Finally another night with no transmitter cutback in power!

See Virginia’s blog entry for today about out adventures. One thing she did not mention was the row of wind turbines just north of the Indian inscriptions. I have heard various stories. One by a tour guide that they are supplying 70% of Bonaire’s power needs. The other was by an engineer who says they are still awaiting the equipment to tie them into the power grid. Since no power lines were seen near the area, I tend to believe the engineer.

At 5pm this evening the transmitter ‘called’ and indicated there was a problem. By accessing the transmitter site using the internet, it was discovered that the transmitter site had no power. The monitoring/control equipment is on an uninterruptible power supply, so we can still have remote access. This is fortunate, because we havd to turn the transmitter on remotely when the power came back on. Of course, we could have traveled to the site to turn it on, but that was not necessary!

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Sunday we again worshiped with the small group of believers at the International Bible Church. It is truly an international church. They come from Holland, U.S.A., various countries in South America and Bonaire. We were a little late this Sunday, because we had locked our keys in the car the night before and had to wait for the spare set to be delivered. As a result, there were very few seats left. Hopefully, I will be able to get a picture of the congregation one of these days. The Pastor continued the study in Revelation 2 on the Pergamus church. In Sunday School, (yes, they do still call it that in some places) we are beginning a survey of Paul’s writings. We watched a video on the end of Acts and then had a discussion.

After lunch and naps, we decided to try going to the other side of the island again. Larry found a somewhat better route to the area, but

we did not make it to the lighthouse this time. We saw some desolate looking spots, the desolation reinforced by the donkey skull, dried and bleached by the sun and the towering cacti.

We also saw some of the paintings. These depict the stars and were their compass. We also saw a hole in a roof of a cave that is traditionally connected with the Star of Bethlehem. It is usually covered to keep the goats from falling through, but opened at Christmas to let the star shine through the opening. Hopefully you will be able to read the story on the picture of the sign (if you click on it to enlarge it).

I thought the cacti growing on this big rock were so pretty. It must really be nice when they bloom.

I also took a picture of a fence that has the flags of many countries painted on it. I don’t know what the place is, but thought the fence was interesting.

Of course, there are the cacti fences. They are very effective!

This tree is one that we learned about on the tour we went on

when we first arrived. It is known as the ‘Tourist Tree’. If you look closely, you will probably be able to observe that it is red and peeling.

We also took a picture of some of the blue rocks like the ones we followed

Saturday. We have now found out that the blue rocks mark the route of the first ever Bonaire Xtreme Duo mountain bike race — a 75 km (47 mile) bicycle race — held this morning! Wonder how many tires needed repair? The route on Saturday was not nearly this nice!

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.

Reviewing the transmitter log this morning, I noticed that there had been two cutbacks early in the morning. I reduced the Audio Input by 0.1dBu to 8.0dBu. This is the level to which it was set on 20 Oct 2010 and that night and following morning there were no cutbacks.

Virginia’s blog covered what we did. Just wanted to add that the first place we headed was to the Lagoon (Lagoen) located by Boven Bolivia on the map (ENE of Kralendijk on the east coast). The map leads one to believe that there is a village there, but we only saw what looked like an abandoned shop or hotel at the west end of the lagoon. I think the view would have been better from the south side of the lagoon and there is supposed to be a ‘blowhole’ near there. But the road to that side might be a challenge to find! There are no road signs and definitely no paved roads to get there.

From the lagoon we followed a rocky, dirt road (if you can call it that) to the extreme east point of Bonaire. Virginia explained that experience quite well in her blog entry.

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.

Lagoon photo: http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1197485.jpg

Today we started slowly and enjoyed our normal breakfast. I did some ironing (a few things just need something, even after flapping in the breeze) and a bit of straightening. We decided that we would go to the east side of the island to see some Indian paintings on the cliffs after lunch. Well, that turned out to be an interesting trip. We didn’t get to see the paintings, but we did get to see God’s power in nature.

