Upcoming Amateur Radio Events on the Battleship IOWA

Just got back from the BIARA board/planning meeting for the month.

As of this date, we'll be operating NI6BB on May 26th for Memorial Day, from 0900 to 1800 PDST, along with several other events.

Museum Ships Weekend
0000Z June 7th, through 2359Z June 8th

ARRL Field Day
June 28th~29th OPERATING HOURS TBD

I'll post the other events here, as we firm them up.

Look for us on frequencies ending in "61" (get it? BB61?), like 14.261, 7.261, etc +/- the QRM!

On announced events, we usually get quite a pile-up, so be patient, and if we can hear you, we will work you!

I won't be operating on the Iowa for Field Day, as I'll be running the satellite station for my "other" club, URAC, K6AA.

Hope to meet you on the air!

Busy Day, Again!

Spent all day on the IOWA, for an orientation class, which was extremely well done, and then a couple of hours in Radio Central making contacts for our Armed Forces Day event.

We're encouraging everyone we meet to write a little Military Service bio on their QSL cards, covering either themselves, or close relatives.

Talked to one older gent who'd served on the IOWA back in the '50's, and he was extremely excited that we have regular Amateur Radio operations going on now.

Then I came home, played with the dog, and built a bookcase for my wife.

My son is coming over Sunday morning to see the Supra, and give me a hand moving some things around.

Gee.....2047 local time, and I'm ready for bed. I remember when this was the time I'd be getting ready to go out prowling the streets with my '73 Trans Am!

**~~HOT!~~**

WoW.....We've had three days of 100+ weather, and today is the hottest yet.

The thermometer in may car indicated it was 107*F coming home today, and my calibrated weather station indicates we hit 104.4*F today at 1326 local time, the highest temp so far this year.

And to make it worse, the Relative Humidity has been in the %5~6% range the last several days.

I don't ever recall getting "static zaps" in the summer out here!

It's supposed to break tonight, with high being 93*F on Friday, dropping to 80*F on Saturday, and in the low to mid 70's on Sunday, and through the next week.


AND......I watched my workmates motor out of the harbor today on their way to catch up with the Launch Platform, and then on to 154*W, 0*N (the launch site) for the launch of Eutelsat 3B, which is now scheduled for May 26th, at 1410 PDST, 2110 UTC.

If anybody wants to watch the live streaming web broadcast, drop me an email, and I'll send you the link.

Saturday Relaxation

Didn't have to work extremely late Friday, only until about midnight. Was balsting along the access road, and when I turned the second-to-the-last corner, I saw the railroad crossing arms coming down in the distance.

RATS!

Wound up sitting there at the crossing for 35 minutes as they moved a train back and forth getting all the cars connected.

They back it down one siding, pull forward past the switch, throw the switch, and then back down another siding to connect more cars, finally getting the rest of their load, and then they pulled out of the yard, past the crossing, and off in to the distance.

Here's a screenshot of the crossing I have to traverse every day. Follow "Nimitz Rd" from the lower right, and towards the top you'll see it turn, and this is where the crossing is. It's a choke point for everything out on the Navy Mole besides us, and can really cause a jam, as it's the ONLY road leading on and off the mole.

The sidings with all the traffic are to the left of Nimitz Road, while the sidings on the right take a different route off Terminal Island, and never impede vehicular traffic.There's been a couple of times in the past (a derailment, and a fatal accident) that kept the crossing blocked for 24 hours, so we had the railroad guys open up one of their access roads for us, so we could get off Terminal Island. It wasn't easy, but we had access.

SO.....I didn't get home until about 0045, which means by the time I get into my jammies, and wind down, I finally got to sleep about 0130.

The Launch Platform is leaving Sunday morning, and the Command ship will be leaving Thursday morning, and I'll be standing on the pier waving to them.

Finally Friday!

Been pretty busy the last few days getting ready for tonight's final testing of the "Integrated Launch Vehicle".

I'll be going in about 1600 to finish training the guy who's going in my place, and supervise him during the test.

The RF portion of the test will start about 2200, although the customer has told us they *might* be ready to go as early as 2000.

If all goes well, I should be able to get out of there at midnight, otherwise it could be a looooong night!

The last time this particular customer was there, they dragged things out, left for dinner without telling anybody, didn't follow the printed schedule we gave them, and in general caused the whole operation to be in Charlie Foxtrot territory all night.

I wound up being there almost 16 hours!

