Author Archives: Larry McGuire

5 April 2017, Wednesday

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With the high current wiring completed, other miscellaneous wiring is now being done. This morning the supply of 1/2” electrical conduit (what we had shipped, plus what TWR Bonaire had on hand) ran out. Now other wiring projects not needing conduit are being done.Philip and I finished connecting the last two 6” diameter coax lines to the phasor. Dan, Phil and a third visiting worker began pulling the phasor control wiring into the conduits that were installed by our team.

Jim began changing the copper lines to the north cooling coils to correct the mistake caused by the factory mislabeling the connections. Meanwhile, Steve, Jake and later Brian continued to install the ducting that will carry cold air from the air handlers to the phasor and transmitter rooms. The ducting will probably be finished tomorrow morning. The ducting can then be sealed and insulated. Brian also installed the drain lines for the coiling coils.

Ralph and I went home for lunch and siesta. The internet is now working again at our duplex. On the way back to work we went to town to fill the pickup with gas. While doing this we noticed that a very large cruise ship was at the dock. It was the Celebrity Eclipse. On Monday there were two cruise ships and yesterday there was one.

Paul connected the wiring for the dummy load to its 50 amp three phase breaker in the 800 amp distribution panel, then punched holes for 3” box adapters in the bottoms of the 1,200 and 800 amp breaker boxes and the 400 amp distribution panel. These holes are in preparation for the entry of WEB supply cables. We will need to send about a dozen more 3” box adapters, lock rings and insulating bushing to properly insulate these holes.

It looks like we will be preparing a shipment of copper tubing for the air conditioners, electrical conduits and 3” and 4” conduit fittings when we get back home to send to Bonaire.

On the way to the duplex this evening, we noticed that there was a ship at the salt pier. It must have just arrived because it was not being loaded yet.

For supper we had meat balls in gravy, mashed potatoes, left-over peas, cornbread, fruit cups, pudding cups and cookies.

This evening, the guys decided to go for a swim at sunset and stay til after dark. Jim volunteered to drive them, so I stayed at home. Virginia and I had a relaxing visit with Ralph and Mary Jane.

When the guys got home, they were excited about the 5 foot long fish that was about 18 inches high and 10 inches wide. They did not get to see any octopuses that usually come out at night.

4 April 2017, Tuesday

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After devotions at the site, everyone got right to work on the various jobs they were doing at quitting time yesterday.Since the internet is still not working at the duplex, I again took my laptop with me today to access email and to send reports via the site internet connection.

With the electrical completed in the phasor room, Brian and Philip now installed the conduits for the control wiring to the phasor. Paul and Bruce continued installing the electrical conduits for the two air handlers in the loft.

Steven and Jake continued installation of the cool air ducting. This job will take a couple more days.

Jim began pressure testing of the north cooling coils and its associated condensing unit and the interconnecting lines. He soon discovered that something was not right. Upon further investigation, Jim determined that the factory had mislabeled the two cooling coils in the air handler. There were A and B inlets and A and B outlets, but as labeled the B outlet was connected to the A inlet and the A outlet was connected to the B inlet. He checked the south air cooling coil and they too are mislabeled! This means Jim will have to cut and reroute the lines he had so carefully connected. This will require another day of work to correct this manufacturing error. Fortunately, he had not yet made the connections to the south cooling coils.

Jonas had talked to Harvey, from WEB and they have decided to use four runs of 150 sq mm cable per phase to the 1,200 amp breaker. T

About the time Ralph and I were preparing to leave for lunch, Harvey arrived to discuss their connections to our breaker panels. We agreed on what had been discussed with Jonas. For the 800 amp breaker we decided on three runs of 150 sq mm cable per phase. For the 400 amp breaker we decided on two runs of 95 sq mm cable per phase.

Ralph and I arrived home about 15 minutes late for lunch and siesta!

After lunch, Ralph and I went by the salt company, Cargill, and watched as they ‘harvested’ about 18 inches of salt in the bottom of one of their salt pans. Large semi-trucks would pull along side the moving ‘harvester’ and the salt would be dropped into their trailers. I looked very much like the process of wheat being harvested. The trailer would be fully loaded with salt in less than 90 seconds, then the next trailer would be moved into position. The trailers would then travel to a raised platform near the salt ‘mountains’ where the trailers would dump their loads out the bottom. There were 3 semi-trailers constantly on the move. I think they could have used two or three more semi-trailers to keep the ‘harvester’ constantly moving.

This afternoon, wiring to the air handlers was completed. The rotation of each motor was verified to be correct, then one of the blowers was turned on.  It created such a ‘wind storm’ that everything that was not attached to something got blown around.  So much for the idea of extra ventilation!  Also, when the blower was drawing 26 amps instead of the rated 25 amps.  When the ducting is completed and if the current remains too high, we will need to adjust the pulleys to reduce the blower speed and motor current. Only one of the two blowers could be turned on at time because of the temporary connection (limited to 40 amp) to the 200 amp panel. It looks like WEB will not provide electricity to the new power room before June.

