"Mini-Tour" of USS Halsey DDG-97

This is a couple of weeks ago, from "Navy Days", and I hope I haven't forgotten too much of it!

You had to get an online ticket to see any of the ships that were in port, and which one you got to see was pretty much a random thing, although I heard you could get out of line and wait for a different group if you wanted to visit a specific ship.

It didn't matter to me, so I wound up getting to see some of the USS Halsey.

The Halsey is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, and is as far removed from the "Tin Cans" of WWI as a 747 is from the Wright Flyer.




This is the forward ramp leading to the ship, as seen from the line I was in:

The first thing I saw once I was on the main deck was a display of the Commanding Officers of the ship:

And, of course, the ship's placard:

Going through an exterior (it was open to the weather on both ends) pssageway, I snapped a picture of one of the frame numbering signs. It's identical to the ones painted on the Iowa, that were done back in the 1980's, and they probably date back much earlier. I'm sure some of my regular visitors will fill me in on the details!

I can read these well enough to know where I am on the ship, which is real handy yo know if you have to leave the compartment in a hurry!

And at the forward end of this portal was a very interesting sign:

This is what the sign is referring to, the forward section of the Vertical Launching System, consisting of 32 tubes:

According to the crew, each tube can be can be loaded with several different types of missiles, from the Surface-to-Air SM-2 "Standard" missile to Tomahawk cruise missiles, and antisubmarine ASROC missiles.



Just forward of the VLS is the ship's gun, a 5",  62 caliber, Mark 45 mod 4 rapid firing gun:

It's capable of lobbing a shell over 20 miles, and has a variety of ammunition it can use.

Here's the "business end":

Sorry for the crummy picture. My "fill in" flash just wasn't big enough. Next time I'll bring my BIG strobe to fill in the shadows.


We then started down the port side of the ship, stopping at a pintle-mounted SAW:

This was one of the longer stops on our little tour, as everybody wanted their picture taken "shooting" the gun. Out of the 10 or so people who posed with the gun, the only one who did it right was another old guy like me. He said it "fit better" than the M60 he used in Nam!

The sailor in the picture was our guide for the tour. Quite a jovial fellow who's been in the Navy some years, and was planning on making it his career.

God Bless You, sir!


And of course, the ships' bell:

Next was this little device, which I'm sure some of you know well:

In Ye Dayes of Olde, this was how they'd transfer a person between ships.

Yes, you could get quite wet, especially if the guys handling the lines didn't like you.

They don't really use it anymore, as it takes about 20~30 minutes to set up the ships in position, shoot the lines over, and then get everything else ready.

He told us they could have one of the RIBs manned and in the watter in under 7 minutes, so guess which method they use.....

Back on the starboard side, and heading aft.....

First stop was a CIWS gun:

This is the latest-and-greatest model, with a "surface target" engagement mode. The ones on the Iowa were strictly for engaging airborne or sea-skimming targets, but this one can go after small craft.

Note the optical/TV sight with the wiper blade on it, just above the gun barrels:

And yes, it was loaded with live rounds:

The ship also carries torpedos, but not the big ones like a Destroyer would have had during WWII.

These are Mk 46 "lightweight" torpedos, used against smaller surface targets, and submarines.

Although considering the range they have (12,000 yards), by the time a hostile sub gets that close, you're probably already taking on water and going down!

Here our guide and the lady sailor are explaining about the different types of missiles loaded in the aft VLS, consisting of 64 launchers:

IIRC, that's the USS Bunker Hill off the stern of the Halsey.


And another warning sign:

Some of the missiles have semi-active radar on them, which means the target is illuminated by the ship's radar until the missile gets within a certain range, and then the missile's internal radar takes over.

These are the target illuminator antennas:

They might look like they're pointed at the sky, but because they use an offset feed, they're actually pointed down much lower, towards the horizon:

And the helo deck:

And a warning sign I'm very familiar with:

One thing I kept noticing were what I thought were "fire fighting" nozzles all over the place:

I think these might serve a dual purpose; besides possibly being for fire suppression, I'll bet they're also used for NBC washdown.




The plaque between the nozzles is interesting, but I'm not sure what it means:

And the Mk 36 SRBOC dispensers, just like on the Iowa:

On our way back to the pier, I got some better pictures of this 25mm gun:

I asked if it was similar to the Bushmaster that the Bradley carries, but the crewman I asked didn't know, as he was from some different department. All he knew was that it was fully automatic.

Turns out it's a "Navalized" version of the Bushmaster.


Back on dry land, our guide  showed us some firefighting equipment, and explained how it was similar to, but different from, the equipment used on land.

For instance, your local Fire Department has a separate coat and pants for their turn-out gear. The Navy uses a one-piece garment to keep the heat from getting under the coat as they descend ladders, something their land-based brothers don't generally do.

I didn't get his name, but he was a great tour guide, very friendly and knowledgeable and an asset to our Country, and I'm sure his ship.

Bravo Zulu!

I could have gone back the next day and gotten a behind-the-scenes tour of the Bunker Hill that had been arranged for the Iowa crew, but we had something planned for that day, so I couldn't make it.

USS Halsey DDG-97 Post is "In The Works"

Just didn't feel like finishing it tonight.

 I'm organizing a huge stack of "stuff" that will go on eBay, and that means photographing it, and writing the listings, and that's taking me longer to do than I expected.

And I've also got a few pictures from a crew-only, 2nd Deck tour I was on Sunday. I've seen and posted 75% of it before, but this time we went as far forward as is allowed, and saw the anchor windlass mechanisms.

BIG stuff, and probably things you'll never see.....

70 Years Ago Today......

The Empire of Japan announced their surrender.

Due to the time differences, it was heard in the U.S. on August 14th, which was yesterday.

In commemoration, we had a memorial on the Iowa Friday at 1400 local time.

An old Army vet played the most perfect rendition of "Taps" I've ever heard live, and there wasn't a dry eye to be found.

Let us all remember that day so long ago, and the courage and sacrifice that led us to it.

