PlanetHam.org

Special Event stations for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games began operating on May 18 and are scheduled to continue through September 17. Five special calls, representing the five rings of the Olympic flag, are on the air: BT1OB, BT1OJ, BT1OH, BT1OY and BT1ON. The last letter of the call sign corresponds to the color of each of the rings of the Olympic flag -- Beibei (Blue), Jingjing (Black), Huanhuan (Red), Yingying (Yellow) and Nini (Green). A QSL card, reserved for special use that incorporating all five symbols, has also been designed. Zheng Feng, BA4EG, will be the QSL manager for all stations. QSLs can be sent either direct or via the bureau and will begin to be answered in October. A Web site supporting the Special Event stations include an on line log search, QSL card received and sent status, as well as other information. An award for contacting each of the five stations on 10-160 meters a minimum of five times (using CW, SSB or RTTY, as well as SWL) is also available. The Games of the XXIX Olympiad begin Friday, August 8 and run through Sunday, August 24.  -- Thanks to The Daily DX for some information

ARRL Audio News--OPEN--In this edition . . .; ARRL Board of Directors Names 2007-2008 Award Recipients; NCVEC Holds Annual Conference via Telephone; ARRL Audio News ID--Satellite Update--BREAK; Look for the September Issue of QST in Your Mailbox; Former ARRL HQ Staff Member Glenn Swanson, KB1GW (SK); Station Manager Explains NN3SI's Silence; ARRL Audio News--News Briefs--CLOSE

A Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song goes:

Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you’ll know by.

How can we expect kids to pick up on ham radio if we don’t show it to them?

How do we do this? Well, the online article “Teach-in” will give you some ideas. This article describes how a group of Florida hams demonstrated ham radio to a bunch of elementary kids.

As someone who’s done this many times myself, I can tell you that kids ARE interested in amateur radio and even Morse Code. Get out and do it and you’ll find it a very rewarding experience.

The latest Amateur Radio Newsline is available at ftp://ftp.arnewsline.org/quincy/News/news.txt

ENFORCEMENT NEEDED: REPEATER JAMMING WAVE HITS THE UK

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: TWO HAM RADIO CUBESATS LOST AT LAUNCH

RESCUE RADIO: VK TO DEVELOP RADIO LOCATION EMCOMM FINDER

RESCUE RADIO: ITU DEVELOPD NEW NEXT OF KIN NOTIFICATION STANDARD

QRZ.COM AYS NO MORE POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS

FINE AFFIRMED FOR SELLING NON CERTIFIED CB RADIO

THE HISTORY OF BROADCASTING IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC

PLUS LOTS MORE.....

After a short hiatus, N9GL’s RF Safety Column is now back on line. The latest installment, “Hijacking Science,” deals with the attitude of some scientists, who in N9GL’s opinion, are focusing on fringe studies and unpublished data to warn against the use of cell phones. This might be a good article to refer to when your friends ask you about this.

For more information about RF safety and amateur radio, go to the ARRL RF Safety Committee webpage.

• N9N went on the air at 0900 EDST Saturday from the Submarine Force Museum and Historic Ship Nautilus in Groton, Connecticut, with stations on 40 and 20 SSB. Chuck Motes and his crew from Navy/Marine Corps MARS had done a fabulous job of setting up the stations, including a comfortable camper trailer, a G5RV Sr., and a trailer with a portable crank-up tower and 4-element beam--plus air conditioning and some fantastic vittles. It was a great setup! They also had gone to a lot of work to schedule volunteer op and logger shifts. I can't say enough about all the folks who participated, including non-MARS volunteers and a group of Army MARS members. One highlight was the sausage stew. Man! I'll mention names and give more credit later.


• Only glitches were a support rod for the G5RV that decided to break Saturday morning, requiring the lowering of the tower so it could be climbed and the rod replaced, and a nasty Alabama-like thunderstorm that rolled in Saturday afternoon. By the way, all I had to do was walk in, sit down, and operate. And when the storm hit, I was nice and dry inside the museum, doing my little presentation (below).


• Besides N9N, I was there to do a talk and book signing at the museum and library, in support of my new book, THE ICE DIARIES. Several members of the crew who took Nautilus to the North Pole in 1958 were there for the anniversary celebration, and I was a little nervous, hoping I would get it right when I talked about it. They all came up and assured me I did fine, and that means a lot to me. Thanks to all who came by. We must have sold 75 books. Thanks to the musuem staff, and especially Lt. Cmdr. Caskey, the commander of the museum and ship, for their hospitality.


