planning to get one for several years, so we researched the current offerings online. At one time Wilson Electronics practically owned the mobile booster market. They have more competition now and their consumer systems have been rebranded “weBoost.”

After scanning what was available we focused in on the weBoost Drive 4G-M and Drive 4G-X. I downloaded the PDF manuals for each of them and studied the specifications. I don’t care about the marketing hype. As they used to say on Dragnet “the facts mam, just the facts.” Both units are 5-band, multi-mode units designed for in-motion use and the specs were very similar, but not identical. The MSRP on the X model was almost $100 more than the M model so I called Cellular Solutions and talked to Judy. In practical terms, she said the X model would work with weaker signals.

I was prepared to order two of them but they did not have them in stock at their Sanford, Michigan location. She thought she could have them to us by Friday but that was not soon enough and we did not want to pay $30 for 2-day shipping on top paying almost $30 in sales tax (for each unit). So we did what we always do, we checked Amazon. Amazon had four of the weBoost Drive 4G-X systems so I ordered two of them with Prime 2nd day shipping of $4.99 each and no sales tax. They are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday July 15 which will give us enough time to get them installed.

The installation on both rigs will require me to attach a steel plate to the roof to act as a base for the small 4″ tall magnetic mount outside antenna. On our rig I will probably put the antenna up front and screw the plate to the existing aluminum plate, using putty under all the edges and the screw holes, and then caulk around the edge and the heads of the screws. The cable will come in through the front weatherhead. On Mara’s rig I will see if I can route the cable through the refrigerator roof vent or the roof-mounted air-conditioner cover. The route will determine the placement of the steel base plate.

Linda made an appointment for Mara with our hairdresser, Renee, at the J. C. Penney’s salon at 12 Oaks Mall for Wednesday at 1:30 PM. By the time we had accomplished all of this it was early afternoon and time for a light lunch. After lunch Linda and Mara went for a long, vigorous walk and I retreated to my office and worked on the custom desk design. I e-mailed Jarel to see if he would be available on Thursday. He e-mailed back that any day but Thursday would be OK, so I may go Friday but more likely it will be next Monday. I thought I could have the design done by Wednesday bedtime, but it would have been a push and I did not want to rush the process and risk making a mistake. As much as I hate to delay this until next week I may have to. Mara may leave on Friday, or delay until Saturday or Sunday, and I want to be hear when she leaves. Meanwhile, Madeline is coming to stay with us on Friday and will be here until Monday. These are indeed busy times.

I came back upstairs just before 5 PM and found the ladies sitting in the shade at the east end of the deck. Mara was busy using MapMyPlaces to plan the next leg of her travels from our house to Quebec City, a trip of just under 1,000 miles. I got a couple of ice cold beers (Linda did not want any) and we sat and talked until Mara returned to her rig at 6:30 PM to tend to her cats and have an hour of quiet time before dinner.

We got back together at 7:30 PM for dinner, which consisted of leftovers plus a simple salad for us. Dinner led into a long discussion about health and nutrition. We talked about the Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruise, which usually takes place the first week in March, and the vegan summer fest that takes place each July in Pennsylvania. Mara seemed interested in both and thought she might be able to get her friend, Michael, to go on the cruise with her.

The more we talked the more we thought we might like to go again. The last time we went, in 2013, we researched places where we could board the cats. The only place we found that looked any good was in Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda is quite a drive from Ft. Lauderdale, but it is not that far from Arcadia where we will be parked for January and February. It would be easy to take the cats there and then drive to the Port of Miami to catch the ship. However, if Mara goes on the cruise we might have another option. When she has to leave her rig for a while, such as her recent trip to Belgium, she flies her sister in from California to house and cat sit. She assured us that “sis” would be happy to take care of our cars as well. All that would be required would be for us to have our motorhomes at the same RV park. That could be Big Tree in Arcadia (since we would already be there) or someplace near Miami (if we could both get in). Adjacent sites would be nice, but not necessary. I have no idea if we will do this, but it was fun to consider the possibility.

2015/07/12 (N) Mara Comes To Visit

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When I shut down the bus yesterday I forgot to shut off the air supply to the engine accessories and turn off the chassis batteries, so I did that as soon as I got up this morning. I then made coffee and we had our usual juice and homemade granola. After breakfast Linda went shopping and I went to Lowe’s. She picked up a lot of fresh vegetables at the Howell Farmers Market and finished up at Meijer’s. I bought a 4-piece screw extractor set and then stopped at O’Reilly’s and bought two gallons of 50/50 pre-mixed universal antifreeze to top up the Aqua-Hot in our bus. I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea and had them roast a pound of Sumatra Mandheling beans. We have not tried these before but Mary thought we would like them. They are not decaffeinated, but we try to keep a regular coffee bean on hand for company, after dinner, or when we want (need) the high octane in the morning.

Linda had been in contact with our friend Mara for the last few weeks so we knew that she might stop here on her way to the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Late last week she confirmed that she would be here on Sunday so after our morning errands we turned our attention to getting ready for her arrival. She lives/travels in a Fleetwood Bounder (Class A motorhome). We saw it in Quartzsite, so we knew it was somewhere between 35 and 40 feet in length and that she does not tow a car behind it. Yesterday we moved our bus so she could park on the level pad with easy access to our 50 Amp electrical hookup. I cleaned up the coaxial cables that I had spread out all over the rec room floor and Linda vacuumed the carpets and wood floors and cleaned the bathrooms. We keep a clean house but it is not always tidy as we are involved in a lot of projects at the moment. But when company is coming we like things to a least start out tidy.

Mara was coming from Michigan City, Indiana so she only had 200 miles to travel. Most of it would have been on Interstate highways but she decided to detour over to Three Rivers, Michigan to visit a Latvian community located nearby. She finally arrived at our house around 2:30 PM. We met her in the street and I directed her into her parking spot.

It’s always exciting, and a bit intense, to meet up with an RV friend and that was certainly the case here. Mara had enjoyed her stop at the Latvian community even though she found them in church. We had last seen her in Quartzsite, Arizona in February. We had all had a lot of RV travel adventures since then, and it was also her first visit to our house, so we had lots to talk about.

Linda made bow-tie pasta with mushrooms, onions, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil pesto using basil that she grew on our back deck. We had a simple green salad and Italian bread with the meal and enjoyed 1-1/2 bottles of the 2013 Egri Merlot between the three of us. We sat on the deck enjoying the last of the wine until it cooled off and we went inside. By 9 PM we were all tired but we insisted that Mara stay for fresh sweet cherries. Rejuvenated by the cherries we all got our second wind and had a long conversation about RVs, cellular and Wi-Fi communications while traveling, and a cool routing app that Mara uses (MapMyPlaces). By 11 PM we were all tired for real and Mara returned to her rig for the night. It had been a long, but very satisfying, day for all of us.

2015/07/11 (S) Impactful Tools

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We had a small crowd for our SLAARC breakfast this morning but good conversation. After breakfast we drove to Chuck’s house and picked up the manual impact screwdriver. Barb was up in the thumb visiting her brother-in-law who recently lost his wife (Barb’s sister). We lingered for a while and then left for home, stopping for gas on the way.

Back at the house I started a load of laundry and then went to work on the stop block screws. Linda helped steady the ladder and pass tools and parts back and forth. I got three of the four screws out of the two stop blocks but the head stripped on the forth one so I was only able to remove the aft stop block. I tried different bits and even tried drilling a small hole in the center of the head to allow the bits to go in farther but it did not work. The next approach will be a screw extractor, but first I have to go buy one.

We had soy yogurt for lunch with red grapes and I had a few pretzels with roasted red pepper hummus. I kept trying to get to the basement to work on the desk design but kept getting detoured. Once I finally reached my office I found that the mouse trap that I had placed under one of my desks was out in front of it. The food was gone but there was no mouse, only mouse poop. I realized that the trap was upside down which allowed the door to swing open. Our best guess is that a mouse was trapped and the cats pulled the trap out from under the desk and accidentally turned it over while pawing at it trying to get the mouse. Since there was no sign of a mouse having been caught by one of the cats my best guess is that it escaped, for now.

I checked e-mails and found the one with the credentials and instructions for the QTH.com web-hosting of SLAARC.com so I shared those with the other members of the SLAARC website team and then logged in to check out the log file I had created the other day as a test.

I decided to reconnect the Yaesu FTM-400 radio to the Diamond X-50 antenna on the tower so I could monitor the Novi and South Lyon repeaters while I worked in my office. I had quite a mess on the ham shack desks and decided the best way to deal with it was to install Mike’s Icom IC-2820H in my car in place of our Icom V-8000 2m rig. At least that would get the 2820 off the desk. I checked that the mounting brackets and they were identical so I removed the V-8000 but left the mounting bracket installed in the car.

Mike had modified the power cord on his radio by cutting off the T-connector and replacing it with Andersen PowerPoles so I had to modify the power cable in my car to match as I could not modify Mike’s radio. I removed the fuse from the positive (+12VDC) lead and then cut off the T-connector, leaving about 6″ of wire so I can add PowerPoles and make it into an adapter cable. I brought my Hakko soldering station up from the basement, set it up on the floor behind the center console, ran an extension cord from the garage, and used it to solder PowerPole contacts to the two wires. I then inserted them into the black/red housing pair and snapped them in place.

I mounted the IC-2820H, connected the power cable and connected the coax from the antenna. I reinstalled the fuse in the positive lead, started the engine, and turned the radio on. A couple of hams were chatting on the Novi repeater, one of whom I knew (Jim, KB8TAV). When they finished I gave Jim a call and he came back to me, the first time I have been able to use the Novi 440 repeater from my car. Jim signed off and I switched to the South Lyon 2m repeater and gave a general call. Steve (N8AR) came back to me and we had a short QSO that verified the radio/antenna was also working on 2m. As we were wrapping up Linda started fixing dinner.

Linda fixed a simple salad and Dr. Praeger’s vegan hamburgers with Daiya non-dairy cheese. These patties were also squishy rather than firm and, like the ones at Zingerman’s Roadhouse the other night, where not very satisfying. They tasted OK, and we ate them because we are not inclined to waste food, but there is a lot more to what makes food satisfying than just taste. Sight, smell, and texture (mouth feel) are also important.

Linda had several TXT messages from Mara letting us know that she would be arriving tomorrow sometime before 2 PM as she wanted to watch the Wimbledon finals at that time. Linda and I considered how best to accommodate Mara’s motorhome and finally decided to just pull our bus straight forward until the nose was at the edge of the concrete driveway. That created more than enough space on the level part of the pull-through driveway for her to park and plug in to our 50 amp service. The only loads we have in the bus at the moment are battery chargers so we used our 15 amp cord to plug it into a garage outlet. Since I had to start it to move I switched it to high idle once I had it positioned, leveled it, turned on the OTR air-conditioning to put a load on the engine, and let it run for 30 minutes.

I returned to my office after dinner and work on the desk design for a while but by this point I was tired and not really in the mood. The last time I updated the BCM page on our website was after the February 2015 issue came out. I have had articles in the March, April, and May issues and will have articles in the June and July issues. I captured the covers from March, April, and May and updated the page.

I exchanged e-mails with several people and spent some time looking at dual and triple monitor stands on EBay. We rarely use EBay and the site made me change our password before it would let me log in. There was a large selection of products but none of them were exactly what I am looking for. There wasn’t any rush so I decided to revisit this tomorrow.

2015/07/10 (F) Eye of the Beholder

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I was up at 7 AM and made coffee. This usually wakes Linda up, but not this morning. After waiting a reasonable amount of time I went ahead and started drinking. If someone tells you that 7:30 is too early in the morning to be drinking don’t believe it, and if someone tells you that you should never drink alone don’t believe that either.

Linda eventually got up but looked really tired. Unbeknownst to me she had awoken in the middle of the night and not been able to get back to sleep. Neither of us were hungry after the large meals we had last night for dinner so we just had a little juice to wash down our little pills (vitamins and an allergy pill for me).

I’ve been looking for a system to wall-mount multiple flat-panel LCD monitors above/behind the desks in the ham radio shack portion of the downstairs office. Linda was helping search for products and found AFC Industries in New York. Their website had a large variety of very serious looking products. The ones that caught my eye were a 72″ wall mount track with four articulated monitor mounts and a 48″ track with three mounts. They had an 800 number and the website said to call for pricing. That’s usually a bad sign but they appeared to have exactly what I needed so I decided to call them later.

I had planned to work on the custom desk design all day but Linda had other ideas. She had become frustrated with the clutter in the library and the inability to really clean that room and decided that today was the day to do something about it. Point acknowledged. Some of the clutter (but not all) is artwork and she thought the place for us to start was to get some of it hung on the walls. Again, point well taken and agreed. Doing this correctly is a slow process, however, so I knew my plans for the whole day had just changed. Sometimes you have go along to get along.

We have artwork that is not currently displayed which ranges in size from 8″ x 10″ to 2′ x 5′. Some of it is framed and ready for hanging and some of it is not. It is mostly paintings but there is some photography, a few poster prints, and some textile pieces. We went through every piece looking primarily for oil paintings that we liked and that would fit the spaces we had available to hang them. Before we were finished with this project for the day we had hung eight paintings. We also found four paintings that we liked but lacked frames, or ways to hang them, and set them aside for now. Most of the paintings were done by Ann Metzger, my late great Aunt, but one was done by my late mother. We had also moved a few items out of the library into the driveway to be donated to the Salvation Army. I tend to use drywall screws with large fender washers as hangers as they are strong and very secure. We ran out of stainless steel fender washers so that created a natural stopping point for our task.

For a change of pace I decided to climb the tower to measure the center sleeve inside diameter so I could determine what outside diameter mast to get. I got out Mike’s climbing harness, set up the step ladder, put on the harness, climbed up onto the roof, connected the waist strap around the tower, and started climbing. I alternately attached and detached the two safety cables and made good progress until I got to the DB8e OTA TV antenna. To go higher I would have to move from the west face to the northeast face and then undo the waist strap and reconnect it above the mounting point for the OTA TV antenna. I did not feel like doing that today. I was, however, able to reach the bottom of the sleeve by extending my tape measure. The tip of the tape fit inside the bottom of the sleeve with what appeared to be about a quarter inch to spare. I then climbed down and got off the roof, got out of the climbing harness, and put it away.

Back in the house the tip of the tape measured approximately 1-1/8″ across thus it appears that the sleeve is sized for a 1-3/8″ outside diameter mast. I checked Universal Towers website, since they are located in S. E. Michigan, but their selection of aluminum masts did not include this O.D. OnlineMetals.com has 1-3/8″ O.D. 6061-T6 aluminum tube in five different wall thicknesses and a large variety of lengths so that may be the easiest way to get one. But first I will check the usual ham radio places.

Next I called AFC Industries and was routed to Ewa who was very curious what I was going to use the multiple monitors for since I was not a company. I tried to explain why I would need at least three monitors in an amateur (ham) radio shack but she had never heard of ham radio and I don’t think I did a very good job of explaining it. She was paying attention to what I was describing, however, about where I wanted to position the monitors. She could not give me pricing on the phone so I gave her my e-mail address to send a quote. Ewa was prompt in the sending the quote but I did not see it until later as we had the leftover seitan stroganoff for lunch and then left to run errands.

Linda had loaded our donation items in the back of my car while I was on the phone. I brought seven paintings to the car and we left. Our first stop was the Salvation Army donation center between Brighton and Howell. We then went to the Howell Art and Framing Center, a frame shop on the east end of downtown Howell. The proprietor, Rick, worked with us quite a while as we selected frames for four of the seven pieces and played with his Jack Russell terrier, Rudy. These four pieces will go in the library when they are done in about three weeks. Our final stop was Meijer’s where we picked up fender washers, salad greens, and coffee filters.