The USS Iowa Veteran's Association has been aboard all week, and meeting these guys was quite an honor.

I met some who served on her during WWII, and some of the guys who were the very last on her; literally the guys that sailed her into the mothball fleet.

We greeted them all with "Welcome home", and they loved it.

We also learned a tremendous amount from them about how the ship has changed over the years, and the younger guys were an absolute wealth of information about the ship's current configuration.

And we thanked them all for their service.

Just Told the RNC WHY I Won't Give Them Any Money......

I rarely do any "Political Commentary" here as I'm not very eloquent at it, but today is different.

Just had an interesting phone call.

It was the RNC calling, and rather than just hit the "disconnect" button, I thought I'd talk to the guy, and see if I could get my viewpoint across.....

The call started out by asking me who I thought was "the best" candidate in the current crop of people vying for the official RNC head nod.

I told him that, at this point in time, I favored Scott Walker, but also liked Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.

I'll get to Governor Walker, and my brief "chat" with the caller, in a bit....

I've got some gripes about Carly's time at HP, but for now, that's neither here nor there. She's extremely intelligent, very personable (I saw her speak at a Tech Convention once, years ago), and I generally agree with her political positions on things.

I like Senator Cruz because I also agree with his political positions, and especially like his stance in strong support of our 2nd Amendment rights. I think he's a bit of a dark horse candidate, and his "Pull No Punches" approach to things turns some people off, but I think you can say with confidence that he knows where he stands on issues, and he's got the gumption to tell you.

I like Governor Walker because again, I like his stand on the issues, and the fact that he has a proven history of getting a budget under control, and ending up with a surplus.

The fact that he survived a very nasty recall election shows to me that he can "get out the vote", at least in his home state.

Now, about that phone call.......

After chatting with the guy for a while (he claimed to be from Wisconsin, and claimed he was calling from Oshkosh), I was wondering when he'd get around to holding the cup out.

Sure enough, after niceties were over he asked for a pledge of "$100, $50, or even just $25", and I flat out told him "No".

I told him that unless and until the RNC ran a candidate that was a true fiscal and Constitutional Conservative, I wouldn't give them 10 cents.

I told him their record of running such candidates in the past had absolutely SUCKED, and that the party was well and truly on it's way to being irrelevant to their "core" or "base" or whatever they call it these days.

I told him that I would much rather give my money directly to a candidate than the RNC, as the RNC had quite a history of promising one thing, and then either "forgetting" it, or turning around and doing something almost 180* from what they said they'd do.

Once I told him no, he seemed to want to cut me loose, but I was able to hang on to him for a while, and he let me finish. I asked him to try and get my positions bumped up the line to somebody who would listen, and he said he'd flag the recording for review.

Considering the past history of RNC "promises", I doubt anybody else will listen to the recording, if indeed it was being recorded at all.......

Battleship USS Iowa Fly Over Flight

Something to amuse my readers while I ponder what to post next....

OH, I know....my "Mini Tour" of the USS Halsey, DDG-97!

I'll try and get that up later.

In the meantime, enjoy!

These guys are from the Chino, CA "Planes of Fame" air museum, a place I've visited many times.

We Might Be Leaving Kalifornaistan Earlier Than I Thought......

Sorry I didn't get going on this earlier. Much to my surprise (and delight!) my lovely wife has all of a sudden become rather "antsy" about moving to Colorado, and relegating the wonderful People's Democratik Republik of Kaliforniastan to the dustbin of history.

I guess it started a few days ago when I was looking at real estate prices in the Fort Collins/Bellvue/Laporte/Wellington area, and saw some rather nice properties for about $75~100k less than what we'd walk away with if we sold this place.

She ran the numbers again, and confirmed my SWAG about the valuation vs what we owe, and realized she could retire early.

ANYWAY.....we could get a nice 3br 2ba on at least one acre of land, and if we moved a bit further out, we could get the same thing on 2~3 acres, and be well within our comfort zone regarding PITI, and other matters that she understands very well.


Here's one on 2.6 acres for $290,000:

Here's one on a 13,000 sqft lot for $250,000:

I noticed there's a trend towards Manufactured Housing in some areas, like the 2.6 acre property shown above.

I have no real opinion on Manufactured Housing (different link than above), other than I know it's improved tremendously over the last 25 years. My step son's future Father-In-Law (great guy) owns a construction company and builds "custom" homes, and has an excellent reputation in the area, so I'll talk to him about manufactured housing as used in that area before I make any final decision on it.

As an Engineer, I believe that if it was properly designed, properly assembled with quality components, and properly transported and installed, it should be OK.

As a potential buyer, I have a lot to learn!


And of course you can get real "fixer-uppers" in the $150,000~$200k range, but I'm just too damn old to take on another "fixer-upper" house!



Some more Good Things:

Colorado sales tax is 4.5~6.5%, compared to 9+% here.

Gasoline is 75 cents to a buck a gallon cheaper.

Food is cheaper.

Colorado state income tax is a flat-rate 4.63%, compared to 13.3% here.

Colorado property tax is generally under 1% (varies GREATLY by county), but on a less expensive home, it would be less than we're paying now, and it could very well be half of what we're paying now.

And I found several references to a "Senior Exemption" on the property tax, but as of this time, I have no idea what that means.

Our current house payment is in the $1800 range right now, and after she ran the numbers (again), she realized our payment would be in the $800~$1000 range.

The last thing she wants me to research are utility rates, and I want to look into "High Speed" Internet access.

We might possibly be out of here in two years, or less, compared to the 3~5 years she was looking at before.

I just hope things hold together that long........

Navy Days Was Great!

Got to tour the USS Halsey, and I'll post pix on Sunday.

Maybe about 25 contacts from NI6BB, and band conditions were poor.

I usually operate during the week, and I was surprised how quiet things are on the weekends, with few operations taking place across the channel on Terminal Island.

All the electrical equipment on the big cranes and the other gear over there tends to make quite a racket, but today the local noise level was only S2~3!