This morning I'm going to go by the Social Security office to ask a few questions about my upcoming retirement, and then I'm going to a farewell lunch for another person who's leaving the company. She's one of the "Export" people who handles a lot of the paperwork, and she'll really be missed.

After this launch, we have NO idea what's going to happen. The launch for fourth quarter of this year isn't going to happen, and the customer the management was in talks with for next year has yet to commit. Considering it takes anywhere from 6 to 12 months to get some of the specialized hardware built, if they don't commit pretty soon, that launch just aint gonna happen.

Several people have told me in private they're going to bail after this launch, which will really out the company in a bad position.

As for me, I'm out of there in August!

Bummer......

Just heard via Tam's blog that my friend Jeffro has passed away.

I always enjoyed corresponding with Jeff about Big Rigs and stuff, as he was a wealth of information, and always willing to patiently answer my Dumb Questions.

God Bless you, my friend, and may you Rest In Peace.

Duracell Battery Problems

Has anybody had problems with the big "24 pack" of Duracell batteries lately?

I bought a pack at Home Depot some months back, and they're pure GARBAGE!

I use them in my LaCrosse digital clock here in the radio room, and they not only go dead in a month, but they LEAK!

I've never had problems with "AA" size Duracells before, and a pair of them used to run this clock for about a year.

And it's not just this clock, either. They don't last more than a month or so in the various remotes we have, and those leaked, too.

I'm beginning to wonder if somebody slipped Home Depot a fast one, and they got stuck with some counterfeit batteries.

Guess I'll have to write Duracell directly, but just wondered if anybody else out here has noticed this.

I've gone back to Energizers in the meantime.......

Busy, Busy!

Besides being busy helping to support the next launch, been putting a big dent in the Honey Dew list.

We bought a new air conditioner for the living room, and after my wife's #1 son helped me install it, I noticed the plug was the "T-Slot" type. Well, it needs a "20 Amp" receptacle, I thought, so I went to the Cheapo Depot, bought one, and swapped it out. ALL the breakers to our 120 Volt outlets are 20 Amp, so changing it was no big deal.

I went to plug the new A/C unit in, and WTF???? The "Tee" was wrong, and wouldn't fit the new outlet!

Then I looked at the GFI that's built into the plug, and realized she'd bought a 240 Volt unit! Then I looked at the part number I gave her, and realized I'D given her the wrong model number to buy!

D'OH!!!!!


Luckily her BFF's son-in-law is an electrician, so for $70 worth of parts, and $160 in labor, he came over with his dad Wednesday night after his normal shift, installed a new outlet, ran new cable, and put a new breaker in our Service Entrance box.

It cools much better than the 10 year old 120 Volt unit we had, and as a bonus, the lights don't dim when it kicks in.

ANYWAY....then I had to spackle the one hole he had to drill behind the baseboard so he could run the cable, nail the baseboard back on.

Toyota Leaving California For Texas

Toyota's been in Torrance for 57 years, and now they've pulled the plug for all the Usual Reasons.

Read the whole story here.

I wonder if when Honda will go, too.......

I'm Out Sick Today

Wife was sick last week, so I blame her.

All congested, headache, achy body, and all I want to do is sleep.

I'm going back to bed......

Glad It's Tursday!

As this has been an exceptionally BORING week at "work".

We have a morning meeting informing us of the progress in getting the launch vehicle back together, and then.........NOTHING.

I've read all of the books I have on the Iowa

I've read every "Hammer Time" post over at The Truth About Cars

I've re-read all of the books I have on the care and feeding of an M1 Garand

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.......


And I still have four months until retirement.......


We've heard the ships will be going in to "Cold Layup" at the completion of this launch campaign, although there's a faction fighting to keep the command ship in "Semi-Warm Layup".

And one of the IT guys told me they want to shut down the building where all us payload guys are cubicaled (is that a word?) to save money. The problem is, there's not enough floor space in the building they want to use to house all of us.

I expect a Reduction In Force to occur a few weeks after the ships are back........

Easter Brunch On The Battleship Iowa

Well, my jaw has recovered 90% or better, and no signs of swelling, so the wife and I went down to the Iowa for the Sunday Easter brunch.

The food was catered by the San Pedro Brewing Company, and was typical breakfast fare, with eggs, potatoes, sausage, BACON!, and a lot of other items, and it was quite good.

After eating, we took the self-guided tour again, and saw some of the areas that have been cleaned up and open to the public since we first took the tour before the ship was opened.