• Sunday was a little cooler and less humid, and we were back on the air about 0900. 20 rocked all weekend, 40 was not quite so good, especially around mid-day. We also did some 75 meters and I got a chance to do about an hour on 20 CW. A contest was underway and it was difficult to find an open frequency there. One highlight of the weekend was working AC3Q Harold Dennin, first on SSB, and then switching to CW. Harold was one of the Navy radio ops in Pearl Harbor who received and confirmed the first signals from Nautilus when she emerged from beneath the ice pack after successfully transiting from Pacific to Atlantic via the North Pole. That transmission -- "Nautilus 90 North" -- was the basis for our special event call sign N9N. Wow! Recreating that "QSO" was special! It was also a thrill to work several other former Nautilus crewmembers, folks who worked on constructing the ship, and other submarine and military vets.


• I deserted the team again on Sunday afternoon for a special ceremony commemorating the polar run anniversary. This took place right next to the Nautilus, with an honor guard, a band, the congressman from that area, and the sub squadron commander who oversees most of the Atlantic fleet. Nine PANOPOS -- Pacific to Atlantic North Pole Sailors, the Nautilus North Pole crew -- were present, too, along with some family members of those who had passed away. On the way back to the station afterward, I passed through the reception area and got to sign about another 15 copies of ICE DIARIES. I also got to meet the daughter of Tom Curtis, the man who was primarily responsible for adapting the gyrocompass that allowed the North Pole run to take place. He was aboard for both trips north in 1958.


• I finally had to leave Sunday night at about 9 PM. I had to get up at 2 AM Monday morning to drive down to New York City for a TV appearance. Chuck reports the "Magic Minute" was wild and wooly...and wonderful! It was his idea and I loved it! Nautilus reached the North Pole at 11:15 PM EDST on August 3, 1958. At that precise time in 2008, N9N took as many "check-ins" in one minute as the ops could capture call signs, then went back and worked each one for a valid contact. Chuck reports 18 stations were confirmed. If they send QSLs, we'll include a special certificate with their N9N return card. I understand it was recorded and I'm looking forward to hearing it.


• The rest of the trip was mostly promotional...a quick interview on channel 11 in NYC and a very nice one-hour interview on Joey Reynolds's national radio show that originates from WOR 710 in New York. A real treat was sitting in for a segment of the show with guest Earl Klugh, one of the truly great jazz guitarists. I got to introduce a song from his new album that he played live for us. I also managed to get a ticket to be in the audience for the taping of the David Letterman Show that aired Monday night. Dave made one of his "how old is John McCain?" jokes that included a mention of ham radio. Finally, it was an early flight out of Providence Tuesday, back to Birmingham just in time for a signing event at Alabama Booksmith. Thanks to several hams who dropped by for that, too.

I operated on about 10 hours of sleep for the entire weekend but it was a wonderful four days. I can't say enough how much I appreciate Chuck and his crew for what they did to help get word out pay tribute to those 116 men of Nautilus and what they did 50 years ago last weekend.

Now, back to reality. When I got home Tuesday night, there were already 50 cards waiting. Since then, I probably have about 300 stacked up on the operating table. I will design the card this weekend, print them ASAP, and hopefully start responding in a couple of weeks.

If you worked N9N, I hoped you enjoyed the experience. If we didn't pull you out of the pile-ups, I apologize, but thank you for trying. I told Chuck when I first got there that I would be thrilled with 500 QSOs. Well, we got over 2,000! That has to be a record for a non-DX one-weekend special event, a testament to the volunteer ops and their abilities, the quality of the setup the Navy MARS guys provided, and the interest in that submarine that went to the North Pole to help win the Cold War 50 years ago last weekend.

Don Keith N4KC

This week, Surfin’ finds Amateur Radio Web sites that are no more.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

As mentioned in last week's report, Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA, is filling in for your regular reporter Tad Cook, K7RA. For the reporting period August 1-7, solar activity was at very low levels and the geomagnetic field was at quiet levels. Solar activity is expected to continue to be very low for the next several days. As for geomagnetic field activity, the Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a geomagnetic disturbance warning on August 6 for quiet to unsettled, and then unsettled to active conditions (with possible minor storm periods) on August 8 and August 9, respectively.