Too bad propagation stunk.......


In the meantime.....enjoy the video of the USS Cape St. George arriving, and our simulated "salute firing" of 5" gun, Mount 56!

Almost Forgot.....Navy Days L.A. 2015!

I'll be on the Iowa all day Saturday, and I have a ticket for a brief tour a1300~1330 of one of the three ships here for Navy Days.

The ships arrived Tuesday morning around 0900, and were graced with:



The USS Halsey, DDG-97

The USS Bunker Hill, CG-52

and

The USS Cape St. George, CG-71

Here's some video courtesy of WABC, Channel 7:



   

And here's the story on the ABC website.


Between tinkering away on the Supra, fixing my wife's granddaughter's laptop (it "self upgraded" to Windows 10 on her!), AND doing research on proximity fuzes for a planned exhibit on the Iowa (hey, they're "radio related"!), I totally forgot this was coming up this weekend!

The Iowa was closed on Tuesday for filming, and when I woke up Wednesday morning, I was rather ill, so I didn't go in for my usual Radio Room shift.

Had a 48-hour stomach bug that knocked me for a loop, but I'm back to normal now.

SO......I'm taking my camera with me, but I think they have a "No Camera" policy on the ships; I'll have to read what the ticket says.

At least I should get some good shots from the pier and from the Iowa.

Backyard Visitor

And Pebbles went completely NUTZ!

She heard some other dogs barking, ran to the back door, and started whining, something she rarely does.

Then I heard my wife say "Oh my GOD!!" in a rather frantic voice, so I grabbed my 1911 and headed for the back.

We had a visitor on the backyard block wall!

 

By this time Pebbles had bolted out the door when my wife cracked it open, and by the time I got out there she was doing her best to dislodge the intruder from the wall:

This was when she was on her way UP!

Her front paws got to within a few inches of the top of the wall, so I decided I'd better end the fracas, as I didn't want a 1930 emergency call to the Vet.

I went over there, and barked out our "safe" word, and she stopped and sat down, so all those HOURS of practicing that command paid off.

I got her back inside and praised her for being "safe" (DO NOT use the word when doing this!), and gave her one of her favorite treats.

Part of the grapevine is on the ground, and not the trellis, as she tried to climb the trellis a few nights ago in response to "something" being up on the wall.

It's usually a cat, but they take off after she makes one pass at them, and the other night she repeatedly kept trying to get up the wall in that area, so now I think I know what got her so riled up!

The possum was starting to get a bit defensive by the time I got to the fence, but I don't think it's their nature to attack, so the only thing I was worried about was if it fell off the wall.

Hopefully the little critter won't be back tonight........

DC SHOES: ROBBIE MADDISON'S "PIPE DREAM"

This is amazing!

Pressure Washing -Part 1-

Well, yesterdays attempt at pressure washing the bottom front of the Supra was a mixed success. My son brought over his "Task Force" pressure washer (the old house brand at Lowe's), and we proceeded to blast the underside of the car.

There were several problems from the get go.

One, his washer soap tanks have never worked, and two, we wound up having the seals blow out of the pump, putting us out of action.

The other "problem" was that the ZEP Industrial Strength (whatever that means these days) Purple cleaner I bought was not meant to be sprayed on and washed off (regardless of what the container says....), and it just runs off without having a chance to do much. Some of the people I talked to said it works quite well if you put it in the detergent tanks of the washer, but with our washer being non-functional in that area, that was a NOGO for us..

Then I ran out of good old Gunk Engine Brite, which does work extremely well if you spray it on, let it sit, and blast it off.

We got the loose stuff off fairly well:

But the majority of the crud is still on the frame and suspension components, as you'll see in the following pix.



Found a small dent in the oil pan:

And a bent area of the front cross member, probably caused by somebody hitting one of those concrete parking lot bumpers:

The oil pan dent is nothing to worry about, and likewise the ding in the cross member. The metal isn't split or folder back on itself, so I can just use a little "persuasion", and bend it back.



Also gently cleaned the topside:

Which resulted in large chunks of the black wrinkle finish paint blowing off the cam covers:

That's no big deal, as I have another set of cam covers that I'm going to get degreased, and finish them in the same colors. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it myself, or get them powder coated.


And I found out my power steering pump is blue, probably indicating a replacement at some time in the past:

The only rust I found on the car is under the battery tray, which I knew was there from the topside:

When I put the new battery in, I cleaned the tray with Naval Jelly, primed it and painted it, but blew off the upper area for "later".

After I finish degreasing the car and get it in the garage, I'll pull the battery, clean and rust encapsulate this area, and paint it.

 This is the area at the very bottom of the car, under the battery tray, where the battery had been dripping for who knows how long:

It's going to take some serious wire brushing and sanding to get the surface clean down there so I can encapsulate the rust and paint it.



And as usual, Pebbles was out there "Straw Bossing" us:

I'm not going for "show car" quality, and probably never will. This car has a nice "patina" to it (all the rage these days!), and since it's truly a "survivor" car, I figured it's earned every little nick, chip, and scrape.

Surface rust gets fixed. Nicks/chips through the paint get fixed. The bleached out cracked paint on the mirrors and rear sunshade are getting fixed, and the same with the front bumper. I have new carpets for the interior, and the seats will get properly cleaned when they're out for the carpet replacement.

 I bought this car to drive, and I'm more concerned about getting the front and rear suspensions rebuilt, the brakes rebuilt, all the hoses and belts (including the timing belt, tensioner, and idler) replaced, the new wheels and tires on it, and a proper 4-wheel alignment.

The only thing I can't do "in house" is replacing the windshield, which has seen better days, so that will get vended out. It's not cracked, and hasn't delaminated that I can see, but the blue tinted area at the top has that "Old Jap Car" brown tint to it now, and it has a lot of little nicks and chips in it, any one of which could turn into a crack.

Plus, it just looks bad!