Daryl and Phil (from Alabama) pulled 5 wires (#8 AWG) into the conduit between the power room and the pad for the 600,000 watt dummy load, which is scheduled to arrive in a couple of weeks.

Philip and Brian ran wiring for outside lighting around the building. This wiring will be for several 150 watt LED arrays. This are actual watts, not effective watts–very bright light fixtures!

Brian and I started connecting the four 6 inch diameter coax cables to their terminations in the phasor room. These coax cables will eventually carry the transmitter power from the phasor to the four antenna towers. We only completed termination of two coax cables before quitting time.

When we arrived at the duplex this evening only Paul, Philip and Jake wanted to swim. I took them to the salt pier. The wind has been blowing fairly hard out of the east all day which has caused larger waves than normal on the west side of Bonaire. As the waves broke, the wind would blow the tops of the breaking waves causing salt water spray away from the beach. I had never seen this before, but it was still safe to swim. Almost immediately the fellows saw a medium sized (~18”) sea turtle and followed it around. At one point, the turtle swam toward me and I could see it even though I was not wearing swim goggles (because goggles will not work over my glasses). Paul has a GoPro camera with waterproof case. I am looking forward to seeing the video that he took. Although they saw quite a few new fish around the pier, the turtle was the highlight of this outing.

Supper this evening was biscuits and shredded chicken gravy, cole slaw, peas, pears and Dutch cookies.

After supper, Ralph and Mary Jane again took the six young men to the TWR office so they could communicate back to their families and girlfriends over the internet connection there.

3 April 2017 Monday

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Staff meeting was held at the TWR office this morning. The meeting included a 20 minute ‘Family Focus’ video reviewing what is currently happening at all the TWR locations and presenting prayer requests from these locations. It was almost 9:30am by the time we made it to the site.

I took my laptop with me today to access email and to send the reports from the last three days.

Paul and Philip continued doing the electrical in the phasor room, while Brian and Bruce started the electrical installation for the air handlers in the loft.

Jim completed the connection of the copper lines to the north air handler, while Jake and Steven began installing the cold air ducting.

About the time for Ralph and me to leave for lunch, Harvey, from WEB, arrived to work on details of the wiring required for connecting WEB’s transformers to TWR’s 1,200, 800 and 400 amp panels. We are running into challenges because WEB only stocks metric wire sizes. Their 300 sq mm cable is just enough larger than our 500mcm cable that it will not fit into the connector holes on the breaker. The next smaller metric size that WEB uses is 150 sq mm which is very close to 300 mcm. After much discussion and since Ralph and I felt we could not make a decision without input from TWR’s project manager, we told Harvey we would get back to him with a decision. Since WEB does not expect to receive the HV switchgear for our project until early June, a decision does not to be made quickly.

Ralph and I arrived home about 45 minutes late for lunch, so our siesta time was short today!

After lunch, Ralph and I met with Daryl and Jonas to review the challenges of the WEB connections and discuss options. [It is WEB’s responsibility to supply the hook up cables] Two possibilities that we concluded might work:

1. Reduce the diameter of the 300mcm cable by using a plumbers tool for copper tubing (this was Ralph’s idea and one that came from his many years of experience.

2. Sell (at a discounted rate) the leftover 500mcm cable that TWR has to make the 1,200 amp connection. [There is not enough 500mcm cable to make the 800 and 400 amp connections]

After our discussion, I discovered a third option. The 150 sq mm cable that WEB has is capable of carrying just over 300 amp. Using four cables per phase should be adequate. This will work because the are lugs on the 1,200 amp breaker will allow connecting up to four 500mcm (or smaller) cables per phase.

Tomorrow, I plan to write up this finding and suggest possible solutions using metric size cables for both the 800 and 400 amp breakers.

This evening we left the site about 30 minutes later than normal. All 9 of us men wanted to go for a cool-down swim, so we took two vehicles to Pink Beach which is about a mile south of the salt pier. This used to be a nice sandy beach with pink sand from coral that was in the area. The pink sand was all washed away in a rare hurricane several years ago. The wave action this evening was a little higher than the other beaches where we have swum, so Ralph ended up sitting on a rock just off the shoreline. He frequently got hit by the waves coming in, but managed to maintain his balance. I stayed close by to watch him, while the rest of the men snorkeled. Our swim this evening was shorter, because of getting home so late.

Supper this evening was shredded beef with Baby Ray’s sauce on a bun, mashed potatoes, noodles, green beans, lettuce with craisins and sunflower seeds, jello with fruit and pudding (vanilla and chocolate) cups.

After supper, Ralph and Mary Jane took the six young men to the TWR office so they could communicate back to their families over the internet

2 April 2017 Sunday

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Our breakfast this morning consisted of an English muffin with egg and cheese, plus cinnamon rolls.  Someone called them Egg McMuffins, but I think they should have be called Egg VanderMuffins!

Since the internet is not working at the duplex, we left early for church to allow time to connect to the internet outside the TWR office. This was to make sure everything was in order to make a report using Skype to Calvary Baptist Church in Elkhart at 10:35am during their morning service. Bruce also sent a short video that would be included as part to that report.

