We took Jonathan with us to church this Sunday.  Pastor Deon Philips message at Evangelical Bible Church was on the ‘Tears of Jesus’ and focused on three Scripture passages — John 11:35, Luke 19:41 and Hebrews 5:7.

After church we went by the Fish & Chip Company (at the Riverside Mall close to the church) to pick up lunch and introduce Jonathan to this ‘British cuisine’ — very greasy, but good — probably not good for a regular diet!  They have used salt and

Simba still uses the same slogan, “ROARRRS with flavor”

vinegar on their ‘chips’ (french fries) for a long time — long before ‘salt and vinegar’ flavor potato chips were introduced in the U.S.  ‘Salt and vinegar’ flavored potato chips were being made by Simba  chips since at least 1971 when we first came to southern Africa.

In the late afternoon and evening, I worked on this blog and ended up losing a couple hours of work due to a really bad internet connection.  Decided to wait for another day.

Ended up the day with a call to my mother, which is my usual routine on Sundays.  While we are in Swaziland, these calls are via Skype.  Initially Mom had a difficult time conversing with Skype, but after several weeks she seems to be getting the hang of it — sort of like talking on a two-way radio.

Klaus and his daughters getting ready for their races.

Klaus and his family took us and Jonathan to Mlilwane Game Park this morning in their Toyota Condor, which normally seats seven, but there were eight total.  We left at 7am to go to the Imvelo Mountain Bike races that were held within the game park.  [‘Imvelo’ is the SiSwati word for bicycle]  Klaus and his two girls were participants.  There were four races with an average of 150 bicyclists in each race.

About 200 bicyclists lined up for the start of the 35 km race.

There was a long list of instructions at the start of each race, including pointing out certain areas, that were marked with warning tape, where crocodiles and hippos were located.  One year a buck ran into a  cyclist!  The last instructions as touted as the most important — “To have FUN!”

A 63 km (40 mile) race started at 8:00, which I overheard a South African racer say was more difficult than a similar 90+ km race that he had recently competed in.  Some uphill grades were so steep that it was necessary to carry the bikes to the top.  The fastest riders finished in 3-1/2 hours and the slowest in about 6-1/2.

The Hoglets race with one of Klaus’ daughters (orange shirt) on the right side of the starting line.

The 35 km (22 mile) race started at 9:30.  Klause entered this race and finished in 2 hour 20 minutes.  The winner took 1:40 and the slowest about 4-1/2 hours.

No room for passing on this part of the race!

The 22 km (14 mile) family race started at 10:00 and lasted from 1 to 3 hours.

The 12.5 km (8 mile) Hoglet (kiddies) race started at 10:15 and lasted from 53 minutes to 3-1/2 hours.  Klaus’ daughters stuck together and finished at 1:25.

Navigating a narrow bridge

We had a great time cheering everyone on, including several members of families from ‘our’ church here, plus we got lots of exercise running from one vantage point to another.  What a fun day in a spectacular setting!

In the afternoon we harvested some more bananas and nartjies (mandarins).  There was a full grocery bag of the latter, which we distributed among the mission families.  There are only a few nartjies left on the tree, which will likely all be picked next week.

First thing this morning, I emailed our June 2013 McGuiReport to our email mailing lists.

When the transmitters finished the morning broadcasts at 10 am, I began tuning TX3 on higher frequencies.  The first frequency was 9500 kHz.  Next 11750 kHz was tried, but would not tune properly.  Eventually, it was found that the PA tube badly needed neutralizing.  The rest of the day was spent neutralizing both the PA and driver tubes and showing Graham how it is done.  Hopefully this might explain why this transmitter would not tune on the high frequencies.

It was ‘Grandparent’s Day’ today at the school that the mission children attend.  They invited Virginia to be their ‘grandmother’ for the day.   After school, Virginia invited all five of the mission children to our house for a party.  They made huge bubbles– thanks to Joyce for giving us the idea and tips–(check it out here), did various crafts and had ice cream cones.

Reviewed the logs and found out that TX3 was still tripping off due to RF unbalance when used on Antenna 6 at 7300 kHz, in spite of the work that we did two days ago.  I then researched logs back to January, when they started using this frequency, and found this has been an ongoing problem.  We decided that it would be beneficial to observe this antenna in the evening during the half hour time slot of this broadcast.

There has been a problem with TX3 not tuning properly on higher frequencies, resulting in excessive cooling water temperatures.  I decided to begin at 9500 kHz and work up through the bands.  I just got started on this process, when Steve asked me to leave early (about 3pm) so we could return after dark to observe Antenna 6.

At 7pm, we were back at the site and positioned under the antenna for a close up, yet safe, view.  During the next few minutes we saw small sparks in various places, which we later concluded were most likely small insects being ‘cremated’.  About 7:26, the west end of the most active element at 7300 kHz lit up like a huge torch with a loud voice emitting from the flames, which were bluish colored and about 4 feet long.  I think Steve jumped back almost 20 feet when it happened!  [Wonder if this is like the voice that Moses heard in the ‘burning’ bush?]  This flame went out almost immediately, but about 2 minutes later the other end of the same element also lit up and quickly extinguished.  Simultaneously with this second arc, there was another smaller arc about a half wavelength away on the feedline — an interesting phenomena.  After that, no other problems were seen for the rest of the broadcast.  Back at the transmitter building, we checked with the operator and the transmitter had sensed both arcs and tripped off, thus extinguishing the arcs.  Without the sensitive circuitry that shuts the transmitter down, the flames (actually corona) would have burnt the elements off.

Back at home, I successfully replaced the circuit breaker for the water heater (geyser [pronounced geezer] here).  For several days when I have tried to turn it on for hot water in the morning, it would trip multiple times before I could get it to stay on.  Wednesday morning it took about 30 attempts before it would stay on, so we stopped by Swaziland Electrical Sales on the way to staff meeting that morning.

Wednesday morning  we attended the weekly staff meeting and had the rest of the day off.  Virginia and I used the rest of the morning to walk around the east side of town to observe how things have changed.  Actually, there is not much that has not changed in the past 24 years.  We took quite a few photos, some of which we plan to include here when we get a better internet connection.

Just before lunch we met Jonathan at the TWR Manzini office and showed him the Manzini Market on the west side of town, where fruit and vegetables are sold in bulk and smaller quantities, where crafts are sold and lots of clothing is made in the small garage type stalls in the market.  We also saw galvanized sheet metal work (buckets, tubs, etc.), hair cutting, shoe repair, and lots of medical herbs being sold from these stalls.

We then stopped by the bakery and introduced Jonathan to samoosas for a late lunch.  After dropping Jonathan at the office, Virginia and I did some more shopping then headed home to be ready to attend the Wednesday evening service at the Evangelical Bible Church.

We got a chance to wish our granddaughter Audrey a happy 10th birthday using Skype.