The pressure washer that I bought should be here Tuesday afternoon, and I bought some gel-type Gunk that hopefully will stick to the vertical surfaces and soften up the crud enough that the washer can blow it off.

And all the bending, stretching, and lugging stuff around is good for me, and gets me off my behind and moving more than the day or two per week I spend on the Iowa. I joked with my previous Doctor that I had joined the "Toyota Physical Fitness Plan", and after I explained it to him, he said that was good way to look at it.

I just hope Part 2 goes better, and I can get all the grease, crud, and other gunk off the bottom of the car!

Saturday Already?

Sheesh.......time sure flies when you:

A) Don't Know What You're Doing

B) Are Having "Fun"

C) Are "retired".

Seems like I have less free time now than when I was working!

Or maybe it's just the backlog of projects I'd been saving "For When I Retire" that are finally getting my attention.

Writing up a PowerPoint (Libre Office "Presentation", actually) presentation to give to the Iowa staff on RF safety.

The speaker last month at the "other" radio club was a former SoCal Edison guru on RF Exposure, and he's offered his services to us.

So, while we've made the required calculations, he has the proper, calibrated test equipment to actually measure the RF field strength at various distances from our antennas, and tell us how well we meet the requirements.

One thing I deliberately did when I ran the calculations was to completely ignore any feedline loss, and used 100 Watts "at the antenna" to generate the results, giving us "Worst Case" results.

I keep pushing to actually measure the power at the antenna feed point, but nobody else seems interested. It's starting to look like another "Let Jim Do It" project, but knowing the guys, as soon as I drag in the gear and announce what I'm doing, several people will tag along to observe and help.

And I'm cleaning out the garage AGAIN. Seems like "stuff" just condense out of thin air to fill up garages in SoCal, especially when there's NO CAR in there!

My son is bringing over his pressure washer today so I can finally get all the grease/dirt/oil/crud off the bottom of the Supra under the engine bay so I can swap out the power steering hoses and get it smogged. The last time I took it in the refused to smog it, saying the high-pressure line to the power steering rack was leaking, and "Spraying fluid all over the place", making it unsafe to work on while the engine was running.

I looked under the hood, and while I could find a few drops of power steering fluid, no way was it "Spraying all over the place". I understand their concern, though. A long time ago I had a second generation Celica that had a cracked exhaust manifold, a common problem. Being extremely low on $$ at the time, I just let it go. I'd only paid $500 for the car, the crack happened right after I had it smogged to transfer the title, and it wasn't that loud.

WELL......the exhaust leak was pointed right at the high-pressure power steering hose, and one day when I was coming down the street, about a block away from my little bachelor pad, the hot gas finally burned through the hose.

Ever see hot hydraulic fluid under high pressure hit a flame?

Yep, it went BOOM, fire and smoke belched out from under the car, and one of my neighbors who happened to be walking down the street at the time said it looked like something out of a movie. There wasn't enough air under the hood to keep the fire burning, and it was low on fluid, so at least the car didn't burn to the ground.

So while I was upset that they greatly exaggerated the leak the Supra has, I can see why the mechanic was hesitant to work on it.

Oh, well.....

Time to go out and get greasy. Hopefully the power washer and the stuff I vought at Home Depot will get the car clean on the bottom.

I just hate working on crummy, greasy, grime-covered cars! It slows you down, and is a PITA......

Help Save Barrel #270 From The Battleship Iowa

The US Navy has decided to "purge" all remaining materiel in the inventory for the four Iowa class ships.

Were trying to get some of this, and the one thing on the Iowa "Hot List" right now is barrel #270, which was originally installed on the ship in 1942, and saw service in WWII and the Korean Conflict.

This barrel was also the "Lead Barrel" for all of the Iowa ships.

The barrel was replaced in 1955, and has been in storage since then.

The Navy will freely give us the barrel, but we're responsible for getting it from the St. Juliens Creek Naval Annex in Chesapeake, VA to California.

Moving a 70' long, 120 ton item from coast-to-coast isn't exactly easy, and the estimated cost of constructing a cradle and moving the barrel is between $120,000 and $150,000.

So far we've raised only $500, so we have quite a ways to go.

I don't think I've ever directly solicited funds here for any reason, but I am now.

If you can spare $5, $10 or whatever, please go to the fund raising site and donate what you can.

If we don't save it, the Navy will torch it into 8' long sections, and sell it for scrap.

Here's the Fund Raising Site, and more information can be found at:

www.SaveBB61Barrel270.org


Thanks, everybody!

Just A Common Soldier.........

A buddy of mine sent me a link to this, and I'd forgotten how poignant it was.

Thank you all for your service.

Been Busy With TV Repair

Well, my wonderful Panasonic TH50PZ85U 50" plasma took a dump a few weeks ago, and I finally repaired it.

It started suffering from the "10 Blinks of Death", where the power LED would blink 10 times, wait, blink 10 times, etc as soon as you plugged it in.

When it goes into this "SOS" mode it won't turn on, and is completely dead except for the power LED.

It had been acting up this way for 6 months or so, but unplugging it for a few minutes would clear the fault, so we kept using it.

It finally got to the point where unplugging it for a few days didn't clear it, so I started researching what board inside to replace.

Since the set was made in 2008, it's not "officially" supported by Panasonic any longer, but there are a few failures they'll fix under an "extended warranty", but this wasn't one of them.

Thanks to my good friends over at the AVS Forum, I was able to diagnose, and repair, the problem.

The problem is a 1uF "chip" capacitor on a daughter board on the "P" (power supply) board failing, and bringing down the +5 Volt logic power supply.

And it's not just a chip cap, but a very small chip cap, as shown in this picture from the forum member who figured it out, and posted the info on the forum:

First step was getting the set off the wall mount, and over to my temporary "work bench", the coffee table with a nice, thick comforter on it to pad the GLASS screen-side:

Then I had to remove all the $$##@@!! screws holding the back panel on so I could access the printed circuit baords inside.