We weren’t sure how to get where we were going, but we took a dirt road that looked like it could go where we wanted. This road was kindly marked every so often with painted blue rocks. It took off over a flat wilderness of cacti, a bit of scrub, wild donkeys, mud, rocks and dirt. Just as we got to the area we were hoping to see, the clouds let go. Thunder, lightning, and pouring rain. We could see the waves crashing against the rocks, where we would have liked to walk and explore, and see the lighthouse. We thought about continuing to the cliffs, but as the rain came down, the road began to get very muddy very fast, so we decided to go back the way we came. We thought that if the storm blew over before we had gone to far, we could always turn around again, but at least we would be well on our way out if it continued. We had rain all the way back home. The road would have been very difficult to find if it had not been for the blue rocks! It was a fun adventure. We will take that trip another day. The storm was quite nice, not as magnificent as those in Swaziland or Colorado, but quite spectacular just the same. The driving rain, loud thunder and lightning along with the waves crashing against the rocks, certainly showed the power and awesomeness of our God.

We did see a very interesting building before we had gone to far off the beaten trail. It looked very out of place, not only on this little island of Bonaire, but also so far away from anything else.

This evening we were able to swim at Flamingo Beach after not swimming there for two days.

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.

Lighthouse photos:
www.lothardoehle.de/bonaire/lighths/lighths.htm
www.trabas.de/bilder/band_j/gross/J6414.jpg

When I arrived for devotions, Joe Barker was already involved in a meeting (via conference call) which lasted a good part of the day. The rest of us (Bob, Donna, Benny, Lionel and I) had devotions and a time of prayer before starting our day.

Bob picked up the VCR, that I had ‘repaired’ earlier in the week, for use in the adult class on Sunday.

My first task of the day was to locate prices and availability of parts to repair the tower light that got shattered by a lightning

strike. It proved to be an intriguing phone call when they asked the name of our company, because the name of the company I was calling was TWR Lighting! The price of a replacement red glass is $44. There are also little pieces of 1/16 inch stainless steel aircraft cable that are use as safety cables so the red glass will not fall if it slips out of the hands of the one changing the bulb. The atmosphere in Bonaire is so corrosive that these cables fail, so I asked about the cost of replacing them. Also looked at the possibility of using another supplier for the cables. Yes, it would have cost a little less, but, with the additional shipping cost and hassle of paperwork for a second supplier, decided it was not worth it.

I ate lunch at home with Virginia, then she took me to the transmitter site so she could have the car for the afternoon. I had checked the

transmitter at about 6am and found that there were a couple of cutbacks in power since yesterday. Decided to back off the audio by 0.1dBu for the overnight broadcasts so the level is now only 0.1dBu higher than when no cutbacks were experienced a couple of days ago.

Before going to the site, I found two types of electrical cleaners to see if one of them could remove the residue of the insulating material that I attempted to remove yesterday, with no success. Neither one of these cleaners worked any better than the rubbing alcohol, so I decided to search around for some alternatives. Since painting of towers and other structures are an

ongoing need, due to the corrosive atmosphere, I figured there must be some thinners for the necessary oil based paints. [Tower manufactures now days use high quality water based paints for environmental reasons. The paints last for many years in most places, so they are astonished when told that rust begins within weeks here on Bonaire.] I found the thinner and it cleaned the residue off completely within a few seconds!

I was now able to complete the reassembly of the modulator module within about an hour. Only hit one snag when the manual stated the nuts for mounting the power transistors were to be torqued to 4 inch-pounds. I found the tool to do this but no adapter to allow it to torque the special socket — remember the thin wall 5mm socket that we had to make? Finally I found a screwdriver bit, which was about 5/16 inch wide, that fit the tool. By inserting the screwdriver end into the 1/4 inch drive end of the 5mm socket, I was able to use the tool to torque the socket. Fortunately 4

inch-pounds is not much torque!

Now the modulation module was installed back into the PA module and measurements made that showed everything looked OK. The manual mentioned some special cables that could be used to test the PA module at 48 volts before applying the full 300+ volts. I searched all over for these cables and decided there must not be any. Joe checked with Nautel to see if they were supplied with the transmitter and was told that they were not. We decided we would just have to trust our work and apply full voltage, but decided to wait until Monday. Later Joe received a message from Nautel, that special cables had indeed been supplied. Guess that I will be looking some more on Monday.

Virginia picked me up about 5:20pm, we went swimming at Bachelor Beach. I think we used to call it Lime Beach. Virginia then served a birthday supper (beef, gravy, rice and baked french fries) and dessert (brownie and ice cream) for my 64th birthday. God is so good in every way!

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.