This week, Surfin’ finds Amateur Radio Web sites that are no more.

News for the week in Amateur Radio for the week ending 8 August, 2008 Visit Amateur Radio Newsline's website at http://www.arnewsline.org

An elderly UK radio ham caused traffic chaos and sparked a police hunt earlier this week after setting out on a shopping trip to buy a new transceiver

A video of the Falcon 1, Flight 3 launch in which two Amateur Radio cubesats were lost is now available. It shows an earth-pointing view from onboard Falcon 1

The American Radio Relay League's round-up of the forthcoming week's DX activity

Consultations have started over plans to close three sites in Warwickshire involved in antenna operations

Videos of the presentations given at this year's AMSAT-UK Colloquium are now available on the BATC video site

Freddy F5IRO and David F8CRS will be making visits to the Islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe between now and 21st of August

The Rugby Observer's Simon Ward reports that a massive new suburb of Rugby, consisting of 6,5000 new homes, will be built on the former BT radio mast site

The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games take place later today. Chinese Amateur Radio Special Event stations celebrating the Olympics will be on-the-air throughout the Games - continuing until Wednesday, September 17

Videos of the individual lectures held Friday 25 July to Sunday 27 July at the University of Surrey, Guildford, UK can be viewed at:

For some nice offers on parts of interest to QRPers and Knack victims in general, check out the website of Diz, W8DIZ.

http://kitsandparts.com/

A nice information come along from INS-99, OM Kustiono, my SWL friend. He's not an amateur radio but enjoying the SWL, short wave listener. He told me that he's looked for logging software for his SWLer activity and found the AIO, All In One Log by George, WD8KNC.

Morse code has been proving popular with a group in the North West, showing it still has a future despite the mobile phone.

This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by CX3AL, QRZ DX, the OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News, The Daily DX, DXNL, Contest Corral from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites. Thanks to all.

This is old news now, but I felt compelled to post, since it has been a year since I have posted.

On June 18th, 2007, I posted about a new and exciting ham site called HAMigg.de. As of February 25th, 2008, HAMigg.de no longer exists. DL6KAC explains why the site was taken down, on his blog.

I personally am sad that the site closed, but understand his reasons. Really, I just think the ham community wasn't quite ready for it. I had supported Christian by purchasing hamigg.com and having it forward to his site. I'll hold onto the domains with the hope that someone can pick up the torch again and see if it will be more accepted.

read more

The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Taunton Area Communications Group will be presenting a program about the "Realities of New England's Hurricanes". The program will be held at the Morton Hospital and Medical Center, 55 Washington Street, Taunton, Mass. on MONDAY, AUGUST 18TH, 7:00 p.m. in the Margaret Stone Conference Room. The speaker will be Matthew Belk, Hurricane Program Leader from the National Weather Service in Taunton Mass. This seminar is open to the public at no charge. Everyone is welcome to attend, especially those who are interested in learning about hurricanes as they affect New England.

http://rsinventionlab.com/

What stuff have you done?

The tag line from a RadioShack contest and website called The Invention Lab. And they are partnered with MAKE! How cool is that?

There's also a blog and different sections talking about various projects.

I think it's great that RadioShack is trying to inspire the builder. RadioShack has had a pretty bad reputation over the past few years with most hams looking down there nose at the businesses drift into cell phones instead of their previous focus on radios and component parts. I believe the biggest difference between the RadioShack of yore and today's 'Shack is the sales people. Back in the day, the man behind the desk knew electronics inside and out. He also knew where every diode and every transistor was in the store. Today's sales clerk does not know any of the electronic components the store carries, much less where to find them in the actual store. But this shift in the dumbing down of sales clerks is true across all lines of business. Have you been to Fry's Electronics lately? The sales clerk at Sears in the hardware department can't even tell you anything about the Craftsman tools they carry. So I'm a support of RadioShack - if you look hard you can usually find one that's close that carries what you need. After you hunt and peck around the store, you'll know where everything is and will only need the clerk to ring you up.