NOTE: The "P" board has already been removed in this shot.  It sits just above the connector assembly (the "A" board), and just below where all the connectors are dangling:

This is the "P" board in place before I pulled it:

The "P" board is mounted to an aluminum plate, and once the "P" board is on-the-bench, there's more $$%%##!! screws to remove before I can get to the backside, so I can unsolder the daughter board:

Finally, the board is free of the aluminum plate, and on-the-bench:

And why are there so many screws on the back of the plate? To attach to all the individual heat-sink plates on the power transistors!:

Finally, after unsoldering the daughter board, I can clamp in my PanaVise, and remove the failed capacitor, which is the greyish colored rectangle mounted longwise up-and-down, to the left of the Integrated Circuit (wonder when we're going to be forced to change the name of ICs?), towards the top edge of the board:

And here's the board with the failed part removed:

Since there's NO WAY I'm going to get an exact matching part, and it would be VERY difficult for me to get something that small soldered back on, I went with a 1uF, 35V, leaded Tantalum capacitor. I had some of these left over from some long dusty project, so I trimmed the leads, and bent them to fit the pad spacing on the little board, and then tinned them. The package (a "JimPak" from Jameco Electronics) these caps came from said there were ten in the package for a price of $2.95, so in small quantities they go for 30 cents. The original chip cap in there was probably about ONE CENT in the quantities Panasonic buys!:

At last, the new cap is soldered on the daughter board, and the daughter board soldered back on the main board:

I'll stand this upright, and put a dab of Dow 5140 NON-corrosive RTV on it, and let it cure overnight, as having parts "hanging by their leads" like this is generally a Bad Idea unless you use some "staking compound" to protect them for vibration and thermal cycling, which can cause the solder to fracture, and the part fall off:

While waiting for the RTV to cure, I went ahead and bought some window-sealing tape, the 3/8" thick stuff with adhesive on one side, as the original tape had disintegrated from age and heat. Each of the cooling exhaust fans at the top of the set had similar tape applied to seal each fan to the cooling holes in the sheet metal back panel. They did this to ensure that the fans would exhaust the air through the cooling holes. If the fans weren't sealed tight, there's a very good possibility that instead of the heated air being exhausted from the cabinet, it would simply recirculate within the cabinet, rendering the fans pretty much useless.

I saw the sealing foam when I pulled the back panel off and smiled. This is truly a case of "Been There, Done That, and Got a Monetary Award For Thinking of It" in my career. One of the places I worked at was having trouble with severe overheating of a large motor control cabinet that had all the other Engineers scratching their heads. They had plenty of properly sized fans in the cabinet, but hadn't thought about exhausting the heated air from the cabinet. I was asked to help recalculate the airflow requirements and to check that the correct size fans had been used, and when I went over to where the things were being built, I just about fell down laughing.

There were NO holes, lovers, or vents in the cabinet! All the carefully sized fans were doing was moving the air around inside the cabinet, and letting the cabinet and all the sensitive electronics inside slowly cook to death.

I ordered some vents (with air filters) installed at the bottom of the cabinet to allow cooler, ambient air to be drawn inside, and some grilled fans installed at the very top of the cabinet to exhaust the heated air.

The temperature inside the cabinet dropped SEVENTY FIVE degrees, failure rate of the system dropped to about zero, and I got a nice check from corporate headquarters in recognition of solving a problem that had been costing the company thousands of dollars in warranty repairs.


Back to the TV set.......

I replaced the foam seals on the fans, vacuumed out all the dust that had accumulated over the years, and spent some time installing all the screws that held the aluminum plate to the "P" board, and put the board back in the set, and installed the back cover.

I had to lay on my back to see the power LED as the set was face-down on the table, and when my wife plugged the set in using a short AC cord, the power LED DID NOT flash, and I could cycle the power switch on and off with the LED staying off when the power switch was off.

Since my son was working, my stepson came over, and we put the set on the desk top stand, connected all the cables to it, and powered it up.

It worked just fine, so we shut it down and installed it back on the wall mount, where it ran for several hours last night.

I really like this TV, and I'm glad I was able to repair it!

RAIN! In SoCal In July!

In July.....in L.A!

Pretty unusual, and my rain gauge indicates about .18" since it started, which is a HUGE amount for us to get in July.

Hopefully we'll have a wet winter so we can catch up on the enormous rain deficit that we have.

UPDATE:

Storm total was .30"


UPDATE 2:

 Received another .23" on Sunday, bring the storm total to .53", and breaking the record that was recorded sometime in the 1800's.

CHINA To Buy Sea Launch?

Just got an email informing me there was a new post on a spaceflight forum I hang out at.

It referenced this article on the Space News website.

Ever since Sea Launch laid off about 60% of their staff last August (me included), they've been in limbo about the future. Since all they launch is commercial payloads, if the commercial satellite guys don't want to fly on them, they're pretty much SOL for business.

And nobody was booking a launch on them......


Turns out all the post bankruptcy launches had been sold earlier, and they were just clearing the backlog, hoping that successful launches would show the industry that Sea Launch was back in business, and new bookings would follow.

Now, I'm not sure why they couldn't get additional business, those things were way above my pay grade, and any assumptions I made about why customers stayed away would have been, and still are, pure speculation.

Typically, the satellite builder (Boeing, Loral, Astrium, etc) books the launch, and retains control of the satellite until it's at it's assigned orbital "slot" and fully checked out. Then the satellite builder hands over the keys to the satellite operator (Dish, DirecTV, EUTELSAT, INTELSAT, etc) and they take control. So, when you provide launch services, you not only have to court the satellite operators, but the builders as well.

Strange bedfellows, as they say, and there was some ill will I know of between at least one operator and Sea Launch.

So, as the article says, Sea Launch has been "twisting in the wind" since their last launch over a year ago, with no bookings in sight, and bills piling up. According to a friend who still works there, the last of the Boeing contract people have gone to other Boeing sites, other companies, or to retirement.

And Boeing still has a sh1t load of property on site, and on the ships, and is owed well over $400 million from two of the original partners that defaulted on their guarantees to the banks that loaned Sea Launch the money it needed before they went Chapter 11.