Back at the house I went to my office to check e-mail and work on the desk design. The quote was there from Ewa and she had already made a follow up phone call so I opened the e-mail and looked at the quote. It was almost double what I expected which was already double what I wanted to spend. I e-mailed her back and asked for a simpler configuration but politely explained that her numbers were way out of my price range. The interesting thing about such experiences is that the Ziotek products I’ve been looking at on the CyberGuys website suddenly do not seem so expensive. It’s funny how that works.

While I was working I got a TXT message from Chuck following up on the refrigerator installation. I texted back that I had not yet checked whether we can open the fixed glass window frame but would do so immediately and call him back. I moved the 7′ step ladder next to the bus and climbed up to inspect the stop blocks as Linda pushed the window open. The two stop blocks on that frame were definitely contacting the drip rail immediately above them preventing the frame from opening more than about 8 to 10 inches at the bottom. The good news was that the Zip Dee patio awning would not interfere with the opening of the window. The bad news is that I was not able to remove the two Philips head screws that secured each block to the frame.

I called Butch to find out what the tool was that I used at his shop to work on my brakes. He said it was a manual impact tool. This nifty little device is a screwdriver that turns through a small angle when you strike the end of it with a hammer. This has the unique benefit of driving the screwdriver bit into the screw head while turning. Butch thought that any auto store would have these so I called the local O’Reilly’s but they did not have any in stock in the store.

While I was talking to Butch Linda was researching other places to buy such a tool. It turned out that Sears would be a good choice but the closest one was at Twelve Oaks Mall over 20 miles away. I was getting ready to drive there but called Chuck first. It turned out that he has two of them so I will borrow one tomorrow after our ham radio club breakfast. I spent the last couple hours of the evening working on the desk design. I then went to bed and worked on this post.

2015/07/09 (R) Graduation Celebration

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My main focus this morning was my dentist appointment at 10:30 AM. I wanted to leave the house at 9 AM so I had plenty of time to get there and actually left at 9:15. Once I was on I-96 eastbound and clear of the construction at US-23 I called the South Lyon 2m repeater and Steve (N8AR) came back to my call. I-96 was very slow as I approached Wixom Road so I exited at Beck Road and dropped down onto Grand River Avenue (GRA). I got off GRA at M-5 in Farmington Hills and took that to where it ended and rejoined GRA. I continued to Telegraph Road and headed south. My QSO with Steve lasted until there by which point there was too much noise and not enough signal for a pleasant conversation. In spite of the change from my intended route I was still at the dentist’s office by 10:10 AM and they were able to take me in early.

On the way home I called the South Lyon 2m repeater and Mike (W8XH) responded to the call. As a result of differing weekend plans I decided to head to his QTH and pick up his climbing harness. While I was there I took a few minutes to look at his reconfigured ham shack and his Canon EOS D7 Mark II DSLR. To say that I am unhappy about Sony’s failure to release the alpha 99 II FF DSLT would be a gross understatement and I am not alone in the sentiment.

Back at the house we had a light lunch of sourdough pretzel nibblers and roasted red pepper hummus. I then went to my office to continue working on the custom desk design for our bus. But first I was taking care of e-mails when Williston Crossings RV Resort called back and said they had a spot for us for December. We had not heard back from Suncoast Designers regarding an appointment to have a fogged window repaired so I called them. They said they had replied to my e-mail letting us know that we were scheduled for December 7 but the e-mail had not come through, so I need to check the spam filter.

Linda called back and accepted the spot at Williston starting December 1st. We will have to leave for one to three days to have the window taken care of and we will depart on the 26th for the Arcadia Bus Rally but the monthly rate will still be cheaper than paying for three weeks at the weekly rate. Besides, they did not have a two or three week opening.

I did get a couple of hours of work done on the desk design and then had to quit. A month ago our elder grand-daughter, Katie, missed her high school graduation due to a sudden illness. Meghan and Chris (Katie’s dad) made reservations at Zingerman’s Roadhouse for 5:45 PM today and we gathered to celebrate this milestone in Katie’s life. Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline also joined us and we all enjoyed quizzing (and teasing) Katie about her upcoming college experience at Northern Michigan University where she plans to major in Wildlife and Fisheries within the larger biology program.

Linda and I had the black bean burger with fresh, hand-cut fries. Although it was tasty, and vegan, it did not have any binders and completely fell apart when I tried to assemble it as a sandwich. We ordered them on sourdough bread as the buns had an egg wash. Zingerman’s has excellent bread, but it is the rustic style with crusts that are so tough you cannot cut them with a knife (or a chainsaw). Thus the “burger” was difficult to eat even as an open faced sandwich and was basically a messy pile of “stuff” on my plate. Linda seemed to enjoy hers but I regretted ordering it even though I ate the whole thing. I did, however, have a glass of Schramm’s Raspberry Mead made by my friend, and former colleague, Ken Schramm. It was excellent. The hand-cut fries were also good and the waitress was delightful, which is always a plus.

Back home I worked for a couple more hours in my office and then worked on this post. I put my new N.T.I. dental appliance on my lower front teeth just before going to bed. It obviously felt a little strange but did not keep me from falling asleep.

2015/07/08 (W) Custom Desk Design

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Linda continued to research Florida RV parks this morning over coffee. Riverside RV Resort which was fully booked but she found Big Tree RV Resort in Arcadia, Florida. It is located in a similar part of the state and Arcadia is where the annual Arcadia Bus Rally is held between Christmas and New Year’s. Big Tree is a Carefree Resort, which means they had a nice, professionally done video on their website. We checked it out on Google Earth and it looked OK. Hey, the entrance is right across the street from a Walmart, so the shopping is convenient.

Linda called Big Tree and talked to Pat. They only had five openings for the 2015/16 winter season so we reserved a spot for January and February 2016 with the understanding that we can probably extend through March if needed. First, however, we want to see if we can find someplace else to stay in another part of Florida for March and perhaps some of April. We would like to spend some time in northeast Florida. Our friends, Pat and Vicki, spend late February and early March at Jetty Park near Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral. Besides their presence there is a lot to see and do in that area, so that is appealing to us. However, the spring FMCA national rally will be in Perry, Georgia the third week of March, so we are being pulled in several directions. Such is the RV life; so many places, so little time.

Breakfast was cinnamon raisin toast and fresh melon. After breakfast I called Chuck It Junk Removal and left a message that we would like to rent their dumpster trailer for starting on Monday 20 July with pickup on Friday 24 July. Brad called back and said those dates would work for him.

Linda continued to research RV parks in Florida for December and March. She called Williston Crossings to ask about space for December but the lady on the phone said someone else would have to call us back. As much as we liked Williston Crossings the winter before last we wanted to spend the heart of the winter farther south in the state. A more southerly location would afford us a warmer climate and position us to explore a part of the state we did not see last time. It would also put us closer to many of our friends who winter in southwest Florida. We really enjoyed the southwest Arizona climate this past winter and have talked about trying a winter in southern Texas and/or southern New Mexico. I have no doubt we will visit those areas in future years but this year we wanted to return to Florida.

I typed up a short letter to go with the defective Morgan M-302N coaxial cable lightning arrestor and boxed it up for shipping back to Morgan Manufacturing in Martinsville, Indiana. Linda got a new 90-day prescription for me when she saw the dermatologist yesterday so we also got that ready to mail. She then left for the library, post office, and grocery store.

My focus for the rest of the morning was on uploading posts to our personal blog but before I even got started I discovered a mouse at the entrance to the utility area in the basement. It had not survived its encounter with one of our cats, probably Juniper, so I put it in a small zip lock bag and put it in the trash. I know that food and shelter are powerful attractions for mice but I am surprised that the presence of two cats in the house is apparently not a deterrent for them. Other than the one mouse we live trapped in the bathroom the mice are not taking the bait so far. Indeed, it may be that we are luring them out of hiding and Juniper has figured out where to lie in waiting to ambush them. From what we have seen she is a very skilled, and determined, mouser.

Linda went for a walk as soon as she got back from running her errands. By the time she returned and prepared tofu hotdogs for lunch I had uploaded eight blog posts covering June 8 through 15. After lunch I sent an e-mail to a dozen or so folks letting them know where we would be this winter. I then got to work on the design for the custom desk. Except for a dinner break I worked on it until 9 PM when I quit for the day and went upstairs to watch the final episode of The First Peoples on PBS.

Butch and Fonda are at the Crosley Automobile Club national gathering in Wauseon, Ohio this week and will be back home on Sunday. I would like to have the design for the desk and other custom woodwork done by this Sunday so I can drive it down on Monday or Tuesday next week, give it to Jarel Beatty (the cabinet maker), and visit with Butch and Fonda before heading home. The desk will take some time to build and I would like to take the bus to Butch and Fonda’s in August before they leave for Arizona so Jarel can bring it to their place and help me install it, assuming, of course, that I have the new floor installed by then.

The desk is proving to be quite challenging to design but after thinking about it for the last couple of weeks I had several “breakthrough” ideas today. One was to turn the printer 90 degrees so it faces fore and aft rather than side-to-side. Another was to leave the front of the printer box open and cover it with a swing up work surface. But the basic difficulty I am having is figuring out how to draw it. I finally decided to draw a plan view of the base which really helped me see where the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers will go and how the coolant lines will run. I still have a lot of work to do, and I really wish I had AutoCAD (and knew how to use it), but I went to bed feeling like Sunday was a realistic target date for this piece of the project.

2015/07/07 (T) Field Day Photos

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We did not sleep well last night, were slow to get up this morning, and slower to get going. A cold front was pushing in from the northwest with the promise of cooler temperatures and sunny, blue skies, but first we were in for a day of overcast conditions and rain, which started around 8:30 AM. It was a perfect morning to sit quietly in the living room, reading, writing, and drinking our coffee but too warm to turn on the gas fireplace logs.

Yesterday Linda started researching RV parks in southern Florida for this coming winter and we spent some time this morning looking at them online. There was one in particular, Riverside RV Resort and Campground, which caught our attention. Located on the Peace River near Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, it is a short distance southwest of Arcadia where the annual Buss’in rally is held. We went to the rally two years ago and had a great time so we will go again this year if we decide to winter in Florida, which is our current inclination.

One of the reasons for us to winter in Florida, at least occasionally, is our many contacts there. Our friends, Steve and Karen, bought a mobile home near Venice; our friends, Chuck and Barbara, bought a lot at Pelican Lake in Naples; our ham radio friends, Bruce and Linda, bought a house on 25 acres near Brooksville; our GLCC fiends, Ed and Janet, bought a place that I think is near Sarasota; our FMCA Freethinker friends, John and Marian, bought a place in Dunnellon; and our other FMCA Freethinker friends, Ed and Betty, bought a place in Bradenton. In addition to all of those folks quite a few of our RV friends, like Pat and Vicki, spend the winter in Florida, and the state has a lot of things to see and do, including one of the best state park systems in the nation.

Linda left for her appointment with the dermatologist and I got to work at my desk. I continued to deal with e-mails related to the SLAARC domain transfer and an ongoing conversation with BCM publisher Gary Hatt. I got a Dropbox link to some Field Day photos from Steve (N8AR) a few days ago and downloaded them. Last night I got a similar e-mail from Mike (KE8AGY) with a Google Drive link and today I got one from Jim (N8HAM) so I downloaded all of those photos. I spent most of the rest of the day selecting and processing the photos I took and then processed all of the ones I got from other people.

I took a break to chat with Linda when she got back from her appointment. I then removed the defective Morgan M-302N VHF/UHF Lightning Arrestor from the cable entry box and boxed it up to ship back to Morgan. I took another short break for dinner, which was an excellent Farro and kale dish, and then worked until 8:30 PM when we had agreed to watch a movie. This evening’s choice was The Imitation Game, a film about Alan Touring and the concepts he invented that allowed the British to build a machine that broke the coded messages generated by the German Enigma machine during WWII. I spent another hour at my desk after the movie before going to bed and finishing this post. Tomorrow morning I plan to finally upload some blog posts and then get back to work on the design of the custom desk for the bus.

2015/07/06 (M) Arrested

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Our morning started with coffee, once we got up, and then granola for breakfast. We are both in better health, generally, than we were in our 30s, 40s, and early 50s, but having Madeline here requires a different kind of constant energy and attention and we are somewhat tired by the time her parents take her home. It’s a good tired, of course, but we were still tired this morning and slept in for a while.

I had hoped to get back to work on the bus today but the afternoon highs were forecast for the mid-80’s which would make for less than comfortable working conditions. The forecast for the rest of the week was for highs in the 70’s so I decided to wait another day. I really needed to get back to work on the bus but I also had other things to take care of that seemed at least as pressing.

At the top of my list was the SLAARC website. Scott Neader had successfully copied the SLAARC WordPress website from GoDaddy.com to QTH.com and changed the domain pointers to point to the QTH servers. He needed me to check that everything was working correctly. He was also preparing to transfer the domain name registration and needed my involvement for that process.

Part of our home ham radio shack with the new Yaesu FTM-400 2m/70cm mobile radio shown lower left.

Continuing with the ham radio theme, I needed to resolve how I was going to mount the new Diamond X-300NA 2m/70cm antenna and possibly remount the outside omnidirectional antenna for the cellular booster system. That meant doing some minor engineering and possibly ordering parts. I was also preoccupied with the fact that I was unable to participate in the SLAARC info net last night, apparently due to some malfunction in our ham radio system, and it was going to bug me until I figured it out.

Last, but not least, was the fact that I was now one month behind on uploading posts to our blog. The farther behind I get the more of a chore it is to get caught up. Like cleaning up my e-mail inboxes, which I also need to do, it finally becomes “the” thing I “have” to take care of before I can concentrate on any other work. I hate it when that happens, but it is a recurring problem and I have no one to blame except myself.

I often seem to spend the first part of each morning finishing up my blog post (draft) for the previous day and outlining the one for the current day or making notes for future days. It’s my way of reflecting on what I have done and thinking ahead to what I need/want to do next. By the time I actually got to work this morning it was after 10 AM and Keith showed up to cut the grass. It did not rain this past week and he was finally able to cut the grass at the west end of the property, which is low and often wet.

Before going to my office I checked the rebate paperwork which Linda had assembled for the new Yaesu ham radio and got it ready to mail. I also started filling out the prescription form to send in to Catamaran Home Delivery when I realized the doctor had written the Rx for 30 days instead of 90. I called the clinic and they said it would (probably) be OK to have Linda bring it to her appointment tomorrow and have the doctor rewrite it.

Our coaxial cable adapter kit.

When I finally got to my office I looked at the SLAARC WordPress website on my computer to make sure everything was working. The only thing that was not working was an online tool for logging check-ins for the Sunday evening info net. I e-mailed Scott about that and then logged in as an administrator and updated several plugins. I logged in to the FMCA-GLCC website and updated it and then did the same for our personal website. I then created a support ticket at iPower.com regarding the broken FMCA Freethinkers website. I dealt with SLAARC related e-mails throughout the day.

I spent the rest of the morning editing blog posts for the second half of June and early July and then started selecting and processing photos to use with blog posts, and processed those further. By the time I quit working I had photos ready for everything except the three days of the ARRL Field Day event.

