Today, June 24th, 2010 we put the house up for sale.  Actually we did on June 21st but the sign was placed in the yard today.  We have worked for a long time to get it ready to sell so we can move to another place.  This is a mixed feeling moment since we have been in this house for the last 11 years.  On the other hand, we are very excited.  It has been so hot and humid that it has been very uncomfortable to work.  Let’s just hope that it sells fast.  It has been a long journey to get here.

This was a sad moment for me but it was a necessary move to be able to sell our home for the most we can.  I took 87 pictures of this removal and have them on Flickr.

In this picture you can see the top section coming down.

As you can see in the photo above the last section is being removed.

In this photo you can see the spot where the tower once was.  This is a very sad image to me although I know it was a necessary move.  I know many of you are wondering where this leaves the 443.3 MHz repeater.  Well the antenna that was on the top of this tower can be seen in the photo below.

This antenna has been installed on a side mount on the same tower that the 145.25 MHz repeater is installed.  As soon as weather permits, this will be connected to the 443.3 repeater in the new location.  This being a side mount installation on the Southwest leg of the tower will likely result a null to the Northeast.

In this photo you can see the UHF antenna being installed in its new configuration on the W5QO tower.  This will be the new home of the 443.3 MHz repeater.  At some point this antenna may be raised to the top on a candelabra type installation.  Keep an ear open for this repeater when the weather clears up.  This was a very busy weekend getting the tower taken down and the antenna being reinstalled at the new location.  I am hopeful that everything goes smooth on the new tower.  The IRLP will be a new challenge and may have to be moved as well to enable both nodes to work.  Each node requires its own unique external IP address to be able to operate.  This is because both nodes use the same ports and a router could not forward the same ports in two directions.  This is a small problem that will be resolved in the coming days.  The club officers were in agreement that we needed communication with the members as to the status of this move.  This post is being posted both on the club blog as well as my personal blog so that this information will be the most widely disseminated.

Thanks,

Paul, K5GLH

In our preparation to sell our home we have been trying to restore the house to a sellable condition including taking down my ham radio tower.  Today was supposed to be the day that it was taken down and sold.  Unfortunately the buyer could not come out today so it will have to wait until next weekend.  I have mixed feelings about selling the tower because as a ham radio operator I have always dreamed of having my own tower.  Unfortunately this is not compatible with a new home in the city.  Not to mention it is not attractive to many people.  The tower was installed August 3, 2003 and will likely come down next weekend.  To a ham radio operator, having a large tower is very attractive but not to the average person.  When we move, we will still have antennas in a low profile configuration.  I will likely still have a dipole antenna for high frequency (HF) operation.  I will also have a small vertical for VHF and UHF.  A large antenna of this sort requires a large area and some understanding neighbors.  I have no intention to give up my radio hobby but will just learn to do it in a more discreet way.  The antenna on the top belongs to our UHF repeater that will be taken down and re-installed on my dad’s tower with a side mount.  Currently the repeater is down because I had to pull the feed line loose so the tower can be disassembled.

I will still have remote control access to both of our repeaters.  It has been a lot of work trying to get the house back in shape to sell.  It did not help with the recent cold weather causing water lines to freeze.    I think the house will appraise at a higher value without the tower behind.  This is the reason we want to take it down sooner than later.  For those of you that depend on our 443.3 MHz UHF WIN System repeater, do not be concerned, because it will be back up soon.  It will be moved to the same location as the 145.25 MHz repeater.  If you have more questions not addressed here, let me know.

He eventually got the water hose and sprayed it out of my drive way into the lady next door’s drive way.  This guy plays the stereo every night and day where I can hear it inside my own house.

I have never called the police on him but it really gets on my nerves.  This oil incident happened over a year ago.  We have not spoken since that day until last week.  I was taking the basket ball goal out of the yard that had so much concrete on it that my whole family could not move it without breaking it up with a sledge hammer.  The same neighbor pulled up and helped me get it into the truck.  I am certainly torn because I was very grateful for his helping me yet he continues to blast the stereo very loudly.  The funny thing about it is that I can hear praise music so loud inside my house.  He also has several Rottweiler’s that use to always get out and terrorize the neighborhood.