One of the things that amused me was that Sea Launch was having a "garage sale" to dispose of unneeded/surplus equipment.

The one item mentioned specifically was the Spacecraft Adapter (SCA), which is the structure that the satellite mounts to, and in turn is bolted to the Interface Structure/Payload Support (ISPS) that mounts the entire Payload Accommodation to the Block-DM upper stage. The satellite mounting part of it is pretty standard, as some years back most of the satellite builders decided to agree on a fixed number of mount types, which makes it easier for everybody involved in the business. This meant you could "stock" maybe 5 or 6 different SCA designs, rather than having to design/build/test/certify one for each launch.

I find this very interesting, as that particular SCA will ONLY fit a Boeing ISPS that was designed to ONLY mate to a Block-DM.

If they're selling that, then it pretty much means they won't be doing any more business with Boeing.

And that makes me wonder what will happen to all the Boeing property, and Boeing controlled and operated ITAR sensitive equipment that's still on site.

Anyway.......we BEGGED them to let us sort through all the surplus equipment and "junque", and assign it a keep/sell or scrap status when they were asking for ideas about cutting costs and raising money.

We were continually shot-down for various non-reasons.

They have at least 15 high-end copy machines that need some minor maintenance/repair sitting in the warehouse that they could have sold to an independent copy machine service, but didn't.

They have a brand new roof-mounted chiller for a large HVAC system just sitting there that could have been sold but wasn't.

They have TONS of stuff sitting in the Payload Processing Facility parking lot that could have been sold either for scrap metal value, or to be refurbished.

They have thousands of pounds of copper wire and cable in storage that was never going to be used.

They have at least four pallets of surplus desktop computers that could have been sold, or stripped of good parts, and the parts sold.

And on, and on, and on...

And then I read on the same forum that ownership of the platform had already been transferred to the Chinese, with the platform listed as "Scrap Value". And as another poster pointed out, selling ships to the Chinese for "scrap value" worked out real well in the case of the ex Soviet aircraft carrier the Varyag.

I checked the IMO listing for the Odyssey, but all it shows is where it's flagged, not who owns it.

Anyway......it's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming weeks.

Back and Beat!

Typical 5+ hour flight in Economy class. At least the seats were big enough to kinda-sorta get comfortable in.

No video display in the seatbacks this time, so if you wanted to watch a "free" movie, you had to download (they said) the United app, pay the $12.99 Internet connection cost, and then stream the movie over WiFi to your device. I paid the fee and browsed the Web on my smartphone, and set my wife's tablet up, only to find out their streaming doesn't support Android yet. I set up my wife's friend's laptop so she could watch a movie, and she eventually gave up about 3/4 of the way through the movie, as the video was stuttering, and "buffering" rather than streaming. Might have been a laptop problem, but I noticed other passengers were griping about it, too, so I'm guessing they just don't have the WiFi bandwidth on board to support so many streaming connections at once.

Landed at LAX about 20 minutes early, which meant NO GATE for us to pull up to.

Crept along the taxiway until we finally got a gate assignment, and wound up deplaning about 10 minutes later than originally scheduled.

Then a nice 45 minute wait for our luggage. There were four aircraft using the same luggage carousel, so naturally a quiet pandemonium ensued.....

Then out to the curb where we checked in with Super Shuttle to let them know we were ready for pick-up, and then a NINETY MINUTE wait for the not-so-Super Shuttle to gather up enough passengers to make it worth their while to make the trip from LAX down to Long Beach.

The total cost of three, two-way tickets on the Shuttle was $96, vs $80 to park for a week at LAX.

Next time I think we'll take the Jeep and park it. I thought the extra $16 would be worth it to avoid the aggravation of driving out of LAX at night, but I'd rather put up with that than sit there for an hour and a half waiting for our "ride" to show up.

FINALLY got home, semi unpacked, thanked and paid the dog-sitter (long story about how that came to be....), got slobbered on by the dog for 30 minutes, and hit the hay about 0300.

Had fun in Hawai'i, and saw a lot of cool things, and met some very nice people.

It's a beautiful place, but I'm not sure I could live there. I was astounded at the humidity (it felt like Illinois in August) compared to here on the West coast, and although the fuel prices (except for Diesel @ $4.80/gallon!) were about the same, the food prices were significantly higher.

And then there's always the worry that if TSHTF, you're stuck there with a looooong supply chain to other places for food and medical stuff.

Still, quite a marvelous place to visit.

Headed Home Sunday Morning

The girls went ziplining on Hilo, and I spent the day wandering around looking like a tourist.

The luau the other night was fun, and yes, I ate some poi. It's not too bad if you dump a little salt on it, and if it's the only way you have to get your carbs, then it's the only way to get your carbs!

Part of the entertainment was a brief history of Polynesian cultures as represented by dance, so naturally they started with the hula, and then did other dances from the other islands, ending with the required torch-spinning dancer. Pretty impressive stuff, and very well done.

So, after dinner (pizza from a local place called "Get Sum", and it's really good!) I'm going to try and pack everything back in to my bug duffle so we can lug it to the airport tomorrow morning. I didn't buy a lot of stuff; a tee shirt for my son, two 8 oz bags of "Kona Joe's" 100% Kona coffee, and few other trinkets, so everything should go in the bag, including the stuff the girls bought.

I'll post some pix after we get back to the mainland.......

Hawaii, So Far

Sorry about the lack of posting, but the wife crammed our schedule so full of things to do, that we've been getting back to the timeshare at around 2200, and I'm just too beat to post!


So, since the only thing we have planned for today is a luau at 1800, I stayed here while The Girls went out running around.

Monday we took a drive up to the Northern end of the island to see the original (1880) King Kamehameha, and had lunch in the "artist's village" of Hawi. If you're ever in Hawi, stop by the "Local Dish", a small eatery. The food was great, the service excellent, and the staff very friendly.

