No problems with the transmitter overnight. Joe Barker and I discussed the switch from exciter A to exciter B at start up yesterday. We reprogrammed the Gentner controller to switch the carrier control unit on five minutes before switching the transmitter on to see if that takes care of the glitch.

I discussed with Joe what needs to be done now that the transmitter building security system is ready to fully arm. This can not take place until all authorized persons are assigned codes and given instructions on the ‘arming’ and ‘disarming’ of the system. We also decided to use the system’s phone notification feature which allows programming of two numbers [in case the first is not available]. We also plan to connect it to the Gentner to provide alarm capability via an alternative route.

Virginia and I came home from the office for lunch — toasted cheese sandwiches. Dutch gouda cheese is fairly reasonably priced here when purchased in ‘wheels’.

Virginia accompanied me to the site, where I began to trace the specific phone line (out of many) that we wanted to use for security. I then had to identify which was the incoming termination, then which was the ‘tip’ and ‘ring’ wire of the pair. Now I was ready to connect it to the security system in such a way that it would take over the line should it be ‘in use’. I then had to program it via the keypad with two phone numbers. We decided it should call my cell phone first.

Before testing it, the ‘siren’ was disconnected. We wanted to keep our sanity and not have the electric company people from next door running to check the alarm. I then proceeded to simulate a fire alarm. The keypad beeper went off, but no call to my cell phone. The phone line was ‘tied up’ so I knew it was trying and I could hear that a voice mail box was responding. After a bit of head scratching, I determined, to my embarrassment, that one digit of the number entered for my cell phone was incorrect.

After correcting the number, it now worked, but I could not hear a message when it called. It also kept calling over and over. Finally, I found a place in the manual where it states that the primary number is tried eight times and, if it gets no response, the secondary number is tried eight times. It also appears that this system is set up to call a security monitoring service computer, not regular phones. Since I don’t speak ‘computer’, it thinks I am not responding and kept redialing me EIGHT times. I suspect the secondary cell phone was shut off. When I listened in on the system phone line, I heard the voice mail box of that cell phone answering. No wonder the phone line, used by the security system was tied up for so long. It had to go through this process a total of 16 times!

Even though the security system is set up for calling a security company computer, it is still usable. When the security system ‘calls’, we know which line it is calling from and we’ll see this on the cell phone’s display. We should change the cell phone display to read ‘Tx site or alarm’. If there is no response to our answer, we will know the security alarm has been triggered. This will be verified when it keeps calling back persistently — eight times! This can be tolerated in the, hopefully rare, event of a real alarm.

Tomorrow, I will check to see that the secondary cell phone had 8 ‘missed calls’ [how about 16!], which will verify that everything is working correctly. Then I can look at what is required to connect the security system to the Gentner. It will probably require an interface to be designed and implemented as well as programming of the Gentner to ‘tell’ it what to do when there is an alarm. It will probably call my cell phone, but on a different phone line. It can also ‘flash’ up a message on the remote transmitter monitoring/controlling computers.

Virginia went to town to do some shopping then returned to take me home. We stayed around for the transmitter to come up and noted that there was no ‘glitch’, like there had been yesterday at start up.

In the past 24 hours, we have had about 3 inches of rain. The site is mostly underwater again. The air is cooler, but more humid. It is amazing how cool 80F feels after the last three weeks!

We went for a walk along the seaside again tonight. The waves were not as high as last night, so we will probably begin swimming again tomorrow.

The transmitter ran great over the weekend with no cutbacks.

I reviewed some of the proposed projects and their priorities with Joe Barker. The number one project is still the installation of the UPS for the transmitter site and moving the temporary one there back to the studio, where it belongs. But the UPS is not expected to arrive until next week, so the security system is currently the priority.

At the site, I concentrated on the motion sensors. The ones in the office area and transmitter room seemed to be functioning properly. Another one in the old transmitter room was not sensing movement, not the one in the work area at the back. They are mounted quite high on the wall and their beams were aimed high. I opened them and aimed the beams as far as they would go downward. They now began to detect, even at the far side of the rooms, but I did notice they did not work as well when walking directly toward the detectors.

Reading up in the manual for the detectors, I found that they detect motion most effectively for movement parallel to the wall they are mounted on. This checked out to be true, so we may want to review whether there might be a better place to mount them. Of course this would involve rerouting and extending the wiring for them.

Before leaving, I was able to partially activate the security system for the first time in months, if ever. I definitely know more about the system after working with it for a couple of days.

After getting home, Virginia and I decided to walk over to see if the sea had calmed enough for a swim. It was still pretty rough, so decided to go for a walk along the seaside into town.

Just as we started, the transmitter ‘called’ my cell phone to inform us that something was amiss. We quickly went back home and verified the radio signal was OK. I fired up the computer and found that the transmitter was on Exciter B instead of A, which was an indication that something with turning ‘on’ the carrier control had caused the switch. I was able to remotely switch back to exciter B. Will do some changes tomorrow to see if something can be done to avoid this in the future.