It was a nice day, if a bit warm, and we had the house opened up including the basement doorwall. Other than a short break for lunch by 2 PM I had sat long enough and decided to setup the new Diamond X-300 2m/70cm antenna on a temporary pole. I rummaged around the garage and found the four section pole I had used at the old house. The pieces were buried under a pile of GLCC related PVC flag pole sections but I was able to slide them out. I cleaned up the swaged connections and used a light coating of anti-seize compound before assembling them. I stood it upright on the ground at the NE corner of the deck and zip tied it to the corner post at three points. I then set up the 7-foot step ladder on the deck and removed the upper two sections.

The new Diamond X-300NA VHF/UHF ham radio antenna is visible atop the pole at the corner of the deck.

I unbolted the X-300 antenna from its storage place on the side of the 40-foot tower and set the base on the east deck railing. I then got one of the 35-foot heliac coax cables from the basement and attached it to the feed point of the antenna. With Linda’s assistance I mounted the antenna to the top of the topmost mast section and zip tied the coax to the mast. Back up on the ladder I was able to slip the upper mast sections into the lower mast sections and add a couple more zip ties to secure the coax.

I routed the coax over to the cable entry box (CEB) so that it was not visible. The antenna is shielded from view by our Norway Crimson King Maple tree and the mast is very inconspicuous; not bad for a temporary installation. I disconnected the X-50 antenna coax from the Morgan UHF/VHF Lightning Arrestor in the CEB and attached the coax from the X-300 in its place. I went back to the ham shack, turned on the Yaesu radio, and listened. Nothing. I tried calling the South Lyon 2m repeater but nothing came back. I tied the Novi 440 MHz repeater…nothing. I turned the radio off and moved the coax to our Icom IC-7000 radio and repeated the tests. Same results. Something was clearly wrong so I called Mike (W8XH) to see if he could help me figure it out.

Mike was out but on his way back home and called me when he was back at his base station. We verified the transmit and receive squelch settings on my radios and then tested both antennas on both radios. Using our cell phones we confirmed that he was not hearing my transmissions and I was not hearing his, either direct (simplex) or through the repeaters. It was now clear that RF signals were not making it into or out of my system and there was one component that was common to all configurations; the Morgan M-302N VHF/UHF Lightning Arrestor.

I have a coaxial cable adapter kit that allows me to temporarily interconnect most of the connectors used in amateur radio coaxial cables. At Mike’s suggestion I used the kit to assemble an adapter (barrel connector) with N-female connections on both ends. I then disconnected the antenna and radio coaxial cables from the lightning arrestor and connected the radio coax directly to the X-300 antenna coax. Back in the ham shack I tested this configuration with both radios on both repeaters. I was receiving both repeaters with S7 to S9 signal strength, which is good, and very little noise, which is also good. Mike reported that my signal was very strong into both repeaters and that he was receiving me full-quieting. I shut the radios off and then switched the connection in the cable entry box to the X-50 antenna. We repeated the tests with the same results, confirming that the problem as the lightning arrestor and only the lightning arrestor.

The current status of the cable entry box.

Although I was disappointed that the M-302N was defective I was overjoyed, or at least relieved, that everything else was working perfectly. Although the new X-300 antenna turned out not to be “necessary” having it on a mast above the tower will give us an even better transmit and receive capability than the current X-50 installation. I even have some hope of being able to reach repeaters farther away in the Detroit metro area as well as in the Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor, and Ypsilanti areas, and perhaps much farther beyond. Windsor (Canada) and Kalamazoo are possible when atmospheric conditions are right for longer range propagation, and the Saginaw, Mt. Pleasant, Fort Wayne (Indiana), and even Cleveland (Ohio) areas are not out of the question. Once, at the old house, I was on the Spirit of 76 repeater atop the Renaissance Center in Detroit when it picked up a 2m station from Iowa.

Relieved of my concerns, especially about the operation of our new radio, I returned to my computer-based tasks. The first thing I did was e-mail Chris Perri at KF7P Metalwerks regarding the lightning arrestor, which I purchased from him as part of the cable entry box. He apparently forwarded my e-mail to Morgan Manufacturing Inc., or at least e-mailed them, as I got an e-mail from Bob at Morgan with instructions on where to return the unit. It has a lifetime warranty and he indicated they would repair or replace it as needed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening, except for dinner, working on photos. Dinner was chickpea salad on a bed of greens with steamed baby bok choy dressed in rice vinegar. It was a perfect meal for a warm summer evening.

The humidity had been up all day and rose as the temperatures dropped at sunset, although they did not drop much. Linda was watching an episode of Scorpion when I finally came upstairs. We watched an episode of NCIS Los Angeles after that and then an episode of Two and a Half Men, which I have always enjoyed. We turned on a small fan but it was a warm, uncomfortable evening for sleeping. For whatever reason we did not turn on the air-conditioner although in hindsight we should have.

2015/07/05 (N) Return to HFM

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Madeline helps Grandma Linda mix the batter for vegan blueberry pancakes.

The day started with Grandma Linda’s fabulous, made from scratch, blueberry vegan pancakes for breakfast, which Madeline helped make! After breakfast we took Madeline to the Howell Farmers Market (HFM). She had been to this market with us once before and it was a beautiful Michigan summer morning for a return visit. On the drive over we discussed why it is that you cannot buy a farmer at a farmers market and you cannot buy a garage at a garage sale. English can be a funny/strange language.

We walked the entire market, which is not really that big, and Linda bought some fresh strawberries. A couple of the regular vendors were missing. In particular we wanted to buy some more soap from Marjorie but she was not there. Madeline enjoyed checking out the child and doll sized wooden furniture that one vendor had for sale. We kept an eye out for someone selling jelly beans but did not see any so we stopped at the CVS on the way home and got a small bag of them.

We had just gotten home and I was unlocking the front door when Brendan and Shawna arrived. We had a nice visit and they stayed for a light lunch. By the end of lunch Madeline was showing signs of being ready for her nap so Brendan transferred the car seat and stroller from Linda’s car to their car, gathered up all of Madeline’s things, and loaded their car. Madeline left with her parents at 12:30 PM and Linda laid down for a nap shortly thereafter.

I looked at the SLAARC WordPress website on my iPad to make sure it was working. I checked most of the pages except for the Member Only Area, which requires a login, and they appeared to be OK. I then went to my office to deal with things that needed to be dealt with from there.

Madeline tries on a child sized rocking chair at the Howell Farmers Market.

My first task was to update the roster and financial records for our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter. I sent e-mails to new members, uploaded the updated roster to our Dropbox, and e-mailed everyone that they were available. I had received the draft copy of the June 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine on Friday. I proofread part 3 of my 4-part article on the exterior renovation of our motorcoach and sent corrections to the editor. I then settled in to edit blog posts.

I took a break for dinner. Linda cooked Brussels sprouts and heated some vegan riblets. The barbecue sauce on these riblets is very tasty. We had vegan chocolate cupcakes for dessert and they were very tasty too. I then went back to my office and continued editing blog posts.

I took a break just before 8 PM to join the South Lyon 2m Information Net using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE RADIO but I did not hear anything except noise. I left the radio on for a while and then turned it off. I switched the coax to the Icom IC-7000 and turned it on but did not hear anything there either. I turned the IC-7000 off, switched the coax back to the FTM-400, turned it back on, and went back to work at my desk. Around 8:30 PM the squelch started opening and I heard very faint voices way down in the noise. After listening carefully I was able to determine that it was Steve (N8AR) running the net but I could not understand most of what was being said.

It was the first time in a long time that I had tried to participate in the net and I was disappointed that the new installation of the antenna on the tower and coax cables to the radios in the basement was not working adequately. They were working OK when I tested them with Mike (W8XH) so it could have been an unusual band condition but Steve was obviously getting in from farther to the west than our QTH. I enjoy operating and am looking forward to finally having our larger tower up and some HF antennas in operation but for now I need to concentrate on getting the VHF/UHF stuff working reliably (correctly and consistently).

I exchanged some e-mails with Gary at BCM regarding the magazine and then continued editing blog posts. I got through the end of June by 11 PM and quit for the night.

2015/07/04 (S) Another Fourth

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Linda was up at 7 AM and grabbed a shower as Madeline is usually awake by 7:15 and up between 7:30 and 7:45. Madeline tends to wake up hungry so Linda likes to have breakfast ready to go. I was up by 7:20 and also grabbed a quick shower. When Madeline was finally ready to get up she let Grandma Linda carry her into the living room and hold her in her arms for a while. When she was ready to sit up Linda brushed her hair and then Madeline returned the brush to the master bathroom. Linda got her changed into her day clothes and then we all had breakfast. Linda and I had our usual coffee, orange juice, and granola with fresh berries plus some vegan sausage links. Madeline also had the sausage links and berries but her main course was toaster waffles with a little bit of real maple syrup. Yum.

One of the swans at the Brighton Mill Pond.

After breakfast Madeline wanted to go look for chickens so she and Grandma Linda went for a walk. When they got back I learned that they saw three chickens, a duck, some bunnies, and a chipmunk (ground squirrel). We then read a couple of stories and built a fort in the living room. We talked about going to the Mill Pond in Brighton to see/feed the ducks but there was some sort of running event this morning, a parade at 10 AM, and then a rubber ducky race at the Mill Pond following the parade. It is the 4^th of July, after all, and most communities have celebratory events going on all day and into the evening, ending with fireworks displays. That sounded like a crowd to me, with the attendant parking hassle, but we figured the crowd might have thinned sufficiently by 10:30 AM to make the experience a good one and decided to chance a visit. Linda made PB&J sandwiches and packed some grapes and cookies.

Madeline sitting at a picnic table at the Brighton Mill Pond playscape.

We parked in the lot behind the La Marsa restaurant, which is far away from the Main Street part of the Mill Pond, and walked down the boardwalk to the playscape. There were a lot of people gathered around the Pond for the rubber ducky race and quite a few children at the playscape with their adult chaperones. Madeline explored the entire playscape with great enthusiasm. By the time she was done it was 11:30 AM and she was hungry so we had lunch at one of the picnic tables under the shade of a big tree.

After lunch Grandma Linda stood in line with Madeline to use the bathroom. We then walked around the Mill Pond and paused to cover our ears while the emergency sirens were tested, this bring the first Saturday of the month. We had a leisurely stroll back to the car and I had a nice chat with a fellow photographer along the way. He is a local artist/writer with a deep interest in the Mill Pond and the wildlife that calls it home. He wrote down his website URL for me: http://Words4It.com. I checked it out when we got home and it is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the flora and fauna of the Brighton Mill Pond.

The various shades of green with a few orange flowers caught my eye while strolling the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

Back at the house Madeline had some soy yogurt and fresh berries before taking her nap. I don’t know if she fell asleep and woke up or never completely fell asleep but around 2 PM I heard her fussing. When I checked on her she said she needed to go to the bathroom. Linda had fallen asleep but that is a duty she takes care of so I woke her up. Madeline took care of her business, laid back down, and fell asleep. Linda stayed awake.

With Madeline asleep I took the opportunity to go to my office and check e-mail. There was one from Scott at QTH.com indicating that the SLAARC website had been copied to the QTH web servers and was ready for testing. I think that meant the GoDaddy DNS had been changed to point to the QTH installation but I don’t think the domain name registration had been moved yet. I will need to clarify that with Scott on Monday. I also had an e-mail from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine with the draft of the June 2015 issue attached. This issue has part 3 of my 4-part article on the 2011-12 exterior renovation of our Prevost H3-40 motorcoach. I replied that I would proofread it and submit corrections before I go to bed tomorrow night.

Madeline takes the high road and Linda takes the low road on the Brighton Mill Pond boardwalk.

Although Linda is much more physically active with Madeline than I am I was feeling the need for a nap and laid down at 3 PM. I heard Madeline get up around 4 PM and I finally got up at 4:15. Linda enlisted Madeline’s help preparing dinner while I took pictures. The first task was shucking the whole ears of corn. Next, Linda let her put them in a large pot of water, add a little bit of sugar, and stir. While the pot started to heat up on the stove Madeline helped prepare the strawberries by washing them. Linda then got the vegan burgers ready to grill (inside on our stove top griddle) and prepared the garnishes. Madeline does not get to help with things that are sharp or hot. Soon enough it was time for dinner and we all enjoyed our corn-on-the-cob and vegan cheeseburgers. For dessert we had some more of the chocolate cake that we made yesterday with fresh strawberries.

We spotted this young bunny along the boardwalk at the Brighton Mill Pond.

After dinner I cleaned up the dishes and we went out on the deck to sit in the chairs and enjoy a near perfect Michigan summer evening while we watched the bunnies eating grass. Around 7:15 PM we watched another Sesame Workshop DVD. This one was on Shapes and Colors. It was over by 8 PM and Madeline started getting ready for bed which was a very jovial affair. First the potty, then jammies, then tooth brushing followed by finding blankies, “bebes” (pacifiers), and stuffed animals, all the while laughing and giggling. Linda finally got her to sit quietly and read her a story which calmed her down enough to go to bed. If her thoughts drift to her mommy and daddy she will get weepy—it’s part of being two and a half—but we have been successful on this visit keeping her engaged enough to avoid anything more than some occasional brief tears.

Madeline washes the strawberries.

We split the remainder of a bottle of Leelanau Cellars Winter White wine we had opened some time ago but had vacuum sealed and it was still fine. Linda finished the dishes and loaded the dishwasher while I filled in the day’s details on this blog post. Both cats came out of hiding and sought our attention.

We have been hearing fireworks, and/or gunfire, for many weeks now and today was no exception. Two nights ago someone in the neighborhood was firing off, or shooting, something until well after midnight. There were more fireworks tonight, as expected, and the activity intensified after 9 PM as dusk gave way to night. The cats were not completely relaxed about the noise but seemed to tolerate it. As far as we know Madeline slept through all of it as she is a very sound sleeper.

2015/07/03 (F) 4th Anniversary

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Several SLAARC members were gathering at 10:30 AM this morning to unload the Field Day equipment from Steve’s trailer and store it in the South Lyon water tower. I was going to join them but decided last night to stay home and work on the design for the desk and HVAC chase covers for our motorcoach. Having played ham radio for much of the last week and a half I needed to refocus my time and attention on the interior remodeling of our bus. Besides, Brendan was bringing Madeline to our house sometime mid-to-late morning and I wanted to be home when they arrived. Today was Brendan and Shawna’s 4th wedding anniversary and they asked Linda if we would take care of Madeline for a couple of nights so they could have some time together without the constant demands of child care. Of course Linda said ‘yes.’

I had a call last night from XPO Delivery Services letting me know the new refrigerator for the bus would be delivered to Chuck Spera’s shop in Novi today between 6 and 8 PM. That meant I would have to be at the shop by 5 PM just in case they arrived early and could be there past 8 PM if they arrived late. At 7:45 AM this morning I got a call from the Lowe’s in Howell asking if XPO could deliver the refrigerator in about an hour. Sure, why not; I was still in bed but about to get up anyway and having the refrigerator delivered early would actually open up my entire day. I hurried the process along, had Linda get the receipt, grabbed my iPad, and headed for Chuck’s shop in Novi. Linda was getting ready to go for a walk as I left.

One never knows what the traffic will be like on I-96 headed into the Detroit metro area from the northwest but on this Friday, at the start of a major holiday weekend, the traffic was very light and I was able to get to Novi in the minimum legal time. Traffic headed westbound actually appeared to be heavier than the inbound traffic. I stopped at the Tim Horton’s on Beck Road just north of Grand River Avenue and got coffee which I had not taken the time to make at home before I left.

I texted Chuck to let him know that the refrigerator was being delivered this morning. He called me back to clarify where to have them set it. This would be a great weekend to do the swap as all of the other businesses around his shop building will be closed for the holiday, making it easy to get our bus in and out. But his daughter arrived last night from New York and will be visiting for a week so the refrigerator replacement will have to wait, probably until at least next weekend.