Tuesday we flew over to O'ahu to see Pearl Harbor, visit the Arizona Memorial, and see some radio friends on the USS Missouri.

When we were on final I was watching the marine traffic below, and saw a boomer headed out for her patrol.

The Arizona Memorial is a very somber place, as you'd expect. The young Navy guys who run the motor launches from the museum to and from the memorial exhibited some of the best boat handling I've ever seen. I didn't need the small pack of Kleenex I had in my cargo pocket, but came pretty close to it several times.

After that, we went to Schooner's for dinner, and then our taxi was waiting to take us to the airport, and our flight back to Kona.

Yesterday we went on a tour that took us from our "base" here in Kailua to "Kona Joe's" coffee farm, then down around the Southern tip of the island to the "Black Sand Beach"  (actually fractured lava) where we saw 5 sea turtles napping on the beach, and finally to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, where we went through the Thurston Lava Tube, took a walk through the rain forest, and then went to Volcano House for dinner.

After a leisurely dinner, we headed over to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory to wait for the sun to set so we could catch the glow from the current eruption, and visit the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum.

Then it was a two hour drive back to Kailua, and time to hit the hay.

I'd post some pictures, but in my haste to grab the smallest, lightest laptop I have, I forgot to put a card reader in the bag, so I can't get the pix off my wife's camera onto this PC!

She said she has a "cable for the camera", so if she does, I'll grab the pix that way, and update this post.

Been a very interesting vacation so far, but my wife crams a lot of stuff to do into our vacations, so it's been going by in a blur!

Arrived in Kona OK

Got to LAX two hours early, had only one bag to check (at $25 each way, and no, it wasn't oversize/overweight!), so flew through that, and then went through the usual Thousands Standing Around drills.

Went to the gate, and began the wait......


We saw our aircraft arrive from Houstan and deplane, and then watched them clean it, fuel it, and swap out the crew.

Then they told us that we'd be boarding late because the catering truck had not arrived......D'OH!

The catering truck arrived, but because they did their unpacking and stocking the galley using the First Class seating area, they let us peons in Economy Class board first!

The flight had DirecTV with "100's of Channels!!", BUT only over the CONUS. Once we flew out of the SoCal spot beam(s), it reverted to a 10-movie DVR. I watched the flight map for about 25 minutes or so as we climbed at around 1500'/min to our cruising altitude of 36,500' and 550MPH, and then that stopped working. Since I don't know where the displayed info comes from, I'm clueless as to why it froze the display and popped up a "The Flight Map Application Is Not Available".

So, I started watching the Avengers: Age Of Ultron about 30 minutes in from the start. Had more than enough "flight time" to watch it from that point, and then the complete movie, start to finish.

Not a bad movie, but they're starting to get pretty formulaic.

1) Introduce the characters
2) Set up the plot
3) Bad Guy triumphs at first, and things look bleak
4)Apocalyptic battle, and the Good Guys win

yawn.........

ANYWHO........arrived in Kona at KOA about 30 minutes early, waited for our (well....mine, really) bags, took the shuttle to the rent-a-car place, got the car, got my Garmin RoadMate up and running, and drove to the timeshare my wife's friend "owns", where they informed us the unit wouldn't be ready until 1600 local, but they'd call us if it was ready sooner.

And I'm learning all about "Island Time", as NOBODY is in a hurry to do anything!

I'm kicking back right now, and the wimmens are out doing some grocery shopping. This is a pretty sweet timeshare, and we have a full-sized kitchen with "all the major appliances", our own washer/dryer and vacuum cleaner, and the kitchen even came stoked with a decent supply of coffee, creamer, sugar and sweetener.

I couldn't bring my full-size DSLR and lenses, as it was just too big and too heavy to stuff into my duffle, so I'll either borrow my wife's little camera, or use the GoPro in single-shot mode when we go to the Arizona Memorial and the Missouri on Tuesday.

And I'm beat and dehydrated from a six hour flight. I shudder when I think of the globe trotting Old_NFO does!

Whittle's Latest....."Don't Be an Ass"

As the man says....."Go look it up"!

Happy Independence Day!

Can't find any quick pix of fireworks

OK, I found a decent "fireworks" picture, but go outside tonight and enjoy the real thing!

I'm busy packing for our trip to Hawaii. I'll try and do some posts on the road if my wife's tablet will cooperate!

2015 Battleship Iowa Field Day AAR

GROAN.....Well, Field Day is over for another year, and as far as we know, this was the first time the Iowa has ever been on-the-air for Field Day.

Friday was "Set Up Day", and was sunny, hot, and very humid. After 15~20 minutes of working outside we were soaked, and needed to find some shade and have a cold drink.

My buddy Doug came over about 1100, and we loaded the tower and 2 Meter Yagi in the back of his pick-up, and then loaded the two tubs containing most of the gear, and a large soft bag with the rest, in my Jeep.

Camera and laptops went in the front with me, and then my son came by and loaded up the table and chairs and cooler in his Xterra.

SO, off to the ship!

We were able to park close to the front brow, which helped a bit, and we lugged all the gear up the ramp, and one ladder, to the O1 level, portside, just aft of Turret #2, on "The Admiral's Veranda". The starboard side of the ship has the hatch to the Captain's In-Port cabin in this location.

This area is typically used for special events, like the Turret #2 memorial shown above, and is off the tour route, although the tour route runs forward and aft of it, so we had plenty of foot traffic going past wondering what we were doing. Once in a while someboy would stop and say "Oh, that's right, it's Field Day weekend", and we stop work and talk to them. 


We got the antenna assembled and stood it up, aligning the base to True North. Two years ago when we set up for JOTA I tried using my compass for this, and found out there's just a bit too much steel in the area for my little compass to work properly! Turns out the Main Channel in the harbor runs due North/South, so I just got the base of the tower as parallel to the channel as I could.

That was about it for Friday. After lugging all the gear up and putting it together (it takes me about two hours to assemble and align everything) we were soaked, thirsty, hungry, and tired, so we headed home.