As recently as this morning I heard the praise music blasting from his house.  About 15 minutes ago I was hearing f*** this and f*** that.  This same guy was screaming at his neighbor on the other side of him.  The victim this time is the same neighbor that always defends this guy.  They have always been close neighbors.  The neighbor would always defend him when the other guy’s dog would get out.  Now they are screaming at each other because the friend next door pulled his truck between the houses and caused ruts in the guy with the dog’s yard.  They were screaming so loud that many other neighbors were peeking outside to see what was going on.  For some reason I find pleasure in seeing this happen and I know it is not right.  I could barely contain myself from giggling while peeking through the window blinds like a coward.  I know that is not a nice thing to do but for some reason I feel vindicated despite his helping me load the pole with concrete in the truck.  Maybe I have lived in a neighborhood where criminal activity has become so common place that it does not even phase me anymore.

The sad thing about all this is that not only do I know it is wrong for me to have pleasure in their fight, but this is the neighborhood that I grew up in.  It really does bother me that our neighborhood has come to this.  You may remember just last week some 17 year old was shot and killed just three streets over from me in this very residential neighborhood.  I thought that the cops would show up for sure tonight but they never did.  They were shouting so loud that I could understand what they were saying inside my house with the door shut.  I hate to see my childhood neighborhood become so bad that people are not even phased by it.

I have been off work the last couple of days because I have poison ivy from cutting down some trees at my dad’s place.  Since I usually have to go to bed early because I have to be at work early, I usually miss out on the good storms.  Last night around 10:45 PM we had a storm come through with circulation near my house so we decided to go out for a drive and check it out.  I live in Del City, a suburb of Oklahoma City and the circulation was two miles to the Southwest of my house.  The tornado never did touch down but it was pretty exciting.  I made seven videos lasting more than an hour and I uploaded one of them onto Youtube so I could share it with you.

It starts out with me and my son Kevin standing in the front yard with the tornado sirens blowing and lots of lightning.  It sort of reminded me of the old days when I could do this all the time.  It seems like the only time we have storms around here is in the middle of the night or when I am at work in a building with no windows.  For this reason I miss about 90% of them that come through.  Every day I hear people complaining about all the rain and how they wish it would stop.  I cannot chime in with them because I rarely ever see it.  Anyway, as I have told you before, I just love severe weather and always have.

I took this photo of some mammatus clouds that were at the leading edge of the storm earlier.  At this time it looked as though the storm was going to miss us again.  Later the line reformed and came across giving us an exciting night.  I saw on the television advisory last night that their radar had detected over 1,000 lightning strikes in the last hour.  It was very interesting to watch.

Well I am going to try to go back to work tomorrow because I have already taken off two days.  I took off because of the poison ivy on the back of my legs gets really irritated by the pants rubbing against them.  At least at home I can wear shorts.  The rash seems to be getting better but the itching has not subsided and I only got two hours of sleep last night.  I had one and a half hours the night before and only one hour the night before that.  The itching makes it difficult to sleep.

The OU commencement is tomorrow night at 7:30 PM at the University of Oklahoma football stadium.  The smaller convocation will be on Saturday.  It should be a very exciting time.  This has been a long time coming and I am glad to have it over.  Now maybe we can get back to life again soon.  Well I just wanted to share our little storm we had last night because it was a welcome sight.  Do not get me wrong, I do not want anyone to get hurt or have their property damages but I do like to see storms when I can.  I still kick myself for not becoming a meteorologist.

As a resident of Del City it is easy to become excited and also distraught with some of the changes going on.  For those not familiar with Del City, it is a suburb of about 25,000 people completely surrounded by Oklahoma City, Midwest City, and Tinker AFB.  This city use to be about 30,000 before an F-5 tornado came through on May 3, 1999 and destroyed nearly a thousand homes on the Southeastern edge.  Many of these people never moved back and those that did bought their neighbor’s lots and rebuilt homes that were twice the size of what they had.  Although the city has been rebuilt, there are fewer homes around.  This city was built in 1948 as a place for the growing Tinker AFB.  Back then both Midwest City and Del City was thrown together in a very short time.  Many of the homes were very cheap and small.  Because Del City is completely surrounded there are very few places to build new homes.  Real Estate is hard to come by that is not in a flood plane.

In the above picture we see a very large apartment complex that was built late 1970′s early 1980′s time frame.  This apartment complex covers several city blocks as you can see on this map.

View Larger Map

There is a creek that runs right behind it and usually does not flood but about five years ago it did.  We had so much rain that the whole city was flooded and this creek overflowed its banks right into many of the buildings of this complex.  This flood caused many of the buildings to become inhabitable and the city condemned them one at a time as tenants complained.  It is not clear why the owners did not repair the damage.  Surely they had insurance as I would think it would be mandated by law.  This complex has been filled with mold and many local news stories have been published about it.

