LVB Trackers - 15 orders waiting

Tonight I feel much better after getting a good bit of sleep last night... But tonight my wife was not feeling too good so I watched the CAVS game with her before coming down to the basement to work. Also had a dog that was sick too! It never ends here!

We're finishing up testing the 10 build trackers and will close up the enclosures so they will be ready for shipment. Will get them out no later than Friday so AMSAT will have them by Tuesday and they will start shipping.

I'm very sorry for the delay. The circumstances with my wife's stroke just consumed all my free time and now I hafta do everything she did.

Back to work.

73's
Mike

LVB Trackers - I have failed

Tuesday, second day back to work. Easy day at work for the most part. No nurses or PT folks scheduled to visit Sue at home. Sue did have a doctors appointment with her PCP at 5:15 in the afternoon. I did leave work early to get her ready. After we got home and finished dinner, walking Rufus and feeding the cats I was just EXHAUSTED! Sat in my chair around 9PM and CRASHED! Got up around 1AM to do Sues blood and meds, we both CRASHED, and feel pretty good.

Unfortunately I failed to get the last 3 trackers, which all have display issues, tested. Will not ship out to AMSAT until Thursday if I don't crash tomorrow evening. Sorry but lately with everything going on with Sue and work I'm just EXHAUSTED in the evenings. Monday I dragged myself down to the basement and got a second wind (after napping down there). And got all but 3 trackers tested.

Nuff said. Back to sleep! Sorry!

LVB Trackers - testing to start tonight

Almost 3 PM I'm at work and I am nackered. Hope I have enough energy to start testing tonight. All
I want now is to take a nap. EXHAUSTED.

LVB Trackers - 10 ready to test

Kitchen cleanup didn't take to long so I got back to the workbench and finished installing the din cables on the trackers. They r ready to test. Hopefully tomorrow.

LVB Trackers - 10 partially built!

Partially assembled 10 trackers this afternoon. All that is needed is to add the din cable! But its time for domestic man to swing into action. Got to check the roast and the dogs need to go out and/or get walked.

No predictions. Will work on them when possible!

Free Time - Time to work

Finally got the kitchen cleaned up. Roast in the oven. Gonna try to workmon Trackers now!

New Day - New Hope

Beautiful day but a bit chilly. Got the dogs and cats out, walked and fed. Sue and I finished breakfast. After I finish cleaning the kitchen (started last night but interrupted) I will again try to get some trackers built.

And for the unfortunate few reading my blogs... I DO APPRECRECIATE MY JOB!!! But the company is doing everything they can do to squeeze the life out of us. They will do ANYTHING to preserve profits. Nuff said!

Back to work. There is more here than I can possibly do!

Great Day to all of us!

Not having to work!

Not having to work makes this whole thing bearable! It's 2:48am and were just getting back to bed after giving Sue her meds and insulin. Everybody was sleeping. Now the old cat is up and is whining about getting fed. The dogs now are up looking to clean out the cat bowls and they need to go out. Both my knees ache bad for some reason. All I can think of is we hafta change this habit before I goto work on Monday. And I keep telling myself so many folk have it much worse than we do!


Good (short) Morning!


Good (short) night!

Can't win!

I'm cleaning up the kitchen and the phone rings. A good friend calls up wanting help troubleshooting an electronic ignition problem. Now we already spent 3 hours on the phone earlier today. This prompted my earlier blog. But this is a good friend who is very worthy of my help. Another 3 hour session. We may be closer to a fix, I dunno. But all hopes to get some Trackers built is gone. I still need to finish cleaning up the kitchen. I can't win!

LVB Trackers - OVERLOADED

I give up! Taking care of my wife the house 3 dogs 4 cats. Monday I will start back to work. Fault me if you wish. I just can't guarantee any completion or shipping times for the LVB Trackers. I will work on them when I can. I really hate being this way. When Sue was well it was still tough getting them done. I'm just overwhelmed.

LVB Tracker - build update

Started to assemble yesterday afternoon. First step is sticking on the feet and inserting the din cable grommet. One of the case bottoms was missing a pem fastener discovered after placing 3 of the 4 feet. What to do? Can't use this chassis so maybe it will become a demo unit or something. But, I had just enough feet for 10 chassis. Humm. I've been using the leftover hardware from the last shipment of boxes... This build puts us 20 into the latest (Dec 2010)shipment from TenTec. Time to dig out the box of hardware that ships in one of two big boxes the cases come in. Back out to the garage digging thru both boxes finding no hardware box. GRRR. Now, did I dig out the hardware last December and put it somewhere? Did they not ship it? No matter what I have a problem. GRRR. Not a great day for things going exactly my way.

I did find some feet but will have to tap out the ten I'm building now and look more for the hardware or get more shipped.

God give me strength!

Brrrr

Saturday morning out front with the dogs. 33 degrees. Cold front yesterday moved the 60 degree air out.

I didn't qualify for FMLA so it looks like I will be going back to work on Monday. Hope it's not the miserable existence I think it might be working and trying to take care of Susie at home. One of my two offices is only a mile and half from home so some of the time I'll be close. I just don't think it's wise to use up all my vacation time so soon in the year. I may become eligible soon after returning to work. Why don't these things work when I need them?

LVB Trackers - LCD displays

The LCD prep is a process that just pisses me off! It you have read all my blogs you know why. If not gonna drag ya thru it again. The company that fabricates the boxes we build the tracker refused to use metric PEM fasteners. The display mounting holes are 2.5mm I beleive. So I hafta drill out and clean the holes then solder on a connector. I know, bitch bitch, whine whine. But it's one more thing added to a very labor intensive process.