I got there about 0830 Saturday morning, and set up the table, and snaked the cables over to the gear:

The Security guys went in the Captain's cabin for us, opened a port hole, and ran our extension cord through it so we'd have power, and I ran some calibration tests with antenna controller to make sure everything was working:

By this time (1100 Local, 1800 UTC) Field Day had started, but since there wasn't going to be a satellite pass for an hour or so, I went down to the Comm Center to see how things were going.



Here's my buddy Doug explaining the logging procedure for the 'phone station to one of our BIARA member who came down to operate:

And Tom and "Doug the Younger" getting in to the swing of things at the CW station:

Things seemed great in the Comm Center so my son and I went back up to the Satellite Station, where it had started to sprinkle, sending us into panic mode:

We scrambled around to get a tarp (Thanks, OPS Guys!) and a pop-up cover (Thanks, Sue!), and by the time we marginally "weatherproofed", we'd missed the pass of AO-73.


Oh, well....at least we were ready for the next pass......:

We made some passes, found some problems I'll describe later, enjoyed the cool, cloudy (but damp!) weather, and shut everything down so we could exit the ship about 2045.

Grabbed a burger on the way home, and hit the rack.

Got back on the Ship about 0845 Sunday morning. It was going to be another hot, muggy day.


Meanwhile, back in the Comm Center on Sunday morning, the CW guys are going great guns:

And "Doug the Younger" and his son have taken over for "Doug the Elder" who's out attending to some ship interface business:

One of the "nice" things about operating the satellite station is that you have gaps between the satellites going over where you can talk to the public as they wander past, so we set up a second table with a bunch of hand outs provided by the ARRL:

One of the "bad" things about operating the satellite station is that you don't have a lot of time to correct equipment problems you discover when a satellite is going over. We made ZERO contacts on AO-7 this year due to there being a problem with the "Doppler.sqf" file that SatPC32 (my tracking and control program) uses to make the Doppler correction and tune the transmitter and receiver to the correct frequencies.

Normally, when a satellite comes up over the horizon, SatPC32 will move the antennas to the correct heading, and tune the radio to the middle of the transponder passband. On the FO-29 satellite this works perfectly. The satellite comes up, I tune to an open frequency in the upper half of the band (the lower half is reserved for CW), transmit my callsign, hear my own voice coming back from the satellite with a slight delay, and proceed to make contacts.

With AO-7 though, I've had to manually change the transmit frequency until I hear myself on the downlink. I never bothered to make a note of which way I had to tune (D'OH!), or if it was a consistent error (Double D'OH!) until this year, as I didn't know what was causing the offset.

This year, since the satellite was pretty weak, I spent some time experimenting, and found the problem due to some modifications I had to make last week to add a new satellite.

In manually adding the information for AO-73, I realized that the "Doppler.sqf" file is where the "base" frequencies are stored that the program applies the Doppler correction to, and then sends the commands to the radio to tune to the correct frequencies.

Somehow, the base frequency entries in the "Doppler.sqf" file for the AO-7 transponder were wrong. They were wrong by exactly 4kHz, and low in frequency, matching the numbers I wrote down as I experimented with radio.

BY the time I edited the file, which requires you to close the program and restart it, AO-7 had gone below the horizon on it's last pass I would be able to use for Field Day this year. I'll set the station up here at home and use it on a regular basis once I get a longer mast to get the antennas above the roof.

The other "problem" we had this year was due to the location on the ship we were directed to use. We only had a clear view of the sky on one side of the ship, which resulted in losing satellites once they dropped below a certain elevation to the West of us.

I was going along great on FO-29, and all of a sudden the receiver got very quiet, with not only all the active signals disappearing, but also transponder noise floor dropping to zero.

I stuck my head out of the pop-up, and found a situation almost identical to this:

It's just a bit hard to hear anything through all that steel! That's my son to the right in the photo.

When we set up for the BSA JOTA event, we were on the portside fantail, and had a pretty clear view of the sky. Since there was a major private event back there Saturday night, the area was closed off. The other area we  had requested was forward, beyond the area where our visitors are usually allowed, but that area was in use Friday night, so we couldn't set up there Friday afternoon.

There were only two usable passes of one satellite, AO-73, Sunday morning, one about 5* above the horizon, and the other that started about 8 minutes before the end of Field Day.

I decided it wasn't worth the effort, as we'd proven on Saturday the 5* passes in that direction were not feasible due to all the cranes and stacked containers on the other side of the channel, and since I'd missed the only other pass of AO-73 on Saturday due to having some high-level visitors, and I'd had trouble using AO-73 the previous week at home, I started an early tear down of the station, and helped the guys in the Comm Center by logging for them.

Sunday was also another hot, sunny, muggy day, so I took my time and didn't rush things.

So, the final tally for the Satellite Station was 12 contacts on FO-29, one on the SO-50 FM satellite, and two terrestrial 2 Meter contacts, one in South Orange County, and one in San Diego County in the Twentynine Palms area.

The 'phone guys did almost 600 contacts, and the CW guys did almost 300. I haven't finished merging the logs and adding up the bonus points yet, so I'm not sure how we did in comparison to the other entries in the 2D class.

I won't be running satellites aboard next year as we decided the cost/effort/benefit ratio just doesn't wash. I typically would go back to the Field Day site at 0430 on Sunday to get ready for the 0500~0730 satellite passes, and always doubled my score from the previous day, but we couldn't get back on the ship until 0800 Sunday morning. Plus, I had the "sky blockage" issue this year, so for 2016 I'll, run the 6 Meter/VHF/UHF station from the same location using some stacked omnidirectional antennas mounted at the rail, and possibly some amplifiers to make myself heard.


So, a big thanks to to the Security and Operations people on the Iowa who helped us make this happen, and guided us in learning the ropes to running a "mini event" like this.

"Semper Gumby", guys and gals, and carry on!

Field Day......

I was going to post something, but I'm too beat.

More tomorrow after I get back home....if I'm able to move!