Radio Dawg meets Le Doggie Chic last Sunday during Art in the Park. It goes without barking that Radio Dawg was interested in the sample dog bones. She dined on some type of organic version and we bought a small bag of doggie delights. On the other hand, Art in the Park, features over 90 local artists and craftsman through November. And we had a lot of fun strolling through the park meeting different artists. Check out Le Doggie Chic -- "A Gourmet Pet Bakery" only in California. 73 from the shackadelic.

The Sunshine Coast Amateur Radio Club is holding it's annual Sunfest on Saturday 13 September 2008. The venue is the Woombye School of Arts in Blackall Street, Woombye (UBD Map 66 F12).

Doors open at 0900, sellers from 0700.

Reservations for table space, contact Richard VK4YRP at randwphilp@bigpond.com

Fah. The feed at Planet Ham says ARRL is back up, but it's still inaccessible here. Apparently the bad DNS info spread far and wide before they caught it. I was one of the early reporters of this problem, either...

AMSAT-UK held their 23rd Annual International Space Colloquium July 25-27 at the University of Surrey in Guildford. This annual event is a chance to talk to satellite designers and builders, as well as a place to discover how to use Amateur Radio satellites. The British Amateur Television Club (BATC) streamed the Colloquium live on the Internet and has placed videos of nine lectures on their Web site.

Since around 8:30 AM EDT on August 7, many users have been unable to access the ARRL Web site and e-mail. According to ARRL Web/Software Development Manager Jon Bloom, KE3Z, "an inadvertent network configuration error" at the site's Internet Service Provider (ISP) was to blame. An issue with the Domain Name Servers (DNS) caused many users to be routed to the wrong Web site. The problem was quickly discovered and resolved; however, due to a lag in propagation, some users could be affected for up to 24 hours. Thanks to all the members who called in to report the outage.

The ARRL.org site is down. It redirects to a "new account" page on Interbridge Networking. I have reported this to ARRL HQ; they're looking into it. Meanwhile, no ARRL.org, LOTW, etc. I sure hope they have backups, because this is...

My local club, Mancorad W9DK, in all respects had an excellent 2008 Field Day - stations were set up, commissioned, manned, and torn down by a wide range of club members. Contacts made, technical glitches discovered and overcome, all while much experienced was gained. This is what Field Day is about!   It is the learning, testing and [...]

Nick, KD8IPE, one of the guys in my latest Tech class got interested in working 6m and asked me about 6m antenna. Well, having never worked 6m, I didn’t have a very good answer for him. Then, I thought about the J-pole antenna. I have built many 2m J-poles. They’re simple to build, and using my favorite set of plans, the SWR in the repeater portion of the band has always been 1.5:1 or less. So, I suggested he build a 6m J-pole.

Nick then turned the tables on me and suggested that we each build one. Then, he reasoned, he’d at least have someone to talk to. I took him up on that, and last night, we built one using plans developed by DK7ZB. This antenna differs from the 2m J-pole in a couple of ways. First, the radiator is made from antenna wire, not the 450-ohm ladder line, as in the 2m J-pole.

Second, the feed point seems to be at a different point. In the first set of plans, the feed point is approximately 20% up from the shorted end of the matching stub. In DK7ZB’s plans, the feedpoint is 5-10% from the shorted end. Since I’d had such good success with the first set of plans, we decided to go with the 20% figure and placed the feedpoint about 13.5-in. from the shorted end.

Third, the DK7ZB design uses a choke balun at the feedpoint. You rarely see this on 2m J-poles, although this is debated now and then.

After some discussion about whether to solder the coax directly to the ladder line or to install an SO-239 (we opted for the SO-239), we soldered it all together and then took it outside to hang it from a tree branch. We ran the coax inside and then hooked it up to my Icom IC-746PRO. I don’t have an SWR meter for 6m, but the 746PRO’s internal antenna tuner was able to find a match, so the SWR mustn’t be too bad.

Of course, 6m didn’t appear to be open at the time, so we didn’t work anyone. Heck, we didn’t even hear anyone or any of the beacons. Even so, it’s kind of cool to be able to say that I’m now capable of working 6m.

I do have some questions, though:

• What’s up with the feedpoint? Why do the two designs differ as to where to place the feed point? I wish I had an antenna analyzer to make some measurements.
• Is the balun necessary and/or useful? Does using a balun affect the feedpoint placement?
• Does polarization matter? I’d guess if I were trying to operate a 6m FM repeater it would, but that it wouldn’t matter so much when working CW or SSB DX.