I have some good memories visiting friends in this apartment complex back in the 1980′s so it is sad to see this happen. I drove through the parts that were not chained off and took a few pictures to see the condition.  I found this sign on each of the doors as you would go inside.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time.  Each time I would drive by here I would see another building boarded up with chain link fence around it with warning signs.  I may be wrong but I think the city had big plans for this property though I am sure they would never admit this.  If you have been down Sooner Road in the last five or six years you may have noticed the transformation.  When I left Oklahoma in 1989 to join the Air Force Sooner Road was a no mans land as a dividing line between Midwest City, Del City and Tinker AFB.  That tornado was the beginning of a rennaissance of this area.  Many of the old buildings were destroyed and the vacant lands have been developed.  Sooner Road has been growing from N.E. 10th street all the way down to S.E. 104th Street.  Since Del City’s side has been limited in development due to being at the end of Tinker’s runway they can use all the land they can get.  This apartment complex sits at some of the most valuable real estate in Del City being at S.E. 29th and Sooner Road.  This intersection has a lot of traffic and is ripe for development.  The Northwest corner is off limits due to the Tinker Runway but the Southwest corner is right where this condemned complex sits. 

You may have noticed that Del City has decided to develop Sooner Road South of I-40 across from the new Wal-Mart store.  I say some incredible renderings of new hotels, restaurants and shopping center.  This is very close to the forbidden zone of the Tinker runway.  With this apartment complex being demolished, this opens up some very valuable land at one of the busiest intersections in the Eastern half of the metro area.  Sooner Road has become such a desirable place to build that the Mid-Del school system has announce they are going to close Sooner Rose elementary at S.E. 15th and Sooner behind the Home Depot due to heavy traffic.  This will open up another valuable corner for development but Midwest City will reap the benefits of this area since it is on their side of the street.  Sooner Road has almost every hole filled from S.E. 29th Street down to 74th.  With the addition of the new Mercy Heart Hospital at I-240 and Sooner, this area is getting crowded.

The amazing thing about all this change is that it took an F-5 tornado to get things moving.  After the miles of total destruction throughout the metro it would have seemed at the time that no one would have built anything back.  On another front, Del City is finally moving thier City Hall out of their old 60+ year old building located here at 4517 S.E. 29th Street.

They are taking over the old Exchange National bank building on S.E. 15th Street.

This building was built in the 1980′s as the Exchange National Bank Del City branch and then changed to the Fraternal Order of Police building.  Recently we have seen signs up saying this is going to be the new City Hall building.  The old Del City Police department located on Epperly Drive is going to move to the old City Hall location after they tear it down.  Here is a picture of the old (current) Del City Police department.

This old facility I am told will eventually become a Senior center.  I am not sure about the accuracy of this as I heard about it on the OKCTalk web site.  You can read about this here.  I grew up in Del City and have been sad to see it become a place of rent houses and people that do not care about their homes.  It is nice to see the city trying to improve on this and I think the current mayor Brian Linley is owed a lot of credit for much of the improvement.  I still live in Del City and plan to stay unless something major happens.  Getting rid of apartment complexes, especially ones that have a lot of crime in them is a good first start.  If you were to look at a map of the Oklahoma City metro area you would be surprised to see how the small town of Del City is somehow embedded deep into the center of the city.  It gives the impression that Del City is more of the stereotypical inner city environment you see on television.  Unfortunately this stereotype is becoming more and more true as time passes.  I have heard gun shots at my house more than once.  I often jokingly refer to my neighborhood as “The Hood” to my wife’s irritation but there are times I feel this way.  It gets so old sitting in my own home with people driving up and down my street playing those loud stereos where the booming shakes the dishes in my own home.   Sometimes they will park in their driveway and let it play for an hour.  There is a man across the street that plays his home stereo so loud that I can hear it in the back of my house at 1:00 AM. Let’s hope this leadership team is able to turn things around.  Getting some commercial development will mean more tax dollars and a greater ability to combat some of these things.

I took this photo at the corner of Sunnylane Road at Reno Avenue in Del City, Oklahoma in the 35 degree cold wind.  This is the OG&E power plant that feeds my house with electricity.  This busy picture has been a description of our lives the last couple years.  With trying to go to school full time, work in a new job and have a family life it has been pretty busy.  With my graduation only four months away I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  It is funny how our human nature tends to see the negative in just about everything unless you make a conscious effort to see the positive.  I have found myself actually a little sad that my kids are growing up and as soon as I graduate, my kids will be grown.  It is almost as if I have been experiencing the “empty nest” syndrome before it happens.  The truth is that we have a lot to be thankful for.  God has blessed us in many ways.  It is sad that despite these blessings we often only see the negative in the world.

