« February 2008 | Main

Home Again

I arrived home last night after a long, long trip. A four hour car ride, twenty-two hours of flight time, and eight hours of waiting in airports over a 40-hour time period left me more than a little tired. It's just after 8 AM, and the family has gone to school and work. I'm headed that direction in a few minutes too, as I have a meeting this morning that I don't want to miss.

My trip went so smoothly, all flights on time, and no problems with my baggage or customs. Johannesburg's airport has a bad reputation for items being stolen out of luggage. In Los Angeles I had to claim my bags, all of which were quickly off the plane. I had an export form (which I had learned about from my trip on the USNS Comfort) and that helped expedite me through customs. I thought TSA might open the cases there in LA, but when I arrived in Boise, all the cases were still sealed. That surprised me, considering the amount of cables and electronics that are in the cases.

So, I'm back, working on getting in the groove of life again. The thing is, to a large degree, I want to keep that from happening. I didn't drink coffee on the trip, didn't stare at my computer screen eight hours a day, drank a lot of water, and generally was out of the rat race that I participate in here. I'm thankful for the chance to have been overseas again for a while. It's good to bring perspective, both for my personal life, and my work activities.

Posted by David at 08:11 PM

Backtracking

My shuttle ride picked me up just after noon, and we drove to the Maseru Bridge, where I would enter South Africa. While the drive fueled the vehicle, I walked through, going through immigration in Lesotho, then walking across the bridge and entering South Africa. I got back in the car, and by 5 PM I was at the airport in Johannesburg, and checking my bags for the flight home.

I'm in Frankfurt now, and everything is going smoothly. The nine and a half hour flight from Johannesburg to Frankfurt was long, but I was able to sleep, so that helped. I didn't suffer from jet lag much at all when I arrived in Lesotho, but I don't expect that to be the case when I return to Boise.

Posted by David at 07:34 AM

Heading Home

I'm all ready to head out of here, and am waiting for the shuttle van to pick me up for the drive to Johannesburg. It's been a good trip in many ways, and I've been pleased to get to know the MAF staff here in Lesotho, especially Traig and Laura Friedrich. The icing on the cake was to be able to get the GATR system to connect to the network on Thursday.

Posted by David at 10:02 AM

And Again

After the brief success of bringing the GATR inflatable antenna system online last Tuesday night, I've spend many hours trying to get it working again. I was quite discouraged about it over the weekend, but was determined not to give up. Finally, on Wednesday of this week I'd come to the end of what I could do, when Paul Gierow (inventor of the inflatable antenna) sent me a couple suggestions. I took the system to the MAF hangar today, did what he said I should try, and it's working now! You can tell I'm excited, because it's 1:30 AM, and I'm still up, using the GATR to write this. Here's a photo taken this afternoon.

Posted by David at 01:18 AM

Another Perspective

Traig Friedrich has come to Lesotho with his family. He'll be here for six months, working on installing VSAT systems at the Partners In Health clinics. He and his wife, Laura, are posting on their blog while here.

Posted by David at 10:36 PM

Flying In Lesotho

I was able to fly into the mountains today with MAF pilot, Christiaan Haak. We flew to three airstrips, then returned to Maseru. The second landing was at Bobete, a village where Partners In Health has a clinic. This is also one of the ten clinic locations at which MAF is installing VSAT systems for PIH.

The first landing was at a village called Semananyane (not sure I spelled that correctly), a difficult place to land. The strip is at 7800' elevation, only 1800 feet long, and has a 5% slope. Christiaan made it look easy. You can view the landing and takeoff, but it won't be as good as being there in person. The MAF program here does a not of medical flights, helping PIH and other groups in the fight against AIDS and tuberculosis. Many flights are also medical evacuations.

I spent the other parts of my day helping Traig with a wireless access point in the hangar, and also working on a project for one of the other guys. I was hoping to work with the GATR some this afternoon, but rain rolled in and so I decided to put that off.

I've got two more days at the hangar, and I'll work on the GATR one of those days. This has been a good trip, and I find myself thinking about living and working overseas again.

Posted by David at 10:21 PM

Lesotho

If you have the time, you might like to read about the country of Lesotho and MAF's work here.

Posted by David at 10:21 PM

Catching Up

I just realized that the time of some of these posts is off--I still have this blog set to Mountain Standard Time (I've adjusted all the times since this was originally posted). The time hit home last night when I quickly glanced at the Bogus Basin web site before I went to bed. Taylor was skiing there, and it was the middle of a cold day with fresh snow, and I was ending my day in Africa.

So it's been a couple days with nothing posted here. I spent all the Thursday and Friday still working to get the VSAT system working again. The GATR-com antenna was working great, but the electronic and RF components were giving me problems. Thinking that maybe the problem was the iDirect satellite modem, I borrowed a brand new one from Traig. This was one of the real advantages of coming here to do this testing with the GATR-com system on C-band--their is a container full of various VSAT components to which I have access.

So, I proceeded to take the modem, and hastily prepare if for my system so I could get one last call in to the NOC before they had a scheduled appointment. But, what happened is that haste made waste, and I made the modem unusable. I spent four hours on Thursday afternoon, trying to recover it, with no success. I was not happy, as it's a $3,000 piece of equipment, and I had visions of having to take it with me back to the US to have it repaired. I ended my day Thursday by posting my problem to a VSAT forum to see if anyone out there could help me. I also called the NOC (the Network Operation Center at Constellation Net Corp, the satellite provider I'm using for the testing) and Tim kindly sent me a PDF file containing recovery steps.

Friday morning I went with Traig to the hangar, so I could spend some time with the VSAT class. I'd spent Wednesday and Thursday working at Traig's house. The back yard had a good location for the GATR, and it was right next to the house so I could keep my laptop and the modem under the porch roof when it rained. By noon, I had the modem recovered, ready to use again, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I can't say I'm glad that I had that problem with it, but I learned a good lesson, and a lot of useful information about the modem.

With the second modem working again, I resumed my troubleshooting efforts. When my first effort with the new modem wasn't successful, I moved the GATR to a spot farther out in the yard where I had a better view to the satellite. I still was not successful in that spot, but I had to stop around 5:30 PM because I was invited to a bar-b-que for the MAF staff and the people in the VSAT class. By the time dinner was over, I was in touch with the NOC for a file I needed for them, but it was too late for any more work. And, they told me to call again on Monday. I really wanted to work on the weekend, but some forced time off would be a good thing, because I'd run myself a bit ragged.

Saturday I went with Traig and his family, and the Vennell family, over to Boemfontain, South Africa. It was a little over an hour to get there, once I had gone through immigration to leave Lesotho, and then again to enter South Africa. We visited an arts and craft fair, and went to a large Walmart-like store. It was interesting to see more of south Africa. I heard lots of Afrikans, ate some local sausage, and then slept almost all the way home. In the evening I went over to the Vennell's house, as they have a movie night each Saturday.

Today was church, lunch with the two VSAT class students from the Congo, and then I went with Traig and the family to the Maseru Sun Hotel for a swim at the pool. The water at the house was off again today, the third time this week. It was nice on a very hot afternoon to be able to spend some time in a cold pool. When we arrived home, the water was back on. This morning, because I have short hair, I was able to wash my hair with only two full glasses of water. I really do know better, but this trip is reminding me not to take so many things for granted in the States.

The weekend has been good to catch up on some rest, and I hope and pray that I'll have more success with the GATR-com system this week.

Posted by David at 09:25 PM