News Item: : Baldface Blog - Sunday March 9th
(Category: Baldface Stuff Dept.)
Posted by UnRed Dave
Monday 10 March 03:35:49AM
A couple of days off and what am I doing? That's right, driving to Nelson to drop off the key to the radio tower. It's not all that bad, the roads are good, the sun is out and the skiing at Red sucks (comparatively). Guess I'm a bit spoiled. Well OK, a lot spoiled! Had a good chat with Henry while in Nelson about the plan he's devised. We're going to build a parallel radio link with some newish radios that he bought online (gotta love E-Bay).
Until then, do some laundry, buy some groceries, pay some bills and go to the dump. Carolyn and the girls are off to Vancouver Wednesday to visit my Mum, her brother Murray and her sister Val. I get to stay here and ski so I can pay for the muffler that fell off the car Saturday afternoon...
Arrived at the Lodge Sunday afternoon, back and ready to go. No sooner had I pulled in, I was gearing up to go back out to the tower with Henry. He had pre-programmed the radios, had the new cable on the reel and was keen to get 'er done. Upon arrival at the tower the first order of business was to replace the Southtower link. Up the mast with the new radio I went with fresh cable trailing behind. Nearing the top, the weight of 300+ feet of cat5 cable dangling off my ass definitely slowed me down some but, after a few rests, I topped out, secured the line and set to work. Once the new radio was installed and working I descended to the old radio, removed it and started down. On the way, I was to secure the new wire to the ladder with zap straps. No big deal except I managed to drop one of my gloves at some point so I spent the next half hour alternating my one glove from left to right as my hands got cold. Luckily, I could see where the glove had landed and Henry was able to retrieve it for me once I hit the hard deck. One radio down, two to go...
Next up was to create a new link to town with a second radio part way up the tower pointed at Fraps' house, further up the hill in Nelson. I only had to climb half way up the tower to get line of sight this time and, soon enough, I was on my way back to the bottom. Last call was to mount a second dish pointing at the Lodge, just above the existing one to complete the second parallel link, just as darkness fell. A quick sled ride back to dinner brought the day to a close. Mission accomplished (for real this time).
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