Around dinner time I was in a bad mood for some reason and made sure I got to the basement just for separation. The dogs enthusiasm for our dinner was more than I could handle. So I did get the holes drilled on the displays. Then went on a guilt trip for spending most the afternoon working on trackers. So I packed up the project and took it upstairs. All that was left to do was solder on the connectors. Unfortunately while reading email on my phone I just ran out of energy. It's a bad timeline I've gotten into lately. Crash early in the evening. Get up to do Sue's vitals, meds and insulin then spend too much time online at 2,3 or 4 in the morning.

So it looks like on Friday I'll get the LCD displays done. Next fab the din cable ties then I can start assembly. Might just have 10 trackers ready to ship by Monday!

Good Night! Or is it Good Morning!


Oh.... A bit of GREAT NEWS! Tonite is the FISRT NIGHT WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN!!!! It so great but I can't imagine even now going thru another winter. I would move south in a heartbeat it Sue would go along and if I could afford it!


OUT

LVB Trackers - some progress

Blogging while walking dog. Made good progress today. Got downstairs after lunch. Cleaned the 10 PCB's in work. Did voltage check installed then flashed the pics then plugged in the USB module. Also listened to a few passes of AO51, SO50 and AO27. After I finished the boards I was at the pc which is now a radio thanks to the Flex 5000 and was tuning around 20 while looking for tracker parts onDigikey heard this special event station in Ireland working a light pileup whatever that is. Anyway, he started calling CQ so I gave him a call HE ANSWERED ME. guess I'm rediscovering radio with the Flex. Kinda cool!

So now it's time to walk the dogs get dinner then cleanup. If I can get back downstairs I need to prep the LCD displays. Only got 20 left so I'll do them all, only needing 10.

So that's wasup!

66 days till 2011 Dayton Hamvention

Got sucked into the internet for ABOUT 3 HOURS... guess it's an excape. Just before pulling the plug I checked my crummy web page where there is a
Dayton Hamvention countdown clock running and guess what... I got 66 days till Hamvention... Now you would think I could get a bunch of trackers built by then but... there always seems to be something else to take up precious building time... read my previous blogs over the last 3 years so to get an idea what an average building day is like. it's painful to read but it's all there.

GOING TO BED

LVB Trackers, Production stalled

I'm very sad to report that LVB Tracker production has hit a big snag... This makes me very sad cause there are at least 10 folks waiting. I really do not like this but don't have a quick fix.

My wife, KB8AOF had a stroke Jan 25th and I have been spending A LOT of time dealing with that. In December I used up all the printed circuit boards so I couldn't build anyway. But towards the end of January, a new shipment of 100 boards arrived and I took them to the hospital with a bunch of parts and started to build up boards. Then I started running out of parts. Not enough 7805's, db9's and USB modules to complete the build of 10 boards. So I ordered those parts and all that I needed for the next 100 trackers. So now all the parts are in, but...

For the last several years I have built over 400 LVB Trackers. This project was never designed for ease of assembly and I added a few things make it more difficult to build like fully connectorized components that require me to make a custom LCD cables and button wiring assembly. All in all when my life was normal I could build 10 trackers in about a week in my SPARE TIME after work and on the weekends. Now bear in mind this takes all my spare time during a week. With a sick wife it is very difficult finding any spare time. Even being off from work I cant seem to find any. There always seems to be something I need to be doing. It's amazing how much Sue does taking care of the house, three dogs, four cats and a husband that is working and building LVB Trackers.

I really would love to just do nothing but build these things. It's an escape for me and right now I really need one But I can't ignore the realities of my life right now.

Later today, Tuesday March 15th, I'm hoping to get back to building. I will hafta set up a table in the living room cause Sue would like me to be upstairs with her as apposed to being in the basement for hours. Nothing is planned for today. With any luck I hope to have finished trackers on test and with a miracle I hope to ship by weeks end.

I'm trying to be optomistic about this... It's all that I can do at this time...

Yes, IT COULD BE WORSE

I use to think MY LIFE JUST SUCKS! Yea, I got it real bad. Have a good paying job. A roof over my head. I'm (was) 60 pounds overweight. And we have money problems all caused by our own mis-management and lack of discipline.

When 2011 rolled around I was hoping for a good year...

NOT !!! Well lets say... the challenges started quickly... AT&T offered a 30K retirement enhancement. One employee accepted. They up'd it to 50K.. Hummm... In the end I passed that one up too but 11 of my co-workers didn't... They're gone and I'm now 2nd higest on seniority. 40 minutes before the deadline to accept the offer my wife Sue had a stroke. Yea, I thought life sucked... was I wrong... I was considering to retire hoping I could work with Sue to help improve her health. Now I think I made a mistake by not retiring. Is God trying to tell me something here?

Sue's stroke could have been worse. She had a brain bleed near her brain stem. It caused exrtreme dizziness and nausea. Those symptoms are still lingering almost two months later. She been home now for 6 days and is doing better than the first time when she was home for 3 days. She was back in the hospital for blood clots. This is pretty bad but I keep reminding myself it could be worse... and wonder will if I'll see it get worse. When will things get better? Will things ever get better???? Sooner or later? She is loosing weight, a good thing but for a bad reason. The nausea makes it hard for her to keep things down. The first time she was home she could not keep enough liquids down and got dehydrated. Were lucky this time she is working hard sipping water when she wants to just guzzle it down. She is afraid to eat and is hungry when not vomiting. Today was not a good day. She wanted to get a bath and wash her hair. We were able to do all that stuff but it left her totally exhusted. And that seemed to mess her stomach up too! I know it could be worse.

I dunno.... I have changed my mind about blogging about all this...