2 days till 2013 Dayton Hamvention - Yep building LVB Trackers

At aprox 2:30 pm I finished building 31 trackers for AMSAT NA to be offered at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention.  A lot has happenned to get here.

Gould Smith, WA4SXM who is the project manager for the LVB Tracker project is in poor health and will not attend Hamvention this year.  I have always loved working for and with Gould on this project.  We have in the last 7 years shared a hotel room at Dayton for Hamvention, at the Pittsburgh Symposium and in Orlando for a Shuttle launch.  Gould set up the AMSAT booth at Dayton for many years.  Two volunteers are doing that job this year.  Last year Martha wasn't at Dayton, this year no Gould.  I HATE CHANGE.

DARA is adding an aisle in Ball arena where the AMSAT booth is located.  This change eliminates the opportunity to have 6 booth spaces in a row.  This year at Dayton we will have 6 booths 3 on either side of an aisle.  Will be very different.  I sure hope there is a carpet linking them both together just like Kenwood, Icom and Yaesu booths to give the booth continuity.  We also will not be on the end adjacent to ARRL so we lost that connectivity.  AMSAT got screwed.  But we will make the best of it.   I HATE CHANGE.

I got an OLED display to try on the LVB Tracker. Well it didn't work.  John Drago, W8FAA modified the firmware that allows the OLED display to work.  It looks sooo cool.  Bright, high contrast with unlimited viewing angle.  Since I ran out of Matrix Orbital LCD displays and since it cost almost $100 for shipping last time I sorta decided all trackers offered at Dayton this year would have OLED displays and if they were well received make that change permanent.  I talked to Gould about it and he thought it was a good idea.  We are also offering 3 colors, green, blue and yellow.  Something AMSAT resisted thru the years.  Now I think they may be looking for change.  And this may rejuvenate  the product to boot.  Unfortunately the OLED displays are thinner than the LCD displays.  This means I had to cut down the PEM fasteners so the OLED didplay would sit close to the front of the enclosure.  Ken Baker made me a grinding jig.  Took me 2-3 days in my spare time to finished modifying the cases.  I sent one to Mark Hammond, N8MH.  He really liked it and took a great picture of the OLED tracker on top of his original LCD Tracker

Well AMSAT featured this on their website and made a big deal about it.  Which is OK but now I hafta make it happen. But they are done.  All that needs to do is testing and packing.  

My dachshund boy MORK blew his back out last month.  This means his back legs stopped working real well.  He ended up getting a very expensive operation with a very long recuperation period.  Normally Mork and Mindy sleep all day with Sue while she reads or watches TV.  So his recuperation is with Sue.  Biggest change is he doesn't jump up and down to get in the chair.  I lift him.  Change his diapers called Wicky-Wags and take him outside to poop.  So how do you know when he's gonna poop?  That's another story.  But we have his BM's logged and know when to expect it.  So Sue is for the most part trapped in her chair by Mork. I sit in her chair when she needs go to the bathroom.  I'll take him to my chair to give Sue breaks.  But for the most part I also do all the things Sue does.  Now in addition to building trackers I'm doing the laundry.  I also do the meals unless I take Mork and let Sue do it.  Our neighbor Mike is going to stay with Sue and help her with Mork so I can goto Dayton.  I still don't like leaving them.  Mork is starting to walk with help and I hate leaving him at this critical moment.   If I wasn't so entrenched with AMSAT and Hamvention booth operations I would have cancelled.  But I've seen what happens when a volunteer can't produce and don't want to do that if it can be avoided.

All I can say is it can be worse.  I just hope it doesn't get that way.  I may end up pulling an all-nighter to get everything done.....  Dunno

73,

Mike, WB8CXO