By 9:30 AM XPO had not arrived so I called Lowe’s in Howell and talked to Erica in scheduling. She said she would call the driver and see what was going on. I texted a status update to Linda and continued to wait. By 10 AM there was still no truck and no call back from Erica. At 10:20 I was dialing Lowe’s again when an Enterprise rental truck drove past the building headed east and a few minutes later went by headed west and pulled into a parking lot. Moments later my phone rang. It was the XPO truck driver. I explained where the driveway was and flagged them in. When I ordered the fridge I gave detailed special instructions on how to find the building but the driver did not bother reading them and did not bother calling me until he had failed to find the delivery location for the second time.

They backed the truck into the area in front of Chuck’s garage door, lowered the refrigerator down on their lift gate, slid a pair of lift straps under it, picked it up, and carried it into the shop. I looked it over as best I could and then signed for it. Only later did I notice a small dent towards the bottom of the door. I had an automated call later asking if I was satisfied with the delivery and indicated ‘no’, noting the arrival delay and the small ding. The message said I would hear back from someone within an hour but no one ever called. We do not plan to make an issue of the ding as we will be lucky to get it into the bus and into its alcove with no further damage. Still, it should have arrived in perfect condition and did not.

I called Linda to let her know the refrigerator had arrived and that I was getting ready to head home. She said Brendan had just arrived with Madeline. As I started to back out of my parking spot Chuck arrived so I spent about 30 minutes talking with him about the timing and approach of the refrigerator swap. I will almost certainly take our bus to his garage on a weekend. Only later did I find out that Brendan will not be available to help for the next two or three weekends. Ugh. Chuck called a friend (golf buddy) who has narrow pallets (24″) to see if he could get a 5’ long section. With the long forks set close together on his forklift we can slide the pallet over the forks and have a much more secure platform form for raising and lowering refrigerators, probably laying on their backs.

Linda called back and asked me to stop on the way home for some toddler toothpaste and a toddler toothbrush. I did not know they made such things but I found them at the CVS in Brighton. Not long after I got home Linda had lunch on the table. She heated some veggie nuggets and set them out along with baby carrots, grapes, pretzels, hummus, vegan deli slices, bread, lettuce, and onion. We all had a good lunch with lots of variety. Brendan got Madeline down for her nap at 1 PM and hung around long enough to make sure she was asleep. I took a few minutes to show him the new Yaesu radio before he headed back to Ann Arbor.

I was very tired and took a nap on the living room sofa which is especially comfortable for this purpose, better actually than for sitting on. Madeline slept until almost 4 PM. When she woke up she wanted her mommy and daddy and was a little weepy but Grandma Linda got her quickly engaged in doing things. Linda took her for a walk to see the chickens while I went downstairs to check e-mails. I responded to ones having to do with the transfer of the SLAARC website and domain name registration from GoDaddy.com to QTH.com and made mental note of others. When they got back from their walk Linda brought Madeline downstairs to see Grandpa Bruce at work in his office and ham radio shack. We told her we would help her become an amateur radio operator when she was older.

Linda decided that baking a vegan chocolate cake would be an excellent activity to do with Madeline and give us a nice treat for later. Madeline helped pour and stir ingredients. She ended up with chocolate cake batter on her face and clothes but it was worth it as she got to lick one of the spoons. (Without any animal products, especially raw eggs, vegan cake batter is perfectly safe to eat.) Linda had previously found a small baking set for Madeline that included a small bunt cake pan. Some of the batter went in there to make a little cake just for Madeline and the rest was used to make 11 cupcakes.

After the cupcakes were cooked and taken out of the oven to cool Linda made dinner. We had mock chicken strips (vegan), fresh sautéed green beans, vegan refried beans, and fresh berries leftover from earlier. When the cakes were cool enough Linda got out the powdered sugar and sifter and we dusted them. Madeline enjoyed the decorating but somehow ended up with powdered sugar in her hair, on her dress, and all over her face. I took pictures and then Linda cleaned her up while I cleaned the floor.

After dinner and dessert we played and read a bit. Linda had gotten three Sesame Street Workshop DVDs from the Howell Public Library so we all climbed up into the bed in our bedroom and watched one of them. We played along with the various activities and games and encouraged Madeline to do the same. The program ended at 8 PM which is Madeline’s bedtime. Linda helped her in the bathroom, got her into her pajamas, and helped her brush her teeth. She laid down without a fuss and drifted off to sleep. We stayed up until the last chime of the grandfather clock at 9:45 PM and then turned in for the night. We are always satisfyingly tired after a full day of Madeline.

2015/07/02 (R) 100,000 Radios

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We were tired and did not get up until almost 8 AM. Linda prepared a tofu scramble for breakfast, as we were almost out of her homemade granola, and served it with some cinnamon raisin toast and fresh grapefruit. It’s the closest thing we eat to scrambled eggs and she serves it as an occasional change of pace from our standard granola breakfast.

I had my annual appointment with my dermatologist this morning at 11 AM. I needed to pick up a cable from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics, which was on my way to the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) clinic, so I left the house a little after 9:30 AM. The drive was fine initially and I had a nice QSO (chat) with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m repeater. As I was approaching Wixom Road, however, all lanes of eastbound I-96 were stopped. I was able to exit at Wixom Road and headed north a short distance to West Road which I took east over to Beck Road where Scotty’s business is located a little north of West Road. I had a brief chat with Scott about the antennas on my tower before I left.

Two miles north of Scott’s shop I turned east on Maple Road (15 Mile Road). The HFHS has many clinics around the greater Metro Detroit area and my dermatologist is located at the intersection of Maple and Farmington Roads in West Bloomfield. That should have been an easy trip but there was construction on Maple Road that had the road down to one lane with flaggers. There were signs advising motorists to seek other routes but I did not heed the warning. I patiently worked my way through and arrived for my appointment about seven minutes ahead of time. Good thing I left as early as I did.

My exam was fairly routine and Dr. Nydorf wrote out a prescription for Doxycycline. I will try taking it (again) three times a week and see if it helps. I headed straight for home after my appointment but took a different route. Once I was back at the house Linda went for a walk. While she was walking I removed the license plate from her car, took the protective (anti-theft) cover off, and cleaned everything. When it was dry I put the new registration sticker in the corner, reassembled the cover, and installed the plate back onto the car. I then started working with the various pieces of the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE mobile radio. When she got back from her walk she heated up a couple of tofu hotdogs for lunch. These are such simple fare but so tasty (with mustard, onions, and relish) and so appropriate for a summertime lunch. They are also a really easy lunch to get on the table.

After lunch Linda took her car to the Howell library to get some books and children’s DVDs and then stop at the Meijer’s supermarket to pick up a few grocery items for Madeline’s visit this weekend. While she was running errands I assembled our new Diamond X-300NA antenna. Once it was assembled it was over 10 feet long so I stored it by mounting it to the side of the tower. I put it up as high as I could reach from the ground to get the three counterpoise (elevated ground plane) rods above eye level. Moving it to the top of the tower as a replacement for the Diamond X-50NA will have to wait until next week or later. The exact timing will depend on the weather, Mike’s (W8XH) availability, and whether I have acquired appropriate standoffs by then for the X-300 antenna and/or the cellular booster omnidirectional antenna.

With the antenna taken care of (for now) I disconnected the coaxial cable for the X-50 from the radio side of the lightning arrestor and positioned it so I could pull it back into the sump pump room. From there I fed it into the ham shack, disconnected it from the radio, and coiled it up. I uncoiled the new 20′ LMR-400 cable with the N-male connector end positioned so I could feed it through the corner of the ceiling in the ham shack (by the ground wire) and into the sump pump room. From there I fed it through one of the 2″ conduits into the cable entry box. Back outside I shaped the cable (LMR-400 cable is double shielded and stiff) and connected it to the radio side of the Morgan VHF/UHF lightning arrestor and closed the lid on the box.

Back in the ham shack I attached the PL-259 connector to the SO-239 socket on the back of the Icom IC-7000 GoBox. I could have gotten away with a 16′ cable but the 20′ length gives me more flexibility with respect to equipment placement. I turned on the IC-7000 but did not hear anyone on either the South Lyon 2m or the Novi 70cm repeaters so I turned it off.

I disconnected Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and set it aside to make space for the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band mobile transceiver. I moved the new coax to the new radio, powered it up, spent a few minutes configuring some basic things, and then listened to the South Lyon and Novi repeaters. I tried calling them but was not triggering them so I knew the PL Tone was not set correctly. I called Mike for assistance and left him a voice message.

Linda was back by this time so she came down to see the new radio. We then went out to the bus to make our final decisions about upholstery fabric and window shade materials. In the end we chose the Lambright Notion Linen fabric for all four chairs and the MCD B50 material for the dark out shades. We brought all the samples back in the house and I e-mailed our choices to Josh at Coach Supply Direct.

I had an e-mail from Scott Neader (KA9FOX) at QTH.com requesting an admin login for the SLAARC WordPress website so I set that up and e-mailed him back. I had the new radio on and was listening to a conversation on the Novi repeater. It had just concluded when Mike returned my call. He walked me through how to set up the PL Tone and Squelch Tone for both of the repeaters on the FTM-400. We were then able to verify that the radio was working on both bands.

For dinner Linda made a salad and pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions and barbecue sauce which she served open-faced on hamburger buns. We had watermelon for dessert, which we have been doing a lot this summer. I did not care for watermelon as a child but it has become a favorite summertime treat. I had dropped a small lock washer while mounting the new antenna to the tower earlier so I went to Lowe’s to get a replacement and some spares. On the drive there I got a call from XPO Delivery Service letting me know that the new refrigerator for the bus would be delivered to Chuck’s shop in Novi tomorrow between 6 and 8 PM.

At Lowe’s I picked up some 6mm x 1.0 Nylok nuts in addition to the lock washers. I also got some grass seed patching mix, a few more bags of decorative broken brick pieces, and a hummingbird feeder with a red reservoir so Linda can use sugar water without red food coloring. When I got home the odometer on my car read 100000 so I took a picture of it with my phone. I then spread the patching mix over the bare dirt I had used to fill a hole and troughs left by the installation of the natural gas line to our house last September. The rest of the evening Linda read and I worked on completing drafts of blog posts.

SLAARC Field Day 2015

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Here are 45 photos from the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club’s participation in the 2015 American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day 24-hour operating event.

: Steve (N8AR) arrives on Friday morning with club’s Field Day equipment in his trailer.

: Larry (K8UT) and Bill (W8NN) start setting up Larry’s 40m elevated vertical antenna.

: One of the wire antennas, probably the 40m inverted V (crossed dipoles).

: The base for the small tower. The boards are bolted together and staked into the ground. The three metal yokes in the center hold the three legs.

: The feed point balun and elevated wire counterpoise attachment point for K8UT’s 40m vertical antenna.

: Unloading tower sections from the equipment trailer.

: Mike (W8XH) poses for the camera before unloading more equipment.

: Bill, Larry, and Tom (AB8XU) start assembling the 20m beam antenna.

: Larry and Tom carry the 20m beam antenna over to where the tower will be erected.

: Jim (N8HAM) and Steve (N8AR) get the legs of the large tower attached to the base (black metal).

: Assembling and erecting the big tower took quite a few hams. The top end is resting on a step ladder so the beam antennas can be attached before standing it up.

: Steve (N8AR) turns the rotor to the correct position for attaching the beam antennas to the large tower.

: A team gets ready to hand the 20m beam antenna up to Steve.

: Larry waits with the 6m beam antenna while the 20m beam antenna gets attached to the mast atop the large tower.

: SLAARC Field Day chairman Paul (KD8SNZ) attaches the 6m beam antenna above the 20m beam antenna.

: Steve (N8AR) checks the cable for the hand winch that will be used to raise the large tower.

: It takes many hands to raise the large tower. Mike, Steve, and John walk the tower up as Paul moves the step ladder closer to the base. We had to get the tower up part way before we could use the winch.

: The other end of the winch cable was attached to the tow receiver on Pauls F-150. Here the tower is not quite half way up.

: The large tower is up. The guy ropes were attached and staked before it was raised, used to control it as it went up, and then tightened.

: The weather has turned gloomy on us.

: Putting up the mast by the old ball diamond backstop. The mast will support the far end of the 80m off-center-fed dipole. The other end is attached to the large tower with the feed point balun near the 80m operating tent.

: Putting up one of the two Costco shelter. One served as the food tent and the other as the GOTA and VHF tent.

: Setup continues on Saturday morning. There were lots of these ARO vanity plates to be seen. This one is mine.

: The main portion of the SLAARC Field Day site. The 40m vertical is off-camera to the left and the crossed dipole is behind me. Everything must be contained within a 1,000 foot diameter circle.

: The weather has really deteriorated very strong wind driven rain.

: Inside one of the operating tents (probably 40m). Every operating position had a computer (left) and radio (right). Computers were used to log contacts and were Wi-Fi networked. Operators at every station could see all of the contacts that were being logged.

: Larry (K8UT) gets N1MM Logger+ up and running. Larry is a member of the N1MM Logger development team.

: Headphones, CW keys, and filters are just some of the additional equipment needed at each operating station.

: SLAARC operated in category 2A (two alpha). The two meant we had two HF radios on the air at the same time. The alpha meant we operated only from portable/emergency power. Harvey (AC8NO) provided the generator that ran everything.

: The weather just got worse the latter it got in the day on Saturday.

: Jim (KC8WMW) mans the GOTA (Get On The Air) station. Newly licensed hams and unlicensed guests are allowed to operate this station under the supervision of an experienced amateur radio operator.

: Eric (W8ERS, seated) and Mike (W8XH, standing) working on the VHF (6m) station.

: Staying out of the weather and having a face-to-face chat at the GOTA station.

: We lost the 80m tent (red), the hospitality screen room (left) and the VHF/GOTA Costco shelter to the windy weather.

: We did not, however, lose the food shelter! Marianne provided lots of things to eat and there was always a crowd staying out of the weather.

: Sunday lunch. Hot dogs are easy and always a favorite.

: Steve (N8AR) had a 6m capable radio in his car, so after we lost the 6m (VHF) / GOTA tent he pulled his car up and connected the 6m beam to his radio. Why? There was a strong 6m opening early Sunday east of the Mississippi River and down into the Caribbean.

: The weather finally cleared on Sunday and folks enjoyed eating outside.

: Jo (Mrs. Field Day Chairman) with their pet parrot Darwin (female).

: Eric (K8ERS) made the most contacts for the club at this year’s Field Day event.

: SONY DSC

: Signals are often weak with a lot of noise. Headphones keep distractions from ambient background soiunds to a minimum.

: Amateur radio is regulated under Part 97 of the FCC Rules. SLAARC traditionally flies the U. S. Flag from our large tower.

: Eric (K8ERS) was making contacts right up to the 2 P (EDT) end of the event.

: Eric captured this image early Sunday morning. The red lines represent contacts being made on the 6m (50 MHz) VHF band. It was quite an opening.

2015/06/30 (T) Three Score and Five

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Today was a milestone birthday for Linda. We had our usual leisurely early morning with coffee, fresh fruit, and cinnamon raisin toast (from Metropolitan Baking) for breakfast. We talked some more about our long-term ham radio plans and decided we would order one (1) of the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band mobile radios and a slightly more powerful VHF/UHF base station antenna. Our daughter called around 9 AM to wish her many happy returns of the day. My Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSERS) health insurance shifted her to secondary, with Medicare as primary on June 1^st, the first day of the month in which she turned 65.

