Reception reports keep coming in from North and South America, but one report came in last night from a listener in Norway!

We picked up Ralph and Mary Jane to take them to the airport at 8:30 am.  They were scheduled to fly Insel Air to Curacao at 10:30am, but we learned that their flight only left at 2:30pm.  From Curacao, they were to fly on to Aruba.  We heard they were still waiting to leave for Aruba at 8:30 pm!  Recommendation–avoid using Insel Air to fly anywhere.  If you’re not convinced, just look at the reviews written about Insel Air.

Nautel’s transmitter engineer, Wendell, came to the dedication and led one of the Techtalk sessions.

This morning a session called Techtalk started with an 8:30am breakfast at Pure Ocean Beachside Dining Restaurant.  I joined the group later at the transmitter site where a review of the Bonaire Power Up project was given, followed by a tour of the transmitter given by Wendell, a Nautel engineer, and a tour of the antenna phasor and tuning units by Tom King.

Huge ‘mountains’ of salt at Cargill waiting to be loaded onto ships for transport around the world.

In the afternoon, we had a tour of  Cargill Salt Bonaire.  We learned that the salt harvested in Bonaire has a crystal size of about 1″ cube.  [We were given some samples] Most of the salt is used for water softeners.

TWR Bonaire transmitter site with one of Cargill’s salt pans in the foreground. These salt pans and the Caribbean Sea provide a near perfect ground for sending AM radio signals for very long distances.

Watching the live broadcast through the studio window.  Brad (at computer, then clockwise around table), Annabelle, Estaban, Jeheil, and Alberto.

At 5:30pm we watched a live broadcast, originating at the TWR studio, to Cuba and Venezuela done by Brad, Annabelle, Estaban, Jeheil, and Alberto.  Andre will be broadcasting live to Brazil at 5am, so he headed to bed early this evening.

We took Bob and Ethelyn Schultz to Hillside restaurant for supper tonight.  Reservations are not required at Hillside in contrast to most of the eating places along the beach.