And we saw the Plank Owner's wall, with the teak plate inscribed to the memory of my father, who served in the Sea Bees from 1941 through 1945.

One of the really neat things the restoration crews found was in the Officer's Wardroom.

As they were cleaning off some peeling paint, they found a beautiful map, hand painted on the wall, of the South Pacific Theater of War.

It was very similar to the map on Wikipedia, reproduced below, but was painted in differnt colors, and had much more detail.

Since they can't find any photos of this map in their extensive archives, it's still a mystery as to when it was painted, and who painted it.

My wife was very surprised that I could point out all of the places my Dad had been to, and frankly, I was too. He was like a lot of our Veterans, in that once their job was finished, he came home, and didn't care to talk about it much. Sometimes he'd start to talk, and just when it was getting very interesting, and I'd ask some questions, he'd clam up. But seeing that map, with names of places in use at the time, brought the memories flooding back to me.

And we stopped by Turret 2 to see the memorial to the 47 who lost their lives 25 years ago. I didn't make it down there yesterday to help with the "Radio Activities", but at least we got to see the memorial while it's still there.

Back from The Dentist

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I learned a ton about how teeth are extracted.

The tooth in question is/was "#31", the last molar on the lower right side. I'd had a filling fall out some years ago, and like a dummy, I just ignored it until it really started to hurt. My own dental insurance had gone away after I was laid-off from Boeing, so I went to the Dentist my wife uses.

He wanted to just pull the tooth, but I figured it wasn't that bad, so I went back to my own Dentist who examined me, said I needed a root canal and a crown, and no, my wife's insurance wouldn't pay for it.

I also got a lecture about what would have been a $250 filling replacement had now turned into a $2200 procedure!

ANYWAY.......that was about 5 years ago, so I guess I got my money's worth out of the crown.

During a previous cleaning they noticed something was odd, but couldn't decide what was going on, so they told me not to worry about it, but to contact them immediately if I had any problems.

WELL...during the cleaning I had a couple of weeks ago, they noticed that the tooth appeared a bit "strange", so they took and X-Ray, and found the front root had separated from the rest of the tooth, and declared the tooth would have to be removed, which we did this morning.

The worst part was getting stuck with the needle (God, I HATE needles!) to numb it out, and the actual extraction and cleanup went very smoothly.

There were NO problems apparent with clotting, despite the fact I'm taking Plavix and an 81mg aspirin per day.

I was in and out in an hour, and then came home and took a bit of a nap.

So far I'm just kind of "generically sore" in the jaw, and taking it easy, as I don't want to interfere with the clotting/healing that's started.

I had planned on attending the Battleship Iowa memorial service tomorrow for the 47 people that lost their lives in the Turret #2 Explosion, and then operate the radio station for the event we're having, but I think I'll pass on it. One of the things the Dentist told me to do was NOT talk a whole lot, and since I operate on Single Sideband, that's kind of hard to do!

Sunday the wife and I will be going to the Easter Brunch on the Iowa, so at least I'll spend a little time there this weekend.

Think I'll head back to the rack for a little while.......

Bundy Ranch Video

Supposedly Facebook is has banned this video.

Several commenters have said they post it, and it just "disappears".




And for those that don't understand why Mr. Bundy refused to pay his "Grazing Fees", here's another rancher's explanation of it all.

All the big city folk that cry and fret about a supposedly endangered desert tortoise, while eating their Big Mac, don't have clue where the beef comes from.


And then there's this story about a planned Fed raid on the Bundy's home.

As much as I'm happy the Feds pulled out (or were pushed out), I certainly don't think this is The End Of The Story.

Bullies have a way of returning, you know......

Bill Whittle Smacks Another One Out Of The Park with "Disarming The Warriors"

Tip of the hat to The Feral Irishman

I'll Be Busy On The Battleship Iowa Saturday

We have a bunch of Scouts coming to the Battleship Iowa on Saturday to take the test for their Radio Merit Badge, so I'll be there all day running the radio, and coaching the Scouts.

Some of them are very good on the radio, and some are almost terminally "mic shy". Still, they man up, and talk on the radio, and we do our best to encourage them. Usually the more talkative types will go first, and if we're lucky (we usually are), and have a Ham on the other end who knows what we're doing, the other Ham will coach them along, too.

Last year we were very fortunate to stumble across a Ham in Vancouver, B.C. who was a Scoutmaster, and the kids had a great time. Signals were strong and steady, and he hung in with us for almost 4 hours!