The temperature was in the low 60’s when we got up at 6:30 AM. The weather forecast for the afternoon had an increasing chance of rain and the possibility of isolated thunderstorms so Linda went for a mid-morning walk. I headed to my office to order the radio and a Diamond X-300NA 2m/70cm antenna. All of the online distributors are selling the radio for the same price. I decided to buy both products plus the RTSystems programming software, from Amateur Electronic Supply (AES). Their UPS Ground shipping is “free” and since they are based in Ohio the shipment will be here in 1-2 days rather than 4-5 days.

I took a break and spread three more bags of brick pieces around the base of the tower and in front of the cable entry box. Back in my office I dealt with some personal e-mail. I sent an e-mail to Scott (KE9FOX) at QTH.com with additional information he needed to transfer the SLAARC website and domain name registration from GoDaddy to QTH.com. I then gathered up a load of laundry and put it in the washer.

By the time that was all done it was getting close to lunch time. Lunch was a big spinach and lettuce salad, baby carrots, a few sourdough pretzel nibblers with roasted red pepper hummus, fresh sweet cherries, and the blueberries/strawberries/raspberries that were left from breakfast.

After lunch I transferred the laundry to the clothes dryer and then got cleaned up. We left around 3 PM for the U.S. Bar and Grill in Wayne and stopped on the way to get a card. Today was John Smallwood’s last day at Wayne RESA and there was a gathering from 3-to-6 PM to see him off. John was the VP of the Wayne County Salaried Staff Federation (WCSSF) and succeeded me as President of the local when I retired. Now it was John’s turn to enjoy a well-earned and well-deserved retirement. This was the second gathering for a colleague in the span of just over a month. Besides wishing John well it was an opportunity to reconnect with other former colleagues.

After a suitable amount of time visiting at John’s party Linda and I drove to the Mongolian Barbecue in Novi for a celebratory birthday dinner. It is a very noisy restaurant but was not as bad on a Tuesday evening as it was the last time we were here on a Saturday. I would have preferred a quieter and more relaxing atmosphere, but the Mongolian Barbecues have a lot of ingredients that we can eat and we find the method of preparation very much to our liking. By the time we had a small bowl of soup, a moderate sized salad, and a good size bowl of ingredients we were full.

I had a brief QSO with Chris (K8VJ) on the drive home. I stopped at the Shell station and topped off the gas tank in my car so we would be ready to go in the morning. We finally got home at 8:30 PM. Linda made some hot tea and we each had a piece of Prickly Pear Cactus Jellied Candy. I restarted the dryer on Touch Up and checked my e-mail. We were tucked in by 10 PM as we needed to be on the road by 7:30 AM tomorrow.

2015/06/25 (R) The Mouse

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Brighton Honda called yesterday in the afternoon to get permission to do additional work on my car. Since we plan to keep the car for a while, and then perhaps give it to our son, it was the kind of work that needed to be done regardless of the costs. They called back later to indicate that they would not have it aligned before closing time. That was fine with us as it would have been inconvenient to impossible for us to get there by 6 PM to pick it up. Linda told them to call in the morning when it was ready.

The top of the 40-foot tower from the WNW showing all of the antennas and the pulley with the haul rope. The weather had definitely deteriorated from the day before.

It is amazing how attuned we become to routine sounds and how sensitive we are to non-routine ones, even (especially?) while sleeping. So it was last night that I was suddenly aware that one of our cats was making a repetitive sound that was unusual. I turned on my flashlight, hoping to not disturb Linda, and got out of bed. Both cats were hunched down on the floor on Linda’s side of the bed with Jasper in front. He was the one responsible for the sound and the reason was next to his head and about 3 inches away; a little dark gray mouse.

My first thought when I see one or both of the cats with a mouse next to them rather than in their mouth is that it is dead but that was not the case. This mouse was alive and apparently not injured. I have seen this behavior before in which the mouse basically “plays dead” and the cats leave it alone but watch it carefully. Mice seem to know that cats are triggered by movement and that if they sit very still the cats just sit there and guard them. It was 4:30 AM and I was not fully awake so I do not recall the exact sequence of events, but the mouse somehow ended up in our master bathroom. I do not recall what I did with the cats but I think I went and got a box with high sides and tried to get the mouse to go in it and it made a run for it towards the bathroom. Linda was awake by this point so she got a towel for me. I went in the bathroom and used the towel to block the gap under the door and prevent the little critter from getting back into the bedroom while I tried to get it into the box. I was unsuccessful and it managed to find a place to hide in the hot water baseboard radiator.

Linda got one of the live traps we recently purchased and baited it with the recommended saltine and peanut butter. We set the trap near the radiator, turned out the bathroom light, shut the door, and tried to plug the gap with the towel from the outside, figuring we would deal with the mouse in the morning. Juniper kept pawing at the towel and pulling it back from the door so we put both cats out of the bedroom and shut the door. They found that confusing as they sleep with us and generally have the run of the house. One or both of them pawed at the door meowing to get back in for quite a while. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep we have had and the timing was unfortunate given the hard day of tower work.

Brighton Honda called at 8:01 AM to let us know the car was ready. Hello, I’m awake now! I checked on the mouse and it was now safely tucked away on top of the radiator fins inside the housing where neither the cats nor I could get to it. We decided to leave the live trap in place, sealed the gap under the door, and kept the bedroom door shut to keep the cats out.

I had planned to drive to Isringhausen’s U.S. headquarters in Galesburg, Michigan today but first we had to get my car. As long as we were headed that way we decided to go to the Brighton Panera for coffee, but had toast and juice for breakfast at home before we left.

The 100,000 mile service is extensive and includes changing the spark plugs. Beyond the routine service items the Element needed a new ball joint and tie rod and had a stuck brake caliper pin that had to be repaired. Given the front end work I also had them align it. Butch and I rebuilt the front brakes last year so I was surprised that there was an issue with them, but the car has been towed and driven in some harsh environments since then so that may have been a factor.

The Panera at Grand River Avenue and I-96 is not one of our favorites. More often than not we end up with coffee grounds in our cups and the bathrooms are not maintained as they should be. Today was not the first time we have been to this location that the men’s restroom was out of toilet paper. It is also often freezing cold inside the restaurant and today was no exception. The weather was overcast and a bit gloomy but the outside temperature, while not warm, was much more comfortable than inside. We were also unable to connect to their Wi-Fi signal, which is generally useable. That’s pretty basic stuff to not be able to get right and falls squarely on local management in my opinion.

While we drank our coffee I called Rick Short at ISRI to make sure he would be in but I got his voice mail again. I asked for a call back but never got one so I did not make the trip to Galesburg. Apparently they have better things to do than be of assistance to me. I only want to buy one chair, not a fleet of chairs, so I understand my relative unimportance, but I don’t like it just the same. We decided to spend the day at home completing the work from yesterday, which had made a mess throughout the house.

One of the things we needed to do was register our cellular booster system. Given that it is a five band device I was not clear on whether we had to register it only with Verizon or with all of the carriers. I called the company we bought it from, Cellular Solutions, and talked to Judy who said we only had to register it with the carriers we personally use. For us that is Verizon Wireless. Registration was via the Verizon Website and was simple enough. It did, however, require me to log in to our My Verizon account and navigate through a couple of screens to a page where we could enter the information from the label on the box. The serial number was on two peel off tags, so one of those went on the booster and the other one went in the manual.

With the unit registered I turned the power switch on and watched the ‘Alert’ lights all go solid yellow. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post solid yellow lights are not described anywhere in the manual. I called Cellular Solutions back and said I had a technical support question. The woman on the phone took my name and number and said someone would call me back.

Since I was apparently taking care of phone chores I decided to call Universal Towers and inquire about their B-30 base. The woman who answered the phone never gave her name but was able to answer some questions. She indicated that their base might or might not be compatible with older Heights Tower products, depending on exactly which product I had, and that I would have to talk to the owner, Bill, who wasn’t there at the moment. She did know that the outside-to-outside measurement of the legs on a B-30 base was 30 inches and the base cost $290. She also told me that the larger bases, like the B-30, consisted only of the three rods with the mounting yokes on top; the three rods were not otherwise connected together in any way. She also confirmed that the ‘U’ shaped yokes at the top of the base rods were welded on and not adjustable. The normal installation procedure involved connecting them to the bottom of the legs of the first section of the tower, setting them in the hole as the concrete is poured, and adjusting them by moving them around until the legs of the tower were plumb. That sounded to me like a process where a lot could go wrong and not be repairable.

I pulled a 75 ohm coax out of the ceiling of the basement yesterday. We laid it out in the basement to see how long it was and it looked to be at least 60 feet. Linda suggested we test it before running it through the basement ceiling which was a very sensible idea. I unplugged the power adapter for the TV amplifier power inserter, detached the coax that feeds the TV in the bedroom, attached the downstairs cable, and connected the other end to the basement TV set. Linda set up the TV for Antenna input, did an All Channels scan, and got the same stations we got yesterday, minus a couple.

In spite of what appeared to be acceptable performance I decided I wanted a new coax cable and Linda wanted to return three of the ropes I bought at Lowe’s but never used. She found the receipt and we went to Lowe’s. They had a good quality RG-6 quad-shield coax (75 ohm) in various lengths including 50 feet, which is what I needed. At the register I decided to buy two more 40 pound bags of solar salt. I am not an impulse shopper as a rule but their supply of Morton Solar Salt was very low and stocking up seemed like a good idea.

We stopped at Teeko’s to order coffee. Mary took our order and rang it up; one pound each of the three different half-caff blends that have become our standard. We took note of the fact that the Bennigan’s restaurant building on the northwest corner of Grand River Avenue and Latson Road was gone and a sign said a Panera would be coming soon to that location. We didn’t say anything to Mary, but that cannot be good news for Teeko’s. We will continue to buy our custom roasted beans at Teeko’s as long as they are open but it is going to be difficult for them to compete with a $2.25 cup of bottomless coffee, free Wi-Fi, a restaurant, a bakery, drive through service, and ample parking with great access to I-96.

When we got home I checked the live trap in our master bathroom and we had captured the mouse. We took the trap to the northeast corner of the property, towards our neighbor’s pond, and set it free. It did not want to leave the trap and I had to encourage it to go. Once it hit the ground, however, it scampered away looking for a place to hide.

We then worked on running the new coax from the basement TV to the sump pump room above the suspended ceiling. I disconnected the power inserter for the amplifier and disconnected the old coax we had tested earlier. I notched a ceiling panel at the corner of a boxed support column behind the basement TV to allow the ceiling tile to go back into place around the coax. We then installed one of the wire channels to contain and hide the coax from the ceiling down to the TV set and connected it to the back of the set.

In the sump pump room I attached the coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the input of the new 1-to-2 signal splitter. I attached the coax for the bedroom TV to one output from the splitter and the coax we just ran to the other output. I mounted the splitter on the wall of the sump pump room and secured the cable coming from the CEB to the ceiling. I then plugged the power supply for the power inserter back in to an AC outlet. Linda scanned for channels and verified that everything was working correctly. We then installed the other wire channel alongside the trim on the bedroom doorwall to route and hide the cable coming up from the basement.

I continued to fuss with the cell phone booster gain settings. We had not gotten the promised return phone call from Cellular Solutions Technical Support so I called them. I got Judy again and explained what I was seeing with the solid yellow lights. She checked with her tech support people and they said the manufacturer (SureCall) told them the solid yellow was the same as the blinking yellow; that the booster was adjusting the gain and it was “normal.” The manual says that normal is when the light is off, so I’m not sure I buy this explanation, but based on that I left the booster turned on.

With all of that done we started cleaning up the tools and materials we had scattered over two floors of the house. I decided that was also a good time to start a load of laundry, although it was actually rather late in day for that. I did three loads by the time I was done and it was sometime after 10:30 PM before the last load was dry. I needed to be up at 7 AM to be at breakfast in South Lyon at 8 AM as our SLAARC group would start setting up for the ARRL Field Day event at 9 AM.

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

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Today was the day to finally climb the tower to remove an old TV antenna, reposition an amateur radio antenna, and install two new antennas, one for OTA TV and the other for a cellular booster system. But there were other things to do before I was ready to climb.

I was up at 7 AM and on my way to Lowe’s in Howell by 7:20 AM in search of a solution to the problem of how to mount the outdoor cellular booster antenna. I ended up buying two 2-1/2 inch U-bolts. Although the tower legs are 1-5/8″ in diameter the angle bracket attached to the bottom of the antenna is 2-1/4 inches wide. Thus I needed the 2-1/2 inch spacing for the threaded ends of the U-bolt to clear the bracket.

Back at the house Linda was up and had the coffee made. We had a quick breakfast of homemade granola. I removed the tire pressure sensors and GPS from my car and headed to Brighton Honda to drop it off for its 100,000 mile service appointment. Linda arrived at the dealership about 10 minutes later. We then headed to Adams Electronics in Wixom. While Adams Electronics primarily serves the public and business communications markets owner Scott Adams, AC8IL, is a long-time ham and a member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club and Novi Amateur Radio Club. Well known in the local amateur radio community, Scotty is the local go-to guy for certain kinds of equipment. I ordered two coaxial cables from him the other day and we were here to pick them up.

We left to return home at 10 AM so I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know we were running a little behind. So was he, but thought he could be at our house by 11 AM. That gave me time to drill a hole in each of the two U-bolt retaining plates and cut a short piece of 1″ square aluminum tube to use as a spacer. That was the last fabricating I needed to do and we got busy staging all of the materials we were going to need to get the tower work done efficiently.

Mike (W8XH) setting up the tools and parts outside the “drop zone” of the 40-foot tower on the east end of the house. (Photo by Linda)

Linda set out a sheet near the tower but not in the “drop zone.” We spread out materials and tools on the sheet and used it to make sure we could find things quickly and keep them from getting lost in the grass. I also brought all of my tool boxes to the tower area. With everything assembled it was time to climb. I set up our 7 foot step ladder on the east end of our rear deck to provide access to the roof near the tower. Mike helped me into his climbing harness and got it adjusted. Once on the roof I took the harness off temporarily as my first task was to remove the 2m/70cm base station antenna. After clipping the plastic cable ties I lowered it down to Mike while Linda took photographs. (She helped with many aspects of the work today but was the only photographer.)

Starting up the tower from the roof of the house. (Photo by Linda)

I put the harness back on and Mike tossed me one of the 100 foot ropes which would eventually be used to haul materials and tools up and down the tower. I secured the haul rope to one of the unused seat clip rings and Mike instructed me on how to secure the harness while climbing. I put the waist strap around the tower and clipped it in. I then put one of the two fall cables, attached to the ring at my upper back, around one of the legs above one of the cross bars above my head and clipped it into the ring at my chest. The tower is adjacent to the east end of the house and is attached to it by two pipe assemblies just below the soffit (the house has hip roofs) so it was easy to step onto it. After that things got tougher.

The horizontal trussing on the tower is two feet apart vertically. That spacing was right at the limit of how high I could lift my right foot and required me to pull myself up part way until I could push with my right leg. Once up on the next rung I attached the other fall cable, moved the first one higher, and slide the waist strap up to position myself for the next step. I repeated this pattern with the two fall cables and the waist strap as I worked my way slowly up the tower, clipping old plastic cable (zip) ties as I went. The tower definitely had some give but I was quickly acclimated to the amount of sway and found it to be acceptable so we decided not to guy the tower with the other three ropes, which would have slowed my ascent even more.

