This morning we took it easy and talked via Skype with Allan and Joyce and all of their children.  Though it was Saturday morning here, Allan just arrived home from work on Friday evening during the call.  I did not recognize one of the girls I was seeing via their camera.  Audrey finally introduced us to her friend Evie who was over for the day.

The most popular food vendor items in the hot weather were the fruit (especially mango) smoothies.

At 11am, the Gregsons, Joanna and Jenna Hodgins stopped by our apartment and took us to the Agat Mango Festival.  Its only 1/2 mile south of our apartment, but that’s too far to walk in the heat.  [Paul said temperature at their house was 107F today!]   We stayed at the festival for about 2 hours.  Virginia and I shared a mango coconut smoothie — large for $5..  We could easily have seen everything there in an hour or less, but visited a lot with various people including two pastors from the Marianas Baptist Church which is about two blocks from our apartment,

Most Beautiful Mangoes

Largest Mangoes

Most Bizarre Mangoes

This afternoon we both took naps.

This evening we stopped by the Gregowskes to retrieve a couple of items we left at their house. We also picked up an easy chair and small table to use in the spare bedroom, where the second air conditioning unit is located. Only the bedrooms have air conditioning, so we move to the bedrooms when we can no longer tolerate the heat in the rest of the house, which is quite often!

This morning’s headline in much of the new media is that today is the 70th anniversary of D Day. I think it meaning is more real as we see the battlefields that were won with so great a price on Guam.  This year, July 21 (Liberation Day) will also be the 70th anniversary of the first attacks of American soldiers to regain control of Guam from Japanese occupation and subversion of the local Chamorros.

Today, I again rode to and from work with Joel, while Virginia took Joanna shopping.

TWR Guam is wanting to separate the Harris SW100 spares from the rest of the items in the stockroom.  I was tasked with doing a fairly comprehensive search of what SW100 parts might fit the HC-100 and found quite a few.  I plan to reveal why this is taking place in my blog for Monday 9 May.

Some of the anchor rods have been rusting off for the curtain antennas.  An old two-ton truck has been used as a temporary anchor while each anchor rod is replaced and cast into its concrete block.  Today I helped transfer a curtain antenna side catenary from its temporary truck anchor to its repoured anchor point.

This evening, to relax Virginia and I played our first game of Rummikub on Guam.

Today, I rode to and from work with Joel, while Virginia used ‘our car’ to take Joanna to the Payless Supermarket —http://www.paylessmarkets.com/ — for grocery shopping.  Here is a weekly sales ad to compare with prices on the mainland — http://www.paylessmarkets.com/weekly-ads/june-06-2014-ad  The closest Payless store is just over a mile northeast of our apartment on Rt 5 just off of Rt 2A.huge

The two old Harris SW100s (100,000- watt shortwave transmitters) that were installed in the late 1970s are now being used as standby transmitters and are only used if one of the three more efficient, newer transmitters has a major failure. They have not been utilized for some time, and the water needed to be changed in preparation for some test transmissions coming up next week. With Mike’s help, that was our first task of the day.

While testing the circuit boards yesterday, the power switch on the lab DC power supply failed in the ‘on’ position.  My second task of the day was to replace that switch.

Charlie sent me some information from Elkhart that will be helpful in investigating some discrepancies in the THF filter of the HC100 here.  I was able to successfully download this information for future reference.

In the afternoon, I helped with getting the second sliding door onto its new track and rollers, then assisted with alignment of both doors.  It is no longer a battle to open and close these huge doors!

Larry carries the 5 gallon jug that he filled with reverse osmosis water disinfected with ultra-violet light. The cost is $1.50 per jug, which is a lot cheaper than bottled water.

After work this evening, we made our first trip to the Water Store.  Most homes have a 5 gallon jug of purified water for drinking.  It sits upside down in a crock pot with a dispenser spout on the side.  It is not chilled, or heated, like a lot of office dispensers are that use the same 5 gallon jug.  It looks like 5 gallons of water will last us four or five days.

I rode to work with Joel and Joanna Harp who live in the middle apartment below us.  They are also short-term with TWR Guam and have been married for only 6 months.

This morning, I did additional troubleshooting of circuit board from yesterday and narrowed the problem down to a tiny tantalum capacitor which was slightly discolored.  Replacing it corrected the problem.

Larry removes ICs from the circuit board trying to isolate its fault.

I then began troubleshooting of another faulty board (the same kind) but could not isolate the problem, which is not a capacitor.  An obsolete integrated circuit has been ordered from a surplus electronics dealer in China.  After it arrives, further progress can be made.

In the afternoon, I helped Jim, Joel and Paul with installing new rollers and rail for the huge sliding doors on the shop end of the transmitter building.  These doors are about 16 feet tall by 14 feet wide. Only one of two sliding doors was completed today.

Since it was necessary to get the door done before leaving (to lock up the building) we left about 30 minutes later than normal.  Joanna had taken their car home earlier, so I caught a ride with Paul.

Virginia and I were supposed to meet for dinner at 6 pm with Daryl and Gaynelle at Ruby Tuesday at the north end of the island.  Since we left the site about 5pm, I was afraid that we would be late.  I quickly changed at home and we rode with Joel and Joanna, since they were also invited and have the more fuel efficient vehicle — a Toyota Echo like the one we have in Elkhart. We made it to dinner 5 minutes before 6:00!  Phil and April also met us there.  We had a great time of talking with Daryl and Gaynelle on a more personal level.

I think this will be our last fancy dinner out for a while.  Dining out typically costs 50 to 100% more for the same menu items than in Elkhart.  We did find out that a MacDonalds near us has about three items on their $1 menu.  Hope to say more about this in a future post, as this MacDonalds is quite unique.

After the wiring changes yesterday, I was able to complete the move of a power supply for a LED strobe light that is turned on outside the building anytime a transmitter is on the air.  This is used as a warning any time high voltages are present on the feedlines and antennas.

Red arrow points to black power supply. It is mounted with the power indicator facing down so that it can be seen from below.

At noon the staff, including wives and children, was invited by Daryl and Gaynelle Renshaw to lunch at the Jamaican Grill — http://www.jamaicangrill.com — at the north end of Guam where the major stores are located.  Daryl and Gaynelle are home-based in Singapore where Daryl serves as the Asia Regional Support Services Leader and Gaynelle serves as the Member Care Coordinator for TWR’s missionaries in Asia.  They are visiting with the TWR Guam staff for a few days.  It took about 30 minutes to get from the transmitting site to our apartment, where I freshened up and picked up Virginia, then another 30 minutes to get to the Jamaican Grill.  There we had a great time of fellowship with the Renshaws and all the staff.

After lunch, we returned to the site and I attempted to repair one of the spare analog-to-digital metering boards for the Thompson 250,000-watt shortwave transmitters.  I was told that the 5v to +/-15 v converter was bad, so I installed a substitute converter, since the part originally used is obsolete.  Unfortunately, it did not correct the problem and because the day shift was ending, this became a project to tackle tomorrow.