This morning I submitted my proposal for my final thesis at Oklahoma University (OU).  I am sort of excited to know I am on my final paper and ready to graduate.  It would have been nice to have the Sooners be the national champions the same year I graduate but that is okay.  I did not watch much of the game though because they keep putting these games on in the middle of the night when I have to get up at 4:30 AM.  After seeing the results I do not regret not watching it.  I wanted to spend some time taking pictures today and I did for a while but it is too cold to spend too much time outside.  It was 75 degrees yesterday and a cold front came through just about the time the sun set.  The wind peaked at 53 MPH at the Oklahoma City airport last night.  This morning I woke up with garbage blown against my fence.  Who knows what county that came from . 

We did get the car out of the shop this weekend after the wreck in December.  It drives pretty good and it is sure nice to have it back.  The impact of the increased insurance premiums has not hit us yet.   Our renewal will be in March so that is when we will have to get a second mortgage on the house to pay are auto insurance .  Hopefully it will not be too bad.  My son Kevin was hired at the Del City Wal-Mart yesterday so he is pretty excited about that.  It is close to home and he knows many people there already.  I went up there with him around midnight last night to check it out.  I have to admit that I am excited for him because he is only 17 years old.  Tonight I am in for a very relaxing evening watching television and having dinner with my wife.

For those of you in Oklahoma City, you know what a windy day we had yesterday.  The National Weather Service had a graphic on their page that showed Oklahoma City’s peak wind gust was 54 miles per hour (MPH).  The wind was howling all day as fires sprung up around the metro.  We were just leaving the restaurant having lunch where my son works yesterday as we heard sirens.  Soon after we pulled away from the restaurant we saw this very large plume of smoke to our Northwest.  I went home and picked up my camera and drove over to Del City’s Eagle Lake to take these photos.  I listened to the police scanner and heard they were blocking traffic from Sunnylane so we went around to the other side.  I heard on the scanner from the Del City fire department that it was an asphault plant burning on the other side of this railroad track bridge.  This is near Bryant Avenue and NE 4th Street.  No one was hurt in this fire and it was only one of three in the metro yesterday.  This one is about three miles from my house.

The temperatures were perfect yesterday being in the mid 60′s while the wind was out of control just the way I like it.  I could go into my backyard and hear the wind whistling through our ham radio tower.  Today is much calmer with winds only 20 MPH .  This afternoon we are supposed to have a powerful cold front pass through our area dropping the temperature into the 20′s with a chance of freezing rain every day this week.  This brings to memory the wonderful ice storm of last year . 

It is difficult to imagine a more peaceful and relaxing weekend than this one where I had no homework and a day off work on Friday. This is just what I needed to relieve stress.  I love taking pictures when I have time but with school I hardly have any time.  Only five more months and I will be done with school and I will have more time to live.

To date, there are only five reflector channels that are capable of handling the uncompressed audio.  These are 9200, 9003, 9739, and 9755.  Nothing has changed on the reflectors except that the owners of these listed have set up those channels to select UNCOMP as the default codec.  It is likely that not all reflector owners will opt to use this uncompressed audio because of the incredible demand for bandwidth.  Since most of these reflectors are operating on donated bandwidth, they may be reluctant to double the bandwidth required if there are many users like the WIN System which typically has 50+ nodes connected 24 hours a day.

Any individual node that calls another node will be able to experience the improved quality of audio.  Both of our repeaters have been updated to the new audio though our 443.3 repeater may not be noticeable because it is connected to the WIN Sytem 24 hours and they have not upgraded their channel yet on the 9453.  I have been amazed at the improved quality as it is virtually perfect.

Another improvement that came with this, most users will not notice because it happens behind the scene.  Before, when a node would connect to a node for the first time, it would automatically download two .wav files. These were the announcement files that you hear when connecting or disconnecting from the other node.  After you visit many nodes, the node hard drive begins to fill up with many audio files making it difficult to do a backup.  Also since many of the nodes are using older computers, they sometimes have smaller hard drives.  With this upgrade, the nodes now stream these connect and disconnect announcements from the IRLP servers so nodes owners are no longer concerned with filling up a hard drive.

Dave Cameron, VE7LTD, the creater of IRLP put out a beta test version of this upgrade last Wednesday and more than 250 nodes participated with zero errors.  On Thursday night, he decided to push the upgrade out on the nightly updates.  On Friday morning, all nodes should have received this upgrade.  We are thrilled with the performance on both of our repeaters.  Since both of them are on broadband Internet connections, this higher bandwidth requirement was not an issue with us.

Thank you for those of you that use our nodes/repeaters.

Paul