This class we only have 10 Scouts, so we won't need the Propagation Deities smiling quite so broadly.

And our friends on the Hornet will be listening for us, to try and help, as they're doing the same thing.

Might be the first "Scout-to-Scout" AND "Warship-to-Warship" contacts ever made for the Radio Merit Badge program, so all us Old Greybeards have our fingers crossed!

We're also working out the details of a "Four Sisters" award that will be issued to Hams who contact the Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

As it is now, every time one of the ships gets on the Amateur Radio frequencies, they get swamped with people calling. This award will just make it that much more popular!

Oh, Boy.....Wife Got In Another Accident

She's OK, and the car isn't too badly damaged.

She was coming home from visiting her brother (great guy!) who's in the hospital, and was coming in to our little neighborhood when she got "gently" T-Boned in the passenger side.

She was making a left turn, with the sun to her back, and another car, with the sun in his eyes, didn't see her until he was about 20 feet away. He locked 'em up, put down about 15 feet of skid marks, and slid into her. Got the front passenger door pretty good, but it was all above the rocker panel, so hopefully no serious structural damage.

They both said they didn't see each other, and having turned left at that corner many times, I can understand it.

We dropped the car off at the body shop this morning, picked up her rental car, and she went in to work, while I'm staying home.

There were several witnesses who saw the whole thing, and they all agreed it was unfortunate, but probably unavoidable due to the traffic and angle of the sun in everybody's eyes.

What's Your Favorite "Car" Movie?

I had a new found (to me) car chase scene I posted a few days ago, and it got me thinking....always an activity fraught with peril.

What's your favorite "car" movie?

I'm NOT a big fan of car movies loaded up with CGI, and impossible stunts, like the "The Fast and The Furious" series, and some of the stuff done in the remake of "Gone In 60 Seconds", so I won't include those.

And movies with great chase scenes, like "Bullitt", and "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior", are great movies, but aren't what I'd call "Car Movies", where the cars are a big part of the entire story.

This narrows the selections down considerably, and the few that I know about, and like, would be as follows:

"Grand Prix" starring James Garner and others

"Le Mans" starring Steve McQueen

"Rush" starring Chris Hemsworth

"Truth in 24" starring "People You've Never Heard Of"


Now there are many other movies out there that the cars play a fairly big part in, but by my narrow-minded definition, aren't quite in the same category as the 4 movies above.

Some of those are:

"Heart Like a Wheel" starring Bonnie Bedelia

"Cars" by Pixar

The original "Gone In 60 Seconds"

"The Big Wheel" starring Mickey Rooney

"To Please A Lady" starring Clark Gable


And many, many more.

So which are your favorites and stinkers?

Friday Update

GROAN....just got back from the Dentist, and found out I'm going to lose a tooth.

Bottom right molar, the very last one, (#31, I think) has a cracked root. I had a crown put on this one back in 2009 after the filling fell out, and I didn't do anything about it for too long.

What could have been a $250 filling replacement turned into a $2200 root canal and crown. This was while I was laid-off, and didn't have any decent dental coverage. The dentist my wife's coverage provided wanted to just pull the tooth, but I knew it could be repaired, so I paid for it out of pocket as my Dentist wasn't in her plan's network.

Oh, well....I got another five years out of that tooth.....

Funny thing is it doesn't hurt, which is good because it hasn't started to decay yet. They X-Rayed it back in November, and nothing showed up, but because there was some weird feeling in it, my Dentist said they'd watch it closely.

The launch has been delayed until the middle of May due to damage to the rocket and some equipment on the launch platform that happened last Saturday when they went to erect the rocket.

A very large panel with electrical and gas connectors, similar to the umbilical on a U.S. launch vehicle, didn't line up properly, and when they raised the vehicle, the connector panel on the rocket and the mating connectors on the launch platform were damaged.

In order to assess the damage, the complete launch vehicle had to be transferred back to the command ship, and the payload assembly/third stage demated. Now we're hearing all the damaged parts will have to be sent back to the rocket manufacturing company in the Ukraine to be rebuilt and recertified for flight.

AND....one of the export managers quit yesterday, and when I went to to take the original letter from my Doctor to the outsourced HR person who only comes in once a week for 4 hours a day, I was told "They no longer work here".

Hmmmm....no HR anymore?

WITHOUT any announcement?

