Bonaire -- August 25-28, 2004 (Page 2)
The first amplifier in the southbound trunk is shown here. It is in that
beige pedestal with the vents in it. And for those of you who know me, that is my
red cup in my hand full of ice water as usual.
Looking inside the pedestal, you see all of this. When the amplifier was
opened and the input signal levels measured, it became obvious that there was a
problem with excessive signal loss due to a damaged section of cable between this
amplifier location and the headend.
Here you see the crew after getting the bad news on the signal levels. At
this point we decide that some the line techs would solve the cable loss problem while I
take a few of the technicians and begin testing the northbound trunk run. Some of
these photos are from Manuel Cardenas, who is the guy in the green shirt in this photo.
Manuel works as a salesman for the same company as me, Broadband International, Inc.
The first amplifier north of the headend was at this location.
Here are the original modules inside the box on the cable strand. The upper
module is the trunk amplifier to push signals along the large trunk cable. The lower
module is the bridger amplifier to provide signals to the feeder cables where subscriber
taps are located, like the blue one at the right. Further down this page you will
see another picture of this location showing our new module installed here.
Here is the view of another amplifier with all the module lid covers removed to
show the internal configuration of the power jumpers, fuses, diplex filters, equalizers,
attenuators, and splitters in the amplifier modules. The module at the bottom is the
return path amplifier. The two modules in the top half of the housing are
original 450 MHz bandwidth modules from Scientific Atlanta. The three white diplex
filters with the blue circle logos on them, and the blue module at the bottom of the photo
are made by the company I work for, Broadband
International, Inc. In order to properly configure the new 750 MHz module I am
installing, the position of the power plugs and fuses had to be known before installing
the NEW amplifier.
Back at the first amplifier location below, you can see the new BBI Six-Pac
module in the housing from my camera position in front of the Sunrise Mini Market.
Our new super-sized single amplifier module does the job of all three modules seen in the
above photo and with more bandwidth in both directions, forward and reverse (for
high-speed internet via cable modems). The technician in this photo is D.J. He
worked with me to intall the amplifier at trunk location #2 northbound above, and again on
Saturday morning when we took this picture at northbound amplifier #1.
This photo taken by Manuel shows me with another line technician when the first
northbound amplifier shown above was being installed. We were excited about having
the new amplifier modules installed. I forgot to take the new amplifier module
picture when I was up in the bucket. I had to go back the next day to the site to
take the picture above. And yes, before you ask, I weigh around 230 pounds, and the
other tech was a lightweight.
I returned to Miami on Saturday, August 28th. I worked in the home office Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I left the office around 3:20 PM on Wednesday, September 1st ahead of the evacuation for the approaching hurricane Frances. I drove up the middle of Florida on US 27 avoiding the Florida Turnpike until I reaced the last 20 miles of it west of Orlando. Traffic was moving normally that Wednesday night. I realized I could get home to East Ridge, Tennessee around 3 AM and did just that in order to avoid the coming traffic jam that I am hearing about on the news as I create this web page.
With the Labor Day weekend coming, I can get back to work on my airplane. And the good news, my new engine is assembled and ready for testing. It should ship on Tuesday if all goes well. I could have it in my possession by Friday, September 10, 2004. I will keep you posted.