When I finally reached the top of the tower I untied the haul rope, looped it over one of the southeast facing horizontal bars and hauled it up allowing the free end to lower down to the ground. Mike then tied the rope to the standoff pulley I had fabricated and hauled it up to me. I already had cable ties, a diagonal cutter, and a pair of slip pliers with me. I set the threaded rod on the northeast and southeast cross bars, inside and against the two legs that were parallel to the side of the house, and secured it with cable ties. This was a three-handed job that I had to do with two hands but I got it done while only dropping one cable tie. With the pulley rod secured I undid the rope and then undid the knot tying the two loose ends together. I fed one end through the pulley and retied it to the other end. We now had a way to haul materials and tools (in a bucket) up to me at any needed height while keeping it 18 inches away from the tower.

Three-quarters of the way up ad working with the haul rope. (Photo by Linda)

The next task at the top of the tower was to remove the old TV antenna, mast, and rotor. When I finally had a close up view of these old components it became apparent that my best course of action was to try and unclamp the base of the mast from the rotator, lift it off of the rotator, and toss it to the ground.

The mast clamp parts were all very rusty so Linda got the WD-40 and Mike sent it up in the bucket. I sprayed the nuts on the mast mounts and also the rotator leg clamps. I tried undoing the mast clamps with a slip pliers but it was no good, so Mike sent up three open/closed end wrenches. One of them was the right size and to my surprise the rusted nuts broke loose and started backing off. One of them did not want to come off but unscrewed the entire bolt instead. Fine. The bolt had a screwdriver slot in the top and was threaded into the rotor housing and I did not care how it came out as long as it did. I got the mast clamps loose enough that I could work the bottom of the mast free from the top of the rotor. There was a lot of rust there too. After clipping some coax cables, rotor control wires, and plastic cable clamps I repositioned myself up one rung on the tower so I could get enough leverage to the lift the mast clear of the rotator collar and control it well enough to make sure the antenna fell to the ENE away from the house and my helpers down below. And that is exactly what happened.

The first antenna to get mounted was the outdoor antenna for the cellular booster system. Mike sent the antenna up in the bucket along with the various pieces I needed to secure it to the short top/center mast support tube so the entire antenna, which is omnidirectional, was above all parts of the tower. What would have been an awkward assembly on the ground took on added difficulty 40 feet in the air but I got it secured with good access to the N-female connector on the bottom.

At the top with the pulley in place and using it to haul up a bucket with tools and parts. Mike is controlling the haul rope on the ground. (Photo by Linda)

We decided to run the coax on the outside of one of the tower legs rather than down the inside of the tower. Mike tied the LMR-400 coax to the rope and hauled it up to me. In addition to the haul rope Mike tied a second control line to the bucket to keep it from swinging all over the place. I connected the coax to the antenna feed point and then wrapped the connection with coax seal tape. I then routed the coax down the east leg of the tower and zip tied it to take the weight off of the antenna connection.

Next up was the 2m/70cm amateur radio base station antenna, often referred to as a 2m/440 dual band antenna. (In this nomenclature the “2m” refers to a range of wavelengths for one of the VHF ham bands and the “440” refers to a range of frequencies for one of the UHF ham radio bands, so it is a mixed units designation.). The antenna is about five feet long with three short counterpoise (ground plane) rods near the base. It had an LMR-400 style cable connected to it but with PL-259 male connectors on each end. The antenna feed point is an N-female connector so I had an adapter installed to make everything compatible. Mike removed the coax and the adapter, zip tied the antenna to the haul cable at three points, put the 10mm wrench in the bucket, and hauled it up to me.

The ham radio antenna was also tricky to get mounted. I installed it at the top of the northwest leg so that most of the antenna was above the tower and two of the three short counterpoise were parallel to the west (N-S) and northeast (NW-SE) crossbars. The antenna by itself is light in weight but it is five feet long and mounts at the bottom nine inches, so most if it was above me with a tendency to wave around in mid-air. With the coax connected, however, it weighed quite a bit more. I temporarily zip tied the coax to take the weight. I then had to hold the antenna with its base against the northwest post at my head level, push a U-bolt through the mounting bracket and past the tower leg, slip the mating clamp over the two ends of the U-bolt, and then get a small lock washer and nut on each threaded bolt end. I then had to repeat this for the second U-bolt. Again, a three-handed job that I had to do with only two hands.

The old OTA TV antenna and mast on the ground. It came down by the gravity method. (Photo by Linda)

The bonus to this work at the top of the tower was a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, which was mostly trees in every direction. I even saw two towers far to the north and was kept company by a soaring vulture just to the NNE. I was also able to determine that the tops of the large white pine trees behind the east end of our house are about 10 feet higher than the top of our tower, putting their overall height at about 55 feet as their bases are lower than the base of the tower. We plan to put the 70 foot tower at a spot that is surrounded by these trees on three sides (W, S, and E) so the top of the tower, and any antennas mounted there, will be well above the tree tops. That is especially important as we plan to eventually put an HF beam antenna up there on a mast attached to a rotator and it will need to be able to rotate freely for 360 degrees.

The final antenna was the hardest. The Antennas Direct DB8e OTA UHF/digital TV antenna was very large and heavy by comparison to the other two. In this case ‘heavy’ meant a few pounds. It is actually two UHF antennas mounted at the end of a dual support arm structure. The support arm mounts to a vertical pole, such as a tower leg, at its midpoint and there is a combiner box located there as part of the mount. A short length of RG-59 (75 ohm) coax connects each antenna to the combiner box and the main coax connects there as well.

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. (Photo by Linda)

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. Pulley and haul rope in the upper right. Lots of coaxial cables to be dressed (secured) on the way down. (Photo by Linda)

RG-59 is a different kind of coaxial cable from the LMR-400 used for the first two antennas. LMR-400 has a 50 ohm characteristic impedance and is used for receiving and transmitting RF energy with considerable power if needed. RG-59 is much smaller in diameter, more flexible, has a 75 ohm characteristic impedance, and uses F-connectors that are the standard for OTA TV, video, and satellite cables. But I have gotten ahead of myself. I had to come down a few feet on the tower to install the TV antenna but before doing that I had to start securing the transmission lines to the tower legs with cable ties.

Mike rigged up the haul rope in a ‘Y’ to lift the antenna from its center of gravity while actually attaching the rope to its ends. That allowed the haul rope to both support the weight of the antenna and keep it oriented correctly while I positioned and clamped it to the southwest tower leg with the dual support arms pointing in an east-west direction. Because of where I had the pulley mounted, and the length of the ‘Y’ in the support rope, I had to mount the antenna a few feet lower on the tower. Fortunately the slightly lower height was not going to affect its performance.

Like the ham radio antenna, the OTA TV antenna mounted to the tower leg at two points. The upper assembly was a U-bolt with a retaining bracket on the back side. The lower assembly was a pair of straight bolts that went through the combiner box past the tower leg and had a retaining bracket on the back side. The antenna came with wing nuts instead of washers and regular nuts, which helped a little, but I really needed three hands to get the antenna into position and tighten the mounting brackets.

Mike ties off the DB8e OTA TV antenna with an inverted “Y” so it will haul up in the proper orientation. (Photo by Linda)

Once I had the antenna sufficiently attached to the tower I was able to position the support arm close to the southeast facing side of the tower. I then pointed the antenna on the east end of the arm ESE towards the Detroit area TV towers and tightened the two nuts on the mounting studs. (The horizontal dual support arms are about 3 feet long so I was able to reach through the tower to get to the mounting studs and nuts.) I left the antenna on the west end of the support beam loose and turned it out of my way so I could complete other tasks.

Mike attached the end of the main RG-59 coax to the haul rope, put the amplifier and a 2-foot length of RG-59 coax in the bucket along with lots of zip ties, and pulled them up to me. The amplifier is about 3″ wide by 2″ high and 1.5″ thick including the concave plastic backplate. The backplate accepts two zip ties for mounting to a pole. I positioned the amplifier about 8 inches below the antenna combiner box and cinched up the two zip ties. I then connected the short coax to the combiner box output and put the combiner back it its protective, weather-gasketed plastic box. I connected the other end of the short coax to the amplifier input and wrapped the connection with coax seal weatherproofing tape.

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted "Y" attachment. (Photo by Linda)

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when it is suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted “Y” attachment. The yellow waist strap allowed me to lean back and work while the two red security straps would catch me if something broke. (Photo by Linda)

I attached the main RG-59 coax to the output of the amplifier, which is also the DC power input, and wrapped the connection in coax weather seal tape. I then dressed the cable and secured it to the tower leg. I aimed the antenna on the west end of the support arm WNW towards the East Lansing TV towers and tightened the nuts to lock it in position.

At this point I was finally done working on the antennas but had three coaxial transmission line running down the outside of the tower, one by each leg. As I descended the tower, reversing the protocol I used going up, I secured all three cables every few feet. I finally had my feet back on the roof at 2:20 PM, almost exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes from when I started climbing. Projects usually take me twice as long as I think they will but this was about half as long as I thought it would take, so we were all pleased that the work had gone smoothly and relatively quickly. My main objective was to get the old TV antenna down and the three antennas up but my secondary objective was to only climb and descend the tower once. Mission accomplished, at least for now.

By now we were all hungry and thirsty so Linda made chickpea salad sandwiches and set out fresh sweet peppers, sliced apples, baby carrots, and cold water. After a suitable lunch break we returned to the next phase of the work which was routing the coax cables into the cable entry box (CEB) and making the connections.

We started with the RG-59 coax from the OTA TV antenna. I coiled the extra cable and hung it on the tower (with zip ties, of course), routed it into the CEB and connected it to the power inserter / lightning arrestor. We purchased this cable from a Radio Shack store in Florida two winters ago to hook up our bus to the RV resort cable TV system. Besides the coax it had a separate ground wire. The amplifier and the power inserter both had connections for a separate ground wire so I connected it on both ends.

Routing coaxial cable into the cable entry box from the tower and the basement and making the connections. (Photo by Linda)

We had already routed a 75 ohm video cable from our bedroom TV to the sump pump room in the basement. I selected a suitable length of this same type of cable from our existing inventory, connected it to the other side of the power inserter, and routed it through the back of the CEB into the sump pump room where Linda guided it. Conveniently, I had a double-ended F-female barrel connector designed to connect together two cables with F-male connectors. I plugged in the AC power adapter for the power inserter, which was already in the sump pump room, and we went upstairs to see if we were receiving any TV stations.

We set the ‘Source’ on the TV to ‘Antenna’ and did an ‘Auto Scan’ for digital channels only. There are very few analog TV signals still in use and the ones that are reside in the old VHF TV spectrum which our new antenna cannot even receive. The scan found 58 signals, which obviously included the sub-channels. Besides the main Detroit stations and the East Lansing PBS station we got other Lansing area stations and even a station from Flint. The nice thing about digital TV is that if you get a picture at all it is very good.

There is a large TV tower at I-96 and US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing so we were probably picking it up. There are several TV towers SSW of Lansing about 35 miles that serve Battle Creek and may serve Lansing and Kalamazoo. They are 50+ miles from us and I did not have the west antenna pointed in exactly that direction but it may have been close enough to pick them up. Flint is at least 35 miles away straight north off the sides of both antennas so theoretically we should not have received any stations from that direction. We will have to check the AntennaPoint.com website and confirm by station identifier what stations we are actually receiving.

Feeling good about our success so far we routed the coax for the cellular booster across one of the support arms that brace the tower to the house just under the east soffit. We dropped it down next to the wall and brought it into the bottom of the CEB, replacing the hole plug with a rubber grommet. Routing it this way kept it out of the way of future foot traffic, or lawn and garden work, in the space around/between the tower and the CEB. I connected the cable to the lightning arrestor and coaxed it unto position inside the CEB. LMR-400 is stiff and bending it sharply will damage it.

I connected one end of the 15-foot LMR-400 cable to the other side of the antenna arrestor and routed it into the sump pump room where Linda guided it into position. I secured it to the ceiling, brought it down the opposite wall, put a large 180 degree bend in it, and attached it to the connector on the bottom of the cellular booster. I turned it on and watched the lights blink for a while. All three of us then started checking signal strength throughout both floors of the house. All five of the ‘Alert’ lights went from blinking yellow, which means the unit is adjusting the gain on that band, to solid yellow, which is not described in the manual. Since we had not yet registered the device with Verizon Wireless I turned off the booster.

Back out at the CEB I removed one of the hole plugs directly below the input of the Morgan VHF lightning arrestor. We routed the coax for the 2m/440 ham antenna across the tower brace, down the wall, and around through the bottom of the box where I attached it to the lightning arrestor input. I had an old piece of 50 ohm coax with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 (male) connector on the other end. I attached the N-connector to the output of the VHF lightning arrestor and fed the other end through one of the 2″ conduits into the sump pump room where Linda routed it out into the ham shack.

We set our “Go Box” on the desk, plugged the PL-259 into the SO-239 socket on the back of the case, plugged it in to AC power, turned on the power supply, and turned on the radio. The radio, an Icom IC-7000, came up tuned to the South Lyon (K8VJ) repeater. I transmitted and successfully triggered the repeater, which is currently at a secondary site about 20 miles from our tower. Mike went out to his car and used his mobile radio to verify that we could transmit to and receive from the repeater. I had a lot of background static (white noise) so Mike switched modes and transmitted directly to our antenna. The signal was full scale and full quieting. I have a ground lug in the Go Box but did not have it connected. I vaguely recalled that I had to ground the box at the previous house to eliminate a noise issue. (The radio and power supply are grounded to the box.)

I switched the radio to UHF and it was set for the Novi repeater. I listened but did not hear anyone transmitting so I transmitted, giving my call sign and a brief message, and then listened. I did not get a reply even though Mike was also monitoring the Novi repeater so I switched back to the South Lyon repeater. Mike indicated that I had, indeed, triggered the repeater and that a couple of other hams acknowledged hearing me in addition to him. It thus appeared that I did not have something set up correctly on the receive side of the radio for the Novi repeater but the system (radio, cables, arrestor, antenna) was clearly working.

That was enough work for one day so we gathered up all of the tools and unused materials and put them away. We offered to take Mike to dinner as a ‘Thank You’ for his assistance. It was more than helpful to have someone on the ground who was familiar with tower operations. We considered several dining options but opted for Olga’s in Brighton. Linda and I had small salads, sans the Feta cheese, veggie Olga’s that were excellent, and curly fries without Tabasco sauce for the ketchup. Warning: As inconceivable as it may sound, Olga’s does not have any kind of hot sauce in its restaurants. Mike had a dish with chicken in that he said was very good.

Mike headed home from the restaurant as did we. We were tired but very pleased with what we had accomplished in the course of the day. We celebrated our accomplishments by watching several programs on Detroit PBS, something we have not been able to do for more than two years.

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

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As I wrote in yesterday’s post we did not turn off the lights last night until almost 1 AM because we were keeping a close eye on the weather moving across the lower portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Although strong to severe storms were still forecast from 1 AM to 5 AM they either did materialize at our exact location or we slept through them. We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on, so that cut down the sound level of outside noises.

A cold front had pushed through by sun up and we woke to a cool morning with blue skies and noticeably lower humidity. We did not have any trees, or even big limbs, come down and there was no damage to our brand new roof. The forecast yesterday was threatening enough, however, that in the morning we took the potted plants, and as much of our outside lawn furniture as we could find room for, inside including our sun umbrella and trash cans. I planned to be gone most of the day, and Linda was leaving mid-afternoon to go to dinner and a movie with Diane Rauch, so our first chore was to put all the lawn furniture, plants, and other outdoor stuff back outdoors.

