Friday, June 27, 2014

Murphy Strikes at Field Day Setup!

Considering how good the last few years were, I suppose he figured he'd better show up this year.

My son and I were 90+% loaded up, and the wife came home.

She immediately starts yakking away about trivial stuff, and then wants pictures taken so she can update the pix her phone shows when either he or I call her.

I protest vehemently saying that we're BUSY, DAMMIT, but she insists, and then continues yakking away about nothing.

By this time we're half an hour behind schedule, totally lost track of what I was doing, so we lock the gate and leave.

About half way to the site I call him on the radio, and ask him if he sees the 2 Meter antenna in the trailer (he's following me), and he replies, "Uhhhh....no. I think we left it propped up against the side of the house".

RATS!

We get to the site, and get set up what we can, when a club member comes up whining about the key to the bathroom, so I lose another 20 minutes walking down to the office to get the key.

Then somebody else starts whining about getting a key for the gates that they lock at 2300, so I lose another 40 minutes getting that taken care of.

I tell my son I'm going home to get the missing antenna, leave, and hit a massive traffic jam on the 710 North freeway.

Takes me over an hour to get home, when iy normally takes about 25 minutes.

Get home, grab the antenna and cable tie it to my roof rack, and head back, only to find that there's a "gaper's block" on the Southbound freeway to look at the accident I passed earlier.

Total wasted travel time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Hook up the rotor controller box to make sure the rotors are where they should be to install the cross-boom and antennas, and notice the Azimuth and Elevation connectors don't match. Get the extension cables I normally use, and power up the rotors only to realize I have the wrong model control box for this model of rotor.

Last year I used a different antenna mount and rotors, and never swapped out the controller from the tote box all the radio stuff is in.

I finally just give up, and pack the valuable stuff back in the Jeep to bring home for the night, as there's no freaking way I'm going to make yet another round trip to get the correct rotor control box.

And now that I'm home, I can't find the control box I used two years ago!

I give up.

I'm taking a shower, having something to eat, and going to relax the rest of the night........

3 comments:

Keep it civil, please....

Annnnd.....We Got Zip.....

 Total snow was about 6~8", but half o0f it melted as soon as it hit, and we never had more than 3" on the ground at any one time....