Morse code has been proving popular with a group in the North West, showing it still has a future despite the mobile phone.

See the video here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7544147.stm

Field day a success with NTP usage Choctaw Plaindealer - Louisville,MS,USA By Staff and Press Reports The Magnolia Amateur Radio Club held their annual Field day earlier this summer at the Jeff Busby...

Learn more about radio at http://wd9t.com

While geologists usually agree that San Diego County does not face as great a threat from earthquakes as do Los Angeles and San Francisco, the July 29 temblor near Chino Hills -- a magnitude 5.4 felt throughout North County -- served as a wake-up call. Last weekend, local amateur (ham) radio operators worked with San Marcos fire and police personnel to replicate the police and fire radio system, should it go down during an earthquake or other disaster. “It’s what we’ve been building up to for the last two years,” McClintock said. “It’s an Armageddon type of scenario, but it’s necessary.”

On the 18 August 2008, 30 Tri-Service personnel from Blandford Camp and Headley Court will carry a stretcher from Plymouth to London. The stretcher will be a symbol of all those servicemen and women who have been injured on operations in recent years, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is hoped to raise support for our troops and raise much-needed funds for the Help for Heroes charity

The annual IARU Region 1 Amateur Television Contest takes place from Saturday 13th of September until Sunday 14th of September on all bands from 70 cm upwards

Members of Stockport Radio Society appeared this week on 'Northwest Tonight', the local BBC TV Magazine programme in North West England

Dutch police are searching for the person or persons who stole a low-power FM relay transmitter for public network Radio 4 from premises in the town of Wageningen

Morecambe Bay Amateur Radio Club (MBARS) will be holding an open day to celebrate the club's 25th anniversary on the 7th September, 2008

On Tuesday the UK regulator Ofcom published an illegal Broadcast fact sheet. It infers that the legacy VHF 70/80 MHz radio equipment in use by the London Fire Brigade can be subject to "blocking" when in close proximity to 100 watt transmitters operating on frequencies above 88 MHz

India will soon be getting their own satellite based navigation system. The Indian Regional Navigation system (IRNSS) will consist of a constellation of seven satellites

Tony finds plenty of activity during the 10-10 phone contest over the weekend, and also reveals (and disagrees with) the result of the recent CW vote

Free Windows programs for sound card-based HF digital voice were removed from their download site for a short time recently, but are now available once again

Wythall Radio Club are running an Intermediate Licence training course beginning on Tuesday 16th September

The National Woodskills Festival Award 2008 will run from 1st to 14th September 2008

John Grow VE2EQL will be operating in KanKan, Guinea (Africa) until August 9th. His Guinea issued call is 3XYØD

This is a 6-minute clip which explains what CW ham operators do during a contest - what they hear and what they send in Morse code

PowerPoint slide presentations given at the AMSAT-UK Colloquium along with pictures of the event can now be viewed on the web

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks 6 days from today, on Tuesday, August 12th. The best time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday morning when forecasters expect 50 to 100 meteors per hour

We now have a video section available on the home website which shows a few clips of what we get up to.Click on the link or visit the site and go to the Media tab. We will add to this as time allows and the site grows. There is also a separate section for the Jura trip which gives all the details we have available at the moment.

Extra prizes for finding artifacts! Will there be a SolderSmoke team in the competition?

Maybe I'm stupid ...... maybe I'm blissfully ignorant ..... maybe I just missed the bus.

I received an e-mail today from a Ham I've known for a while; but never had the chance to meet face to face - opposite ends of the country and all that. He was writing to me to tell me that he finally had QRP all figured out; and how really, really difficult it actually is!

Sigh - heavy sigh.

It really isn't. At least I don't think it is.

I never seem to lack for QSOs. I don't always have one; but I do more often than not. There are times my CQ's go unanswered (more on this in a bit) ; but there are more often times that I get a response. There are times I get a 339 or 449 report; but then there are just as many times that I get a 589 or 599 report. In fact, a few minutes ago, I worked Yuri RW3QO in Russia on 40 Meters. He gave me a 589.

Maybe it's all in the attitude. My attitude is not so much that it's QRP. My attitude is that it's Amateur Radio and I just happen to be using 5 Watts. Geez, if I got discouraged about my power out and became obsessed with always using 100 Watts or better, I would have never gotten through my Novice days. I guess I didn't know any better then; and I still don't know any better now!