This week is mostly being devoted to ham radio with the ARRL Field Day as the crowning event this weekend. My specific focus for most of the week, however, has been the “communications tower” adjacent to the east wall of our house. As described in previous posts we installed a cable entry box (CEB), mounted the cellular booster in the basement, mounted the inside cellular antenna, and ran coax cables. The antennas will (hopefully) be mounted on the existing 40 foot tower tomorrow, cabled into the CEB, and cables run from there to devices inside the house. With any luck by the end of the day tomorrow we will have decent cellular service inside the whole house, the ability to watch OTA TV programs on two different TV sets, and finally be able to connect one of our radios in the ham shack to an antenna. Today, however, was planned to mostly address other things.

I had an appointment with our dentist at 10:20 this morning and left at 9 AM. I planned to stop at Chuck’s bus garage and check that the key he lent me worked, but I needed gas for my car. I did not have time for both and did not really have a choice; I would have to check the key some other time. I ordered two cables yesterday from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics. Later in the evening I was unsure if I had specified the connectors correctly so I called and left a message. I called again this morning to make sure the message got through. It did, and my original connector specifications were correct.

I arrived at the dentist’s office about 10 minutes before my appointment time. I called Rick Short at Isringhausen USA to make sure he was going to be in before I drove two hours to Galesburg, Michigan after my dentist appointment. I got his voice mail a left a message. “ISRI” makes very high tech air suspension driver’s seats that are used as original equipment in motorcoaches, semi-tractors, heavy equipment, and locomotives. I would really like one for our bus, but it is not proving easy to get.

Dr. Steve and his assistant, Leslie, made molds of my upper and lower teeth and a bite impression. The molds will be used to make a mouth guard that I can wear while I sleep. Dr. Steve has a strong suspicion that I am clenching my teeth and the mouth guard will reduce or eliminate the irritation it causes. I will have to ask if I can wear it during the day too as I am occasionally aware of clenching my teeth while I awake.

I had not heard back from Rick by the end of my appointment so I called the main number at ISRI and talked to the receptionist. It turned out that Rick was not in today and she transferred me to Jeff Woodworth. Jeff was willing to meet with me but thought it would be a better use of my time to wait until Rick was available. My next opportunity to drive to Galesburg will be Thursday and I will likely go as the ISRI seat is holding up our ordering of Flexsteel seats through Coach Supply Direct.

I stopped for coffee and then re-routed for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi. The key to the garage worked perfectly. I called Linda to let her know about the change in plans and headed for home. There is too much to do at the moment to waste much time so I installed the #4 AWG bare copper ground wire I bought yesterday at Lowe’s. I mounted an offset copper wire lug using the center support stud for the copper back plane in the CEB. I replaced one of the plastic hole plugs with a rubber plug with a small hole in the center. The hole I chose in the bottom of the CEB allowed the ground wire to come straight up into the lug.

Another view of the cable entry box on the east end of the house by the 40-foot tower showing the bare copper ground wire that runs to the ground rod and then to one of the tower legs.

Outside the CEB I routed the ground wire around to the existing ground rod and secured it using the new clamp I bought yesterday. There was an old ground wire connected from a clamp on the tower to the ground rod. I removed that wire along with some coax and control wires that I had clipped when we removed the old satellite dish. I then attached the new ground wire to the clamp on the tower. While we were at it Linda trimmed back a small bush that was growing between the tower legs and I pulled leaves, grass and other stuff out from around the Day Lilies that we transplanted last year around the tower base.

With the CEB grounded we looked at how we might get a video cable up to the TV/monitor in our bedroom. The wall where the TV is mounted has a hot water baseboard radiator that comes almost to the trim on the door wall. That end of the radiator has a copper pipe that goes through the floor into the basement and it was easy to locate the pipe in the basement. I determined that there was enough space behind the pipe to safely drill a hole but I had to drill it from the top side at an angle. A 5/8″ wood boring drill bit created a hole just big enough for the molded F-connector on the end of the cable to pass through.

We fed the video coax cable above the suspended ceiling in the ham shack area to the location of the hole. I then fed the cable up from the basement as Linda pulled it up into the bedroom. We adjusted the amount of cable in the bedroom to allow the wall mounted TV set to move through its entire range of motion. The other end of the cable was then routed into the sump pump room.

By the time we finished pulling this cable it was 3:30 PM and time for Linda to leave to pick up Diane. They were headed to Royal Oak for dinner and a movie as the movie they wanted to see was only showing at the Royal Oak Main Theater.

While I was out during the morning Lynch Carpet had called to let us know our Armstrong vinyl tile was available for pickup so after Linda left I closed up the house and went to get it. The 12 boxes of tiles, container of vinyl adhesive, and container of vinyl grout were all neatly arranged on a small pallet and tightly wrapped in shipping plastic. Rather than break this down and load each thing individually they used a fork lift to set the pallet in the back of my Honda Element. The rear suspension settled at least two inches when they transferred the full weight of the pallet to the floor of my car.

When I got back to the house I backed the car up to the garage. I cut the shipping plastic loose and unloaded the tubs and boxes of tiles. I put the pallet on the garage floor and then neatly stacked the boxes of tiles on it to keep them off the floor. Each box contained 14 tiles measuring 16″ by 16″ for a total area of 24.89 square feet. The Armstrong Alterna tiles are a “luxury vinyl” product, and are about 1/8″ thick. Even so, the boxes were heavier than I expected so I decided to weigh one. It tipped the scale at just under 42 pounds. That meant the entire pallet weighed close to 500 pounds, and, ignoring the weight of the cardboard box, that is about 3 pounds per tile.

When I drew out the design I determined that I would need 158 tiles, some of which would be partial. Figuring conservatively at 150 full tiles equivalent, and ignoring the weight of the underlayment, adhesive, and grout, the floor tiles will weigh about 450 pounds. I have no idea what the carpet and ceramic tile that I have removed weighed but the tiles were heavy. I also have no idea what the furniture weighed that we have removed but also have no idea what the new furniture will weigh. The intent was that the new floor and furniture would weigh less than old stuff but we will see.

I traded phone calls with my dad and we finally got to talk for a half hour starting at 4:30 PM. He turned 90 this past Sunday. Mike Fearer from Bid-Rite Concrete called at 6 PM and arrived about 10 minutes later to discuss the foundation for our 70 foot ham radio tower. I had printed off a page from the Universal Tower website showing their tower base. I also downloaded and printed their base and tower installation instructions. I had a set of these to give to Mike so he would have some idea of what the project is about. We looked at the proposed location for the tower and access for his dump cart. We also talked about the base, a rebar cage, a form around the top of the hole to allow the concrete to be slightly above ground, and a jig to make sure the base is level and the tower is plumb.

He said he was interested in the job and would work with me and Phil Jarrell (the excavator) to get it done. Rather than bid the job he would just do it for time and materials. He also said the current price of concrete was about $100 per cubic yard. We will need about six (6) cubic yards to fill the required 5′ x 5′ x 6′ (deep) hole. He thought he might be available the middle of next week but I don’t think I could have everything pulled together that quickly.

After Mike left I went to Lowe’s and picked up five 40 pound bags of topsoil, a 1-in/2-out signal splitter (rated for 5 MHz to 2.4 GHz), and a plastic snap cover channel for hiding the video cable we ran up into the bedroom from the basement for the TV set. I then went to the Meijer’s supermarket just across Grand River Avenue for soy creamer but they did not have what I was looking for. As long as I was there I had a salad for dinner at the in-store Subway.

While I was sitting there I called Mike Sharpe (W8XH) to confirm that he was available tomorrow to help with the antenna installations on our 40 foot tower. I mentioned that the only thing I lacked was a standoff with a pulley at the end of it for hoisting stuff up to me. He suggested that something like that was essential and I agreed, so I headed back to Lowe’s to see what I could figure out. What I ended up with was a three foot long 7/16-14 threaded rod, a pulley that had a closed eyelet on top (and was big enough for the 3/8ths rope I bought), some 7/16ths washers, and some 7/16-14 nuts.

When I got back to the house I unloaded the topsoil near the part of the east yard that needs to be filled in, took the other stuff inside, and then assembled the threaded rod pulley system. I secured the pulley on one end of the rod using two of the nuts, one on either side of the eyelet. I threaded a nut onto the other end, put on two washers, two nuts, two more washers, and another nut. I ran the first two nuts, with two washers between them, part way down the rod. I left the second pair of nuts, with washers between them, near the end of the rod.

I took the assembly out to the tower and adjusted the position and spacing of the two pairs of nuts and washers so they would bracket two of the horizontal tower members. In use I will secure the rod to the tower at each pair of nuts/washers using plastic cable ties. This arrangement will put the pulley at least 18″ from the tower which should be far enough out that we can hoist the DB8e OTA TV antenna to the top of the tower without it banging into the tower or hanging up on something. This antenna is the largest thing we need to hoist up. The old TV antenna is considerably larger and heavier, but it is coming down via gravity.

There was a message on our answering machine from Linda’s sister, Sr. Marilyn, who lives in St. Louis. She was listening to the news earlier today about the storms that went through our part of Michigan and wanted to make sure we were all OK. By the time we finished talking it was dark and I was done working for the day. Linda called shortly thereafter to let me know she was on her way home and I mentioned the call with Marilyn.

I finally opened the box with the vertical omnidirectional outside antenna for the cellular booster system and discovered that I should have opened it sooner. The mounting bracket was designed to be mounted to a vertical surface, such as the side of a house, not a tube, such as a tower leg. I did not want to postpone tomorrow’s tower work so I will have to get up early and figure out a way to adapt the existing bracket so I can mount the antenna to the top of the tower.

My initial thought was that an aluminum U-channel of the correct size might solve the problem very nicely. I could drill two holes in the bottom of the “U” to match the two holes in the bracket. I could then drill three pairs of holes through the sides of the channel. The antenna would be bolted to the bottom of the channel. With the open part of the channel held against a vertical tube I could secure it with three long plastic cable (zip) ties. Conceptually it should work and be easy to fabricate, but will take time which I won’t have a lot of in the morning. We have to get the two coax cables from Scotty (AC8IL), drop off my car at Brighton Honda for its 100,000 mile service, and be back in time to have the mount fabricated and all of the antennas and tools ready to go by 10:30 AM when Mike shows up.

Linda got home at 9:45 PM, earlier than she thought she would when she left. She and Diane ate at Luigi’s and had a very nice meal. They also enjoyed the movie. We had a big day on tap for tomorrow and we asleep by 10:30 PM.

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

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We turned the air-conditioning off last night and enjoyed the fresh air, pleasant temperature, and lower humidity. The overnight low was 58 which made for good sleeping. We awoke to blue skies and what we thought would be a picture perfect Michigan summer day until Linda checked the morning news (iPad). There was a story about a storm that moved through the upper plains yesterday and had a bead on Michigan for later today and this evening. What had been a 10% chance of rain for today had been replaced by a forecast for strong-to-severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes. Ahhhh, summer in Michigan.

Not ones to sit around and wait for the apocalypse we did what any sensible couple would do, I made coffee while Linda reheated the last of the Baked French Toast from yesterday’s brunch. We had breakfast and then sat on the deck enjoying our coffee and contemplating the end of the world, or at least the possible destruction of our brand new roof. But it’s insured, so “no worries, maan” as they say in Jamaica. More coffee please.

We have a whole house generator that runs on natural gas so as long as a storm doesn’t damage it we can survive for a very long time without electric utility power. Losing our AT&T Internet connection, however, would be a genuine hardship as that would require us to use our Verizon Mi-Fi (without the benefit of the new Fusion5s cellular booster which I plan to install on Wednesday) or go to Panera, McDonalds, or one of the libraries to get online.

Keith showed up around 10 AM to cut the grass. We were hoping he would make it as we have not had too much rain this past week and the last few days in particular have been dry. I think this is the first time this season he has been able to cut our grass without it being wet. It looked nice when he was done.

I got a call from Phil Jarrell. He had been successful in reaching Mike Fearer of Bid Rite Concrete on Mike’s cell phone. Based on Phil’s description Mike was interested in looking at our tower foundation project and was expecting me to call so I did, using my cell phone, and this time I was able to reach him. It turned out that the information about his business on the Internet is out of date. He is no longer in Whitmore Lake but now operates from near M-59 and Latson Road, not far from us. We agreed that he would stop by tomorrow at the end of the work day to look at our project.

I did not want to do a lot of heavy work today, as I was still a bit tired and sore, but I needed to mount two lightning arrestors in the cable entry box and mount the cellular booster in the sump pump room so I could figure out what coax cable lengths I needed and go get them from Scott Adams (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics in Wixom. But first I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know I was planning on Wednesday for the tower work, assuming he was still available and the tower was still standing.

Cable entry box showing copper ground plane with Morgan lightning arrestors (lower left), control line arrestor (center top), and cellular and OTA TV arrestors (center).

I determined that I needed two coaxial cables and ordered them from Scott by phone rather than take the time today to drive to his place of business. They will both be LMR-400 with N-connectors on both ends. One will be 50 feet long, for our 2m/70cm Diamond X50-N VHF/UHF base station antenna, and the other will be 15 feet long, to get from the cellular booster lightning arrestor in the cable entry box to the repeater (amplifier) in the sump pump room. I will pick them up early Wednesday morning and install them.

One of the lightning arrestors was for the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster system. It has N-connectors on both ends, one of which is intended for bulkhead mounting. It came with an angle bracket that fit over the bulkhead end and I used that to mount it. I used the 2′ length of LMR-400 that came with the booster installation kit to position the lightning arrestor so the cable from the repeater could exit one of the 2″ conduits and bend around and connect to it. LMR-400 is a low loss, 50 ohm impedance, coaxial cable that can handle high RF transmit power. The cellular booster only has a 1 Watt transmitter but is operating at frequencies where energy losses in coax cables become significant. To do what it does LMR-400 is just under 1/2″ in diameter. It is fairly stiff and does not make sharp bends so cable runs and connections have to be carefully planned.

The other lightning arrestor was for the Antennas Direct DB8e OTA TV antenna and serves a dual purpose as the power insertion device for the tower mounted amplifier. The coax cable for OTA TV signals is typically 75 ohm impedance RG-6 with F-connectors. It is half the diameter of LMR-400 and much more flexible. It is also typically used to receive low power signals and convey them in one direction; from the antenna to the TV. Because we are 25 miles from the nearest TV tower and some of the towers are 50+ miles away, I ordered a signal amplifier to go with the antenna.

Ideally you want to amplify an OTA TV signal as soon as it comes out of the antenna and this amplifier does just that. It will mount on the same tower leg as the antenna about two feet below the antenna feed point. However, being an active electronic device it needs electrical power to operate. There are two basic ways that could be done.

One way would be to have power wires, such as +5 VDC and DC Ground that are separate from the coaxial cable that carries the radio frequency (RF) energy. The two OTA TV antennas on our bus are set up this way with three wires to supply power and control the enclosed rotor.

The other way is to provide DC power through the coaxial cable itself, which is how this amplifier is set up. The nice thing about this arrangement is that the amplifier only has two connections and they are both coax connectors that can be weather sealed. To get the DC power into the coax cable, however, requires a special device called a power inserter. The power inserter, in turn, requires the coax to be split into two segments so there end up being four connections instead of two. The power inserter for this amplifier very conveniently acts as a lightning arrestor as well, which is why I mounted it to the copper back plane in the cable entrance box.

By boosting what I presume will be weak signals from distant towers the amplified signal should be strong enough to survive the trip through the coax cable to the power inserter, from there to a 1-in/2-out signal splitter, and then through additional lengths of coax to the two TV sets.

