I helped Mike inventory the parts for the solar panel array that arrived Monday.  Photos of some of the parts are below:

Forty of these steel post will be cemented about 6 feet into the ground to support the structure for attaching the solar panels. There will be 4 rows with 10 posts in each row.  Each post will support 6 solar panels.

Each post will have one of these brackets bolted to its top. These will allow some adjustment of the inclination of the array.

These aluminum extrusions will be bolted to the brackets and the angle braces will then be attached to a hole about 2 feet lower on the posts

Because of all the other projects underway here at TWR Guam, a local contractor will be doing the installation of the solar system. Hopefully, he can start on it soon.  We would like to see what it looks like before leaving here on 31 July.

Because of the extra cloudy day, the antenna curtains seemed to stand out more clearly than normal.  Here are a couple fairly clear photos:

Four of the six curtain antennas can be seen in this photo, if you know where to look!

This is one of the highly directional 4X4 curtain antennas that is aimed toward China.

This is actually two antennas with a reflecting screen between. The one on the far side is a 4X4 curtain aimed toward China and South East Asia. The one on the near side is a 2X2 curtain aimed toward Australia/New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

All day, reports were coming in that tropical storm Rammasun was to hit tonight.  Local stations were warning everyone to prepare for this storm and the possibility of being without power and/or water for several days.  Many offices were closing early to allow their employees to prepare their homes for the storm.

After we prepared the site for the storm, by securing anything that might get blown around in 60 mph winds, Mike allowed us to go home a couple hours earlier than normal.

The first thing we did when I got home was to fill two of our 5-gallon water jugs. The Water Store had already closed for the coming storm, so we headed to another one we had seen about a 1/4 mile in the other direction from our apartment.  Fortunately, it was open.

Virginia filled a large waste basket, a bucket and another water jug with tap water in case we needed water for non-drinking purposes.

Next on the agenda was to close all the typhoon shutters all six windows.

The shutters are held closed by deadbolts at the top and bottom.

The shutters over the windows are closed — now to close the shutters over the door.

Lastly, we tried to close the shutter on the front down, but found a problem!  The screen door is between the shutter and the front door.  The shutter could only be closed from the outside!  That is not problem, if you are living on the ground floor, because you can close the shutter from the outside and get back in through the back door.  That is not an easy to do when our apartment is on the second floor.

We have a problem! The screen door has to be open to close the shutter from the inside. Not possible!

After investigation, I discovered that the screen door is designed to lift off its hinges.  Another problem — the plaster around the door was done in such a way that the screen door could not be lifted high enough to get it off its hinges (maybe the hinge pins will need to be shortened for future storms). To still have this problem, this apartment complex was probably built after the last typhoon that occurred 12 years ago.

Since this is only a tropical storm and not a typhoon and we should not experience storm surge, especially on the second floor, we decided to leave the door shutters open.

The Lord provided a beautiful sunset this evening before the coming storm.

Not a lot to report for today and, sorry, NO photos!

Here are a few things that were done:

1. Advised Mike about the various possible options of obtaining  a spare DVR2000E+ regulator for the standby engine from Ebay.  The Plus version has a digital readout which can be fine tuned more easily and it can be set up on the bench.  The DVR2000E has to be set up, and adjusted, in the extremely noisy environment of a running engine.

2.  Cleaned the rust off the drive spline of the servo that we removed and repaired yesterday.  The servo was then returned to the stockroom.

3.  Helped in the shop with preparing the piping for the first connection from an antenna switch to the overhead line installed earlier in the week.

Jim invited several of us to have dinner with him at Denny’s this evening.  Virginia and I rode with Joel and Joanna for the 13 mile trip to Tamuning and met Jim there.  Phil and April were the only other ones able to be there.  We had a fun evening together and came home stuffed.

Virginia went with Joanna and Kathy to the South Pacific Memorial Park which is located in Yigo in northern Guam, just over a mile south of the entrance to Anderson Air Force Base on Route 1.  This is the location of the last battle for the retaking of Guam by the American forces.  This memorial has a more Japanese ‘flavor’ than the other memorials on Guam.

For a more extensive report see — http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/wapa/hrs/hrsf4.htm

Virginia took several photos of what it looks like today:

South Pacific Memorial Park with its tall memorial. Note the US, Guam and Japanese flags.

The bottom of the tall memorial at South Pacific Memorial Park.

A Japanese shrine at South Pacific Memorial Park

North of the shrine is a long set of stairs going down into the location of the final Japanese command center.

Joanna, at the bottom, gives an idea of the height of the bamboo growing in this low lying area.

One of the caves which comprised the final Japanese command center in the battle for Guam.

Joanna and Kathy in the bamboo forest.

The remains of food tins found in the caves.

Japanese commander Obata committed suicide here when he realized there was no hope of fending off the Americans.

I helped Jim, Joel and Paul install two overhead lines above the antenna switches in preparation for starting some of the connections of the antennas to the switches.  This photo shows what was accomplished.

One end of each overhead line will be connected to antenna, while the other end will drop down to be attached to an antenna switch.  The lines will be not be skewed when that is done.

Virginia went with Joanna and Kathy to the South Pacific Memorial.  We plan to include her photos in a separate blog entry shortly.

The rain was heavy on the way to work this morning.  Shortly after arriving, I was able to get a decent photo of a rainbow that appeared in the southwest.

This rainbow arches over the ‘barn’ and one of the antennas.

After heavy rain, water squirts out of the retaining walls outside the west and north sides of the transmitter building.

After settling into my work, I noticed an email from Virginia letting me know that the airlines had changed flight times for both legs of the return flights from her Alaska trip, resulting in only a 45 minute layover in Chicago in the evening.  Chicago is not a place for that short of a layover, especially in the evening, as this leaves no alternatives to depart Chicago until morning.  After assessing several other less than desirable possibilities, it was decided to leave things as they were.  Should she miss the flight into South Bend, I will plan on driving to get her.  That means getting back to Elkhart about 2:30 am.

After addressing the above issue, I began to document what settings were used to program the regulator that was installed yesterday.  This information was printed off and included with the regulator manual, in case it (or a replacement) needs reprogrammed quickly in the future.

This is one of 13 servo motors used on each of the Thompson transmitters.  The cover has been opened to gain access to the inside of the connector.

Mike asked that Phil and I change a servo motor on TX 7 (Thompson 250kw shortwave transmitter) because it seemed to be having intermittent tuning problems.  When we tried to unplug the connector to the servo, it proved extremely difficult.  Eventually, we got it loose and discovered the plastic plug had melted due to overheating.  As a result, it became necessary to change the connector that plugs into the servo.  We also installed the new servo, since the other half of the connector on the old servo was also melted.  It was now established that the servo was not the problem — the burned connector was the problem.

Some of the burning and melting that took place on the connector plug.

After verifying that transmitter was now operating properly, I then replaced the part of the connector that was attached to the removed servo.