SO.....I took the letter to the gal who handles all the legal stuff and maintains the paper files for all employees, and find out that she's out until next week. The payroll lady has the next office over, and when I asked her about the HR person, she hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and said "If you have any issues, talk to your direct (manager) first". Then I help up the letter, she turned red, and said I could leave it with her, and she'd give it to the legal gal next Wednesday.

I think I'll keep it and give it to the legal lady next Wednesday myself.

If we're open that long..........

GREAT Car Chase Scene

From a movie I've never heard of, "Short Time" starring Dabney Coleman.

"Honey Dew" weekend......

Well. since I was supposed to go in to work Saturday at 1800 for about 6 hours, and was called saying to stand down due to problems with the rocket, my sweet little wife decided sleeping in was too good for me!

She works for the local school district at a magnet high-school, and since they're off this week for spring break, she had scheduled a contractor to come in and refinish our kitchen cabinets.

Yes, I'm quite capable of doing this type of work, but she wants it finished in a week, and it would take me a month......OR MORE!

SO....we unloaded all the drawers, and I cleaned off the small table in the breakfast nook that I use for rebuilding stuff that's too big to handle here in Radio Central.

I then pulled the range hood out of the cabinetry it was stuffed into, as it's pretty old, crummy, beat up, and having electrical issues. Plus it was an almond color that doesn't match our stainless appliances, so we'll get a new one after the cabinets are refinished.

The contractor is coming Tuesday to pull the drawers and doors and start on the fixed cabinets. They'll have one crew back at their shop redo the things they take, while the "local" crew here will do all sorts of things to make the cabinets look nice.

No idea what's wrong with the launch vehicle other than it's more than minor, and all the activities I do are on hold until the issue(s) get resolved.

EARTHQUAKE!

Whew....just had a good one roll through here!

Pretty good vertical shaking, followed by some rolling motion, and what felt like an aftershock a minute or so later.

Can't get to the USGS site, so I don't know how big it was.....


5.3 out by San Bernardino

Lowered to 5.1, and centered near La Habra.

Read more here at the Press Telegram.....

*Slightly* Sad Today.....

Well, the launch vehicle transfer went smooth today, and since I had a ton of stuff to do, I stayed on the ship. About 1300 they started to move it back to the east side of the pier, and it struck me......

This was probably the last time I'll be on that ship when she moves under her own power.

Since she's tied down to the pier until she leaves Thursday morning, and I'm not going with her, I felt a twinge of sadness.

I've been out on 16 launches, and at a "nominal" 20 days per launch, that's 320 days at sea I spent on her.

Add up the two times we went on sea trials (10 days each), and the four missions that ran to 30 days due to weather, launch aborts, and other delays, and I've spent well over a year at sea on her.


Oh, well, life goes on.........

In The Home Stretch For "My Last Launch"

Been insanely busy the last week running checkouts on our various systems.

I was able to get one of the Linux PC's that runs the weather radar running again by using an external boot device to load a rescue disk in memory so we could run "fsck" on the hard disk and "repair" it. It had been improperly shut down several times, corrupting numerous files, and causing a kernel panic when it tried to load the OS.

And we also finished up 95% of the RF Link testing, and dropped the cable running between the two ships. We use a cable to tie the two systems together for pier testing as we're not allowed to radiate on the system frequencies while in port.

Tomorrow the Launch Vehicle gets transferred to the Platform, and on Saturday they roll out, erect the LV, and run a full-on dry (unfueled) countdown. If all goes well, they put her back in the hangar Sunday morning, and leave Monday morning. The bad thing about Saturday is the satellite people won't be ready to do their RF testing until 2200, so I'll go in about 1800 while there's still plenty of daylight, and train my "replacement" on how to aim some antennas we use, and where all the right knobs and buttons are that he'll have to adjust down at the launch site.

Oh, and I'm working up a whole list of things I just love about this job, and how terribly I'll miss them, but that'll have to wait until August to get published!

Obama and Putin Play Golf

And it turned out like this......

I wonder if he's thinking that Putin's a racist for making him carry Putin's clubs?

Pat Condell on "A Society of Cowards"

I don't always agree with what he says, and I don't subscribe to his religious "beliefs" (non-beliefs?), but he's usually spot on with his commentary.

This one is exceptionally good.

Saturday Morning Music

Really beat after all the running around I did all week at work.

So, while I'm gearing up to attack the Honey Dew list (I swear it gets bigger every day!), and checking my email, I've been listening to this.

I don't care for the man's politics, but he sure can perform.....