And by the way ..... I'm sick and tired of hearing the QRP "rules". You know, the ones the "experts" tout:

NEVER call CQ while operating QRP.
ALWAYS expect that your signal will be weak on the receiving end.
ALWAYS use a slower code speed to make yourself understood.
ALWAYS keep your QSOs short, NEVER expect to be able to have a rag chew.
NEVER start out your Ham career using QRP.

Sheesh - I think I've broken all those rules about a million times over! I call CQ a lot; and I get a lot of answers. Look, odds are your signal is going to be loud somewhere. Why not call CQ? Even if you end up working the guy across town; it's still a QSO.

Always weak on the receiving end? What a bunch of baloney! I can't tell you how many times I've worked Todd N9NE only to have my earphones blown clear off my head! I wrote him once that I felt like the radio studio engineer in that episode of "The Little Rascals" who always had his headphones blown off when Spanky would drop a lightbulb near the microphone. And Todd is not the only 599+++++++ QRP signal that I've had the pleasure to receive - not by a long shot.

Slow code speed to be understood better? That just doesn't make sense to me. I don't think code speed has anything to do with being understood just because you're QRP. The only time code speed enters into the picture is when the receiving station can't copy as fast as you're sending.

Short QSOs? Criminy - I've had plenty of rag chews that have lasted an hour or more while running QRP. Another bit of hogwash.

Never start your Ham career using QRP. I laugh at this one the most. Back in the day, most of us Novices had flea power radios and crappy antennas. We might have put out 35 Watts or so; but by the time we loaded up the bed springs we were probably only putting out 2 or 3 Watts. Of course I'm exaggerating here; but you get the idea. The idea that you HAVE to run 100 Watts to get your instant gratifications is immature and idiotic.

Well. so much for my evening rant - probably just another sign of my ignorance of how "it really is".

73 de Larry W2LJ

From Warren, KD4GUA:

This Sunday 14.307, 10 a.m. EDT, we will finish up the discussion on "Get your Lab test Now," (without seeing a doctor). This should be short and sweet so we will then move on to the advocation for mandatory menu-board labeling of calories as a means to address obesity, whereas national and local restaurant associations have mobilized to block these efforts. Researchers have found that almost ALL restaurant food is excessive in calories--fat tastes good!

How about trying Wendy's "Spinach Burger" with free low-cal water.

For the past couple weeks I have started working with a company called Professional Service Industries again. I worked for them in 03 and 04, I think. I did two summers in a row. Back then I was just in the lab testing soils, compression testing on concrete samples, and occasionally going out in the field to pick up samples. It was a job, I got paid, but the lab was not a real good place to work.

Now I am a field tech. This time around things are getting interesting. What I do is on-site testing of concrete (slump and if the concrete is spec'd with air, air content testing) as well as set cylinder samples for later compression testing in the lab. I have also done a few other things - coring concrete for forensic evaluation of trouble spots and vapor emissions out in the field, and more compression testing in the lab. There is a lot to concrete!

I was assigned to the Avon distribution warehouse in Zanesville, Oh this past week. I am not sure how long I will be on that job. The lead technician needed someone to fill in and I was the one that got picked. I guess you could say its a good thing - lots of hours, but the concrete starts flowing between 5 and 7am. With an hour and a half drive from the office and a half hour drive from home to the office I need to start my day rolling REAL early!

There are still a few wrinkles that need ironing. Once I am up to speed this job will be a lot better (I hope!). If you read my posts here much you know I like to understand what it is I am doing thoroughly. I know what my "job" is, but there are other things that the "job" relates to that I need a much better understanding of. Each day I learn more and more and get more and more comfortable with the site.

If you have ever been on a large construction project you can appreciate me saying this - it is like a well-conducted (hopefully!) orchestra. My job allows me time between my testing to observe, talk to people, and otherwise learn about what is going on. With all the engines running, back-up beepers, loader buckets banging, concrete sloshing, hammering, and all of that echoing off the 40-50' high walls in a building that makes people on the other side look like ants is somewhat of a harmony. I also have to remember to stay out of the surveyor's line-of-sight, the path of loaded (and unloaded) concrete trucks, telehandlers, scissor lifts, and crazy guys on skid-steers moving materials like they wont get a paycheck if they go too slow.