Now that things were settled down, we returned to our walk. In several places where the sidewalk is close to the shore, the rough waves had deposited coral pieces on the walkway. Waves were still splashing occasionally onto the walkways, but the piles of coral were indication that Hurricane Tomas had some effect resulting in the waves previously being even higher.

Getting to bed quite late tonight after putting photos into two blog entries before posting them.

Today has been an interesting day. At 8:00 this morning, I was startled by voices outside the door. It was some workers coming to put in a new fence and they needed to plug in their extension cord. I opened up the laundry room so they could plug in at that outlet. Their next step was to begin grinding off the gate and the top of the concrete posts. Soon a dump truck of sand arrived and was dumped in the driveway and then a load of stone. In the meantime, the TWR workers arrived with a pallet of bags of cement. They told me that the sand and gravel was supposed to have been unloaded next door where no one was staying, but since the sand and gravel was in our driveway, the bags of cement would be unloaded in our carport. They have been busy grinding down the concrete posts for the new fence and raising a bit of dust.

I usually wash on Monday, but had not started it as early as usual, waiting to see how or if Hurricane Thomas ( It changed course and was down-graded to a tropical storm.) would affect our weather. We were supposed to have a 60% chance of showers. Well, since it looked good, I

decided to do a load of laundry.

While the clothes were washing, Benny, one of the TWR workers showed up with the lawn mower to cut the grass, which was knee high. What a dust storm! It took an hour and half to cut the little patch of grass because it was so long. I couldn’t hang out clothes because of all the dust and a lot of the back yard is under the

clothes line. It is now finished, but he may be back with a weed whacker to finish off, so I have not yet hung out the laundry. I think the end of the work day is 4:00, so I can clean off the lines and hang out the clothes. As long as the breeze continues, they will probably dry before the sun drops into the ocean around 6:00.

I will also need to do a little dusting again today. I have already wiped the table down three times today.

Louvered windows are just not particularly dust proof and one does not want them all closed in this heat. Every breath of breeze is appreciated!

We have been taking some pictures of a few of the colorful houses around town. These are not the exception, but rather the rule. Some have been freshly painted and are so bright and pretty. Hope you enjoy them.

The Sunday morning service at the International Bible Church starts at 9am. The youth had the opportunity to open the service. It was livelier than the usual opening, but it was good. Unfortunately, they were not able to project the words on a screen as planned, so many of us ‘older’ folk had a hard time singing the words of some of the songs. Sound familiar?! Some of the songs were in the hymnbook and we did fine with those.

Pastor Totoram Baran is an excellent Bible expositor and had been teaching a series on the

seven churches in Revelation. Pastor Baran grew up in Guyana. He graduated from Guyana Bible College and Biblical Theological Seminary of Hatfield, Pennsylvania. He has been an evangelist, church planter, pastor, and principal. He came to Bonaire after directing a multi-faceted inner city ministry in Newark, New Jersey.

His wife, Felicia was born and grew up in Bonaire and graduated from the Jamaica Bible College. We knew Felicia, as well as some others in the church, from forty years ago.

IBC usually has adult Sunday School at 10:45am, but this morning they were having their annual business meeting. Virginia and I went home, ate leftover Cashew Chicken and relaxed for a while.

We then decided to do some sightseeing on the east coast, especially since Hurricane Tomas is brewing about 150 miles NE of Bonaire. The waves should be a little higher than normal. We decided to visit a place called the Blow Hole located about 200 meters south of the inlet to the Lagoen. Also a bay, unnamed on any map that we have found so far, located about 1000 meters south of the Lagoen. Neither of these places are marked on road signs, or near roads found on maps, so I used satellite views from the internet to locate the dirt trails (and memories of treks taken 40 years ago).

After getting back we decided to go for a swim, but this only lasted a few minutes as the waves were about 4 times higher than normal making it hard to keep one’s footing as the swells came in. Also noticed there were still no boats anchored off shore. We heard this morning that

most boats had moved into the marina to avoid any possible damage that Hurricane Tomas might bring as it passes about 150 miles to the north.

NOTE — To see a bigger (and in some cases, expanded) version of any of the images in this blog, just click on the one you want to see.

After lunch today and since it looked like there were no rain storms coming, we decided to go where we tried to go last Saturday — to the lighthouse on the easternmost point of Bonaire. So we traveled almost to the Lagoen, then headed north and east on some dirt/mud/rock ‘roads’ to get to Boca Spelonk.

The lighthouse looks like it needs several good coats of paint, but the keeper’s house needs a whole lot more. It looks like some of the upper story wood floors have

been removed, probably not with approval! The walls are covered with slime — YUCK!

NOTE — To see a bigger (and in some cases, expanded) version of any of the images in this blog, just click on the one you want to see.

When we went swimming this evening we noticed there were no boats anchored off shore like there normally are. We later heard about Hurricane Tomas brewing to the east of us. Will have to see what happens. Bonaire is not usually effected much by hurricanes.