We attended the 9am worship service at the International Bible Church of Bonaire. The sermon was on Ephesians 4:25-32. The pastor reminded us that the fruit of the Spirit need to be a product of our new nature. If we strive for these ‘fruits’ in our own effort, it is like trying to keep the Law.

We had to leave the service a little early to make the 10:35 am contact. The contact seemed to go really well. We trust that it was a blessing to those listening at Calvary Baptist. Also the video mentioned earlier was sent to the home church of the three young men from California.

After this contact, several of our team made contacts with their families, since they cannot do it from the duplex.

At home, Mary Jane and Virginia prepared meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, green beans and cornbread for Sunday dinner. We also had a fruit jello for dessert.

After dinner, all the young men (including me!) went to the Lagun (lagoon) on the west side of the island, then we visited the Blow Hole, about a quarter mile south of the Lagoon. Brian is the only one that got wet from the Blow Hole. It is obvious that this part of the island originated from volcanic action. The rock is very sharp and steps need to be chosen carefully. Definitely not a place to walk with bare feet.

We headed back to town to see the kite flying contest. Lionel, a TWR worker, was to fly his kite after 4 pm. After leaving everyone there, I drove back to the duplex to pick up Ralph, so he could see Lionel fly his 77 foot tall kite. We saw all kinds of unusual kites being flown with varying degrees of success. When Lionel’s turn came, they drove a dump truck onto the end to the field to anchor the kite’s rope once it was air borne. A crew of about a dozen carried the kite onto the field. When it was ready, Lionel called for about twenty people to help pull it into the air. There was a good breeze, but when the kite got about 50 feet above the ground, the breeze slowed and the kite returned slowly to the ground. On the second attempt his kite only got a few feet of the ground. On the third and final attempt Lionel requested that the judges allow him to wait for a little stronger breeze, but this must have been against the contest rules. On the third attempt, a piece of wood snapped just as the kite became air borne. Obviously, Lionel was disappointed in this outcome as he had won trophies in the past for the largest kite and he was hoping that this would exceed his previous successes.

When us men got home from the kite contest, the ladies had a light meal waiting. But the young men convinced Ralph, Mary Jane, Virginia and I to take an evening off in town. Philip jumped in to grill the cheese sandwiches that Mary Jane was getting ready to prepare.

So we four headed into town to a small restaurant on the waterfront for a light relaxing meal. Afterward, we each had a small ice cream, then walked the length of downtown. This took about 10 minutes and then we headed back to the duplex, arriving ‘home’ just before 8pm. We need to get our rest for work tomorrow.

 

1 April 2017 Saturday

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This morning, the International Bible Church had their monthly men’s breakfast, so us men went. The breakfast food was pancakes with bananas, egg casserole, and sausages. The pastor had a Bible study titled “Theophany” after breakfast.  The focus was on the Trinity and on man being created in the image of God. One simple thought stood out to me—man is the only creation of God that prays to Him.

Internet is out again at the duplex, so we stopped just outside the TWR office on the way to and from the breakfast to send and receive emails plus make phones calls to moms and spouses.

After getting back to the duplex, we had time to drive around the south end of the island, since the cousins had not been there yet. What did we see? First there is the transmitter site, then the salt pans, the salt pier, slave huts, kite surfing, flamingos, radar tower for marine traffic, lighthouse (southern tip of Bonaire), crashing waves all along the rocky east coast, small windmills that pump salt water from ocean inlets into salt pans, a large wind turbine (the first one that was built on Bonaire) to generate electricity, the donkey sanctuary, then back to the duplex.

For lunch the ladies set out all the leftovers from the week. These were all consumed, freeing up much needed space in the refrigerators.

This afternoon, Jim, Jake, Philip and Brian did some exploring to find some caves located a few miles north of Kralendijk, the capital of Bonaire. Although these caves were well known and explored 40 years ago, it seems they are now kept fenced off and accessible only by using tour guides. Even so, they were able to explore the rugged terrain found outside the populated areas of Bonaire.

I took an hour long nap, before taking the ladies and Ralph to town to do some grocery shopping. Ralph and I explored a hardware store which obviously had been stocked by one of the hardware chains in the U.S. Lots of hardware in inch sizes and lots of tools. It was obvious that a lot of items had very little turnover as some of the tools had begun to rust, some more than others. The cause—probably because the store was not air conditioned like the other hardware store, Kooymans.

The ladies went to four grocery stores before they found everything on their short shopping list. Fortunately, three of the store were adjacent to each other and the fourth was just down the street about a block.

By the time we got back to the duplex, the explorers were back home and some were wanting to go for a swim before supper. So I drove Mark, Philip and Jake to Bachelor Beach and joined in on the cool-down. This evening the waves were a little higher than normal. This stirred up the sand which reduced visibility for viewing fish.

For supper the ladies made hamburgers and reheated pizza leftovers from last night. We also had applesauce and some of the young men had crackers and jam for dessert.