After getting the two lightning arrestors mounted in the cable entry box I took a break for lunch and then went to Lowe’s for some supplies. When I got back home I turned my attention to mounting the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster (repeater amplifier) in the sump pump room. The sump pump is in the northeast corner of the basement, which is also the northeast corner of our ham shack and office. (The ham shack occupies the north wall and my desks occupy the east wall. Most of the rest of the room is storage.)

I gutted and rebuilt this space, with the help of long-time friend John Rauch, before we moved in and created the large closet (small room) around the sump with insulated walls to contain sounds. I installed an electrical sub-panel in this room to provide power to the office and ham shack desks and to an RV outlet by the pull-through driveway. I fed the power for the RV outlet through the bond on the east wall just above the concrete block foundation and ran it underground to the far side of the driveway. It was my intention from the beginning to mount a cable entrance box next to the power feed and have all of the coax cables and control wires for outside devices enter the sump pump room in the same manner as the power.

The ham shack/office walls are finished with T-111 exterior plywood with 4″ groove spacing and I finished the interior of the closet the same way as I knew I would eventually want to mount things to the walls. I mounted the SureCall Fusion5s booster on the west wall of the closet about a foot inside the door and just below my eye level so I could see all of the connectors, switches, and indicator lights on the top and front of the unit. It had four mounting tabs, two top and two bottom, that attached easily to the wall with short wood screws.

There is a duplex AC electrical outlet on that wall and one on the opposite (east) wall. The power supplies for the cellular booster and OTA TV antennas will plug in to these along with the sump pump and the charger/controller for the battery powered backup sump pump. One of the things I bought at Lowe’s were two outlet expanders which I installed in these two duplex outlets. I also bought a switch with a pilot light to replace a single pole Decora switch that will eventually control the light in the closet. I installed the switch but did not complete the wiring as I have to tie it in to the light fixture which requires me to cut the power to that circuit. I would also like to replace the bare bulb fixture while I am at it but have not yet purchased a replacement.

Although it was late afternoon I decided to install the inside antenna for the cellular booster system and run the coaxial cable that connects it to the booster. The antenna is designed to mount to a flat ceiling and provide a hemispherical coverage area below the plane of the ceiling. I had previously figured out that if I mounted this antenna in the main floor hallway near the midpoint of the house I could connect it to the cellular amplifier using a 50 foot length of coax cable that came with the system.

The desired mounting location was opposite the door to the hall closet and the access to the attic is through the ceiling of that closet, so that was very convenient. We emptied the closet, removed the clothes rod, and setup our six foot step ladder. I removed the piece of foam insulation we currently use to seal the attic access opening and climbed up, flashlight in hand to check out what was on the other side of the ceiling.

Our desired location for the antenna was free of problems on the back side so I drilled a 3/4″ hole for the mounting stud and used a piece of rebar to poke a hole through the insulation for the coax cable that came out of the stud. Linda fed the coax and stud through the hole and I put the retaining nut on the stud from the attic side of the ceiling. The antenna is shaped like a coffee filter, is about six inches in diameter at the ceiling, and tapers down to about four inches in diameter about four inches from the ceiling. The housing is white plastic and blends in well with the ceiling paint.

About four feet from where we installed the antenna is a chase that runs from the attic to the furnace room in the basement. It appears that once upon a time something having to do with the furnace ran through this chase, such as the combustion air intake. The combustion air is now drawn through the back wall under the deck and the exhaust goes out through the east wall of the basement via a double wall stainless steel flue pipe. The chase is no longer used for furnace or other utilities although there are electrical cables to switches mounted in the bathroom walls and it still contained a piece of 4″ plastic pipe.

I positioned myself near the chase and guided one end of a 50 foot length of LMR-400 coax down through the pipe and through the hole into the furnace room while Linda held the roll of coax near the top of the ladder and unrolled it. At one point the coax bunched up and Linda had to go to the furnace room and untangle it. At another point the 4″ plastic pipe slipped through the bottom hole into the furnace room which caught me by surprise. Once the cable was mostly fed through I routed it to the location of the antenna, connected it to the pigtail coax from the antenna, wrapped the connection in weather seal tape to keep moisture out, and secured it with a cable tie.

With the antenna installed Linda started preparing dinner while I dealt with the 37 feet of coax in the furnace room. The furnace room does not have a finished ceiling so I had access to the areas above the suspended ceilings in all of the adjacent rooms. In particular I was able to feed the free end of the coax above the ceiling in the office and into the sump pump room. I secured the cable with plastic cable ties at two points in the furnace room to keep it away from the flue and various hot water pipes. I had about 8 extra feet of cable so I made a large coil with two loops such that the free end came off the loop straight down into the connector on top of the booster. I hung the coil on the wall above and to the right of the booster making for a very neat installation.

I took a shower to try and get rid of some of the fiberglass itch while Linda finished the dish she was making for dinner. It was a complex Indian style dish with Basmati rice, garbanzo beans, Swiss chard, onions, and shallots, seasoned with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, garam masala, fresh lemon (zest and juice), and fresh dill that Linda grew herself. The house was filled with the aromas of all these ingredients for a couple of hours as they were prepared and combined into the final dish. It tasted as good as it smelled with many flavor layers.

Our beautiful blue sky gave way to high, thin clouds through the morning and then to lower, thicker clouds during the early afternoon. By 2 PM the clouds to the west were dark as I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and the first, heavy rains came as I got to the parking lot. I waited a few minutes and they stopped so I got into the store without getting wet. I had the same good fortune on my way back to the car. The sustained rains came later in the evening along with a tornado watch. We went to bed before 10 AM but did not go to sleep. It took me a long time to write this post and we kept a watchful eye on the weather radar. Although thunderstorms were forecast as a certainty from 1 to 5 AM with the possibility that they might be severe, we finally turned the lights out around 12:45 AM and tried to get some sleep.

2015/06/21 (N) Father’s Day

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Today was Father’s Day and also the summer solstice, which is the official start of the summer season. Climatologically and culturally, at least in this part of Michigan, summer is more closely aligned with the period from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. The summer solstice is, of course, the day with the most hours of daylight but it is not the day with the earliest sunrise nor the day with latest sunset. Regardless of that detail, one of the things I like about this time of year is that the evening twilight lasts for a long time and fades to the blackness of night very slowly. By contrast, the sun seems to set quickly in the winter and it gets dark very quickly after that.

Linda arranged for our son and daughter, and their families, to come over for brunch today. It was a combination Father’s Day and happy birthday gathering as our daughter was out of town last week on her 34th birthday. Linda spent last evening cooking, which minimized the amount of work required today. I requested pie for Father’s Day and she found an excellent recipe for a vegan apple pie with a crumb topping. She also made a dozen small chocolate birthday cupcakes. The star of the show, however, was a Baked French Toast made with French bread and topped with streusel of ground pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg with vegan “butter.” It soaked overnight and all she had to do this morning was bake it. She made a large bowl of fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, and black and red raspberries) and sliced up some cantaloupe.

Company was due at 10 AM so I made a full pot of our Cafe Europe half-caff blend coffee. We each had a cup and Linda transferred the rest of it to our insulated dispenser. I was brewing a second pot when Meghan and Chris arrived around 9:45 AM followed by Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline around 10 AM. Birthday and Father’s Day cards were exchanged but Madeline was the center of attention. She pulled out her toy box and built a Lego tower with her aunt Meghan. We walked around outside a bit, looked at the new roof and the cable entrance box, and played hide and seek in the backyard with Madeline doing the seeking, assisted by her mom. I was hiding behind our gas grill, which had a cover on it. Madeline saw my reflection in the rear door walls of the library, walked right past me towards the reflected image, turned away from my location, and was walking back towards Shawna before she spotted me. Reflections are one of those things that we have to learn about.

The French Toast was done baking at 11 AM and we sat down to a fabulous brunch that included Prosecco and orange juice. The Baked French Toast was outstanding and everyone had more than one piece. By 12:30 PM no one was hungry for dessert so Linda packaged up four cupcakes for Meghan and Chris and four cupcakes for Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline along with a quarter of the pie for each group. By 1 PM Madeline was showing signs of being tired, that being her normal nap time, so everyone gathered up their things and made their way to their cars.

After everyone had left we had some pie. It was also outstanding, as good as any non-vegan pie I have ever had and, frankly, better than most. Linda went for a walk while I settled in to finish the draft of yesterday’s blog post and start writing this one. When Linda got back from her walk she read for a little while and then took a well-deserved nap. By 4 PM I could not keep my eyes open and took a nap that lasted until 6 PM. I have never been into “Hallmark Holidays” but I like Father’s Day. 🙂

For dinner Linda made a salad and reheated the last of the angel hair pasta and black beans and rice. We each had one of the vegan cupcakes for dessert.

Today was my dad’s 90th birthday so after dinner I called to wish him a combined happy birthday and Father’s Day. He did not answer, which is not unusual as without his hearing aids he doesn’t hear the phone ring. I left him a voice message.

I have been busy enough with things the last two years that I have not read any of the magazines we receive as part of our various organizational memberships. Tonight I went through the July 2015 issue of QST, the monthly publication of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Although my main focus this summer is the remodeling of the interior of our motorcoach, I am trying to get ham radio antennas up and useable. We are also trying to get a base built for the 70 foot tower we bought last summer, get the tower assembled and erected, and at least get some sort of HF wire antenna attached to it.

Linda was tired by 10 PM and trundled off to bed. As a result of my nap I was not sleepy and stayed up using my iPad until well after midnight.

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box

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The Apex roofers were back again this morning just before 8 AM and we were up and ready for them. I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until after we settled the bill with owner Pat Davidson. By 9 AM he knew what the added costs were over and above the base quote. The major one was the 32 sheets of plywood they used to repair/replace bad areas of the roof deck. He left around 10 AM and took half the crew with him to start another job. The other four guys stayed behind and finished roofing the garage and cleaning up the job site. The job was pretty much wrapped up by noon. Sergio (the foreman) did the final walk-around and cleanup and left around 1 PM. There is very little evidence that they had been here except for an attractive new roof and two skylights in the living room that light up the space in a nice way.

I spent the morning inventorying coaxial cables. We have quite an assortment of 50 and 75 ohm cables in lengths from 1 to 100 feet. I need to have all the necessary cables on hand when I climb the tower next week to remove and install antennas. If we already had appropriate cables I wanted to use those instead of buying new ones.

The custom cable entry box from Chris at KF7P Metalwerks arrived today. I opened it after lunch, which consisted of fresh apples and leftover black beans and rice. We both agreed that the beans and rice dish was even better than when it was fresh. We unpacked all of the parts that were stored inside the cable entry box and checked them off against the spreadsheet I used to order them. Everything was there but I was initially concerned because the box was turned 90 degrees from what I ordered. I specified a 16″ wide by 20″ tall box but got a 20″ wide by 16″ tall instead. I suspect that Chris buys the boxes with the door/hinge already attached but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We took the box outside and held it in place to see if it would be usable. The lower left corner will hang down in front of the basement window in the sump pump room but that will be OK. The horizontal orientation of the box will actually make it easier to get coaxial cables through the access holes in the bottom.

There were two a Morgan Lightning arrestors mounted on the copper back plane for amateur radio use; one for HF and one for VHF/UHF. The UHF arrestor was upside down so I unscrewed it, rotated it 180 degrees, and screwed it back down. The box also had a Morgan M-348 lightning arrestor. I ordered an M-348B, which is the 12-wire version, but the installed arrestor had 12 terminals on top (3 strips of 4 each) plus one on each side. There were no instructions, however, on how to wire it up so I sent Chris an e-mail regarding the anomalies and missing information.

While I was working on that e-mail, and a couple from Josh at Coach Supply Direct, we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage. The development team had launched some new features and he wanted to walk me through them. He had just been to Prevost in Nashville for some repairs on his tag axle brakes and was headed back to Cleveland, Ohio. He thought he might be headed in our general direction after that.

I spent some time thinking about how to mount the cable entry box on the east wall of the house which is sided in a shiplap fashion, i.e., the horizontal siding boards are angled (not plumb) and overlapped. I needed a hole saw and arbor for my 1/2″ drill to drill the holes for the two 2″ conduits that will pass from the box through the bond into the sump pump room in the basement. I probably already have one but I cannot get to most of the stuff in the garage and can’t afford to delay getting this box mounted; there are too many other things that need to get done that require this box to be in place first.

I was suffering from a decided lack of patience which is not the proper frame of mind for working on scale drawings of custom furniture so I went to Lowe’s to get a hole saw. The fitting measured 2-3/4″ OD and I decided to get a 3″ hole saw just to make sure the hole would be big enough. While I was at the store I considered how I might use different materials to mount the box. I ended up buying a 36″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube and some stainless steel lag screws, bolts, washers, and Nylok nuts. My plan was to cut the tube into two 18″ pieces and use them in a vertical orientation between the box and the house. They would span multiple boards, creating a plumb mounting surface, and provide support for the lower left corner which would otherwise be unsupported.

When I got back to the house I took the tube out to see how it would work. The idea was a good one but the 18″ lengths would be too short. I bought the only piece of 1″ tube that Lowe’s had so I knew I would have to find another one somewhere else. Linda suggested that we try the Lowe’s in New Hudson after breakfast tomorrow but I was still feeling impatient about the whole thing.

I had a long chat with Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint. I then relaxed with a small glass of Moscato, a nice pre-meal wine, while Linda prepared a wonderful dish for dinner of roasted red potatoes with onions, garlic, rosemary, and power greens. It was a simple dish but so delicious and hearty.

The meal concluded and the table cleared I went to The Home Depot in Howell where I found a 48″ length of 1″ square aluminum tube. If 24 inches turns out to be long enough to support the box the way I want I will cut the 48″ piece in half and return the 36″ piece to Lowe’s. I called Chuck on the drive home to follow up on a text message I sent him yesterday regarding the delivery of our new refrigerator to his bus garage in Novi.

Feeling like I had finally accomplished something today we relaxed for an hour and then settled in to watch a movie. Linda had borrowed the DVD of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, from the Howell Library earlier in the week and we reserved this evening as movie night.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the cable entry box installed. That sets the stage for climbing the tower and installing three antennas once I have the proper coax cables and some rope to temporarily guy the tower. But those details will wait until Monday as family is coming to brunch on Sunday for Father’s Day and a belated birthday celebration for our daughter.

The Phase Place

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Category Archives: Family-Friends-Home

2015/07/25 (S) Monitoring

2015/07/24 (F) Open and Shut

2015/07/23 (R) Wrapping Up Mara

2015/07/22 (W) Chucking Junk

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

2015/07/19 (N) Another Buddy Visit

2015/07/18 (S) RV Shopping

2015/07/17 (F) A High Pressure Situation

2015/07/16 (R) RV Work

2015/07/15 (W) Prime Wednesday

2015/07/14 (T) Red Chili Wine

2015/07/13 (M) weBoost

2015/07/12 (N) Mara Comes To Visit

2015/07/11 (S) Impactful Tools

2015/07/10 (F) Eye of the Beholder

2015/07/09 (R) Graduation Celebration

2015/07/08 (W) Custom Desk Design

2015/07/07 (T) Field Day Photos

2015/07/06 (M) Arrested

2015/07/05 (N) Return to HFM

2015/07/04 (S) Another Fourth

2015/07/03 (F) 4th Anniversary

2015/07/02 (R) 100,000 Radios

SLAARC Field Day 2015

2015/06/30 (T) Three Score and Five

2015/06/25 (R) The Mouse

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

2015/06/23 (T) Grounded

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

2015/06/21 (N) Father’s Day

2015/06/19 (F) Roof Box