Posts Tagged → Del City
Future of Repeaters
On February 6, 2010 the K5GLH tower came down. This is the tower that hosted the 443.3 MHz repeater (WIN System). This was a move that had nothing to do with the Del City Amateur Radio club but rather to help facilitate the sale of my home. As I have posted before, we are planning to buy a new home but we need to remove the tower because many potential buyers may see it as an eye sore.
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
Del City’s Challenges and Opportunities
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.
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.
Wind Blown Fire
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.
Walk in the Park
This was such a perfect morning that I decided to take the camera out and take some photos of the beautiful morning. I stopped at the Ray Trent Park here in Del City, Oklahoma and enjoyed the peaceful quiet behind teh roaring 18 wheeler trucks whizzing by on I-40 right behind me ;-D. It was nice and cool and the squirrels were collecting their pecans for the winter. I saw probably 10 or 12 squirrels that were enjoying the cool morning. I ran across a handful of geese as you can see below. There were not any kids in the park as it was a school day.
This being the first day of fall I thought it would be nice to go for a walk and enjoy the wonderful morning thta I so rarely get to see. With work, school, and other commitments I rarely get to see outdoors in a way where I can just relax with no responsibilities.
There is a creek that flows through this park that sometimes floods when we have heavy rains. As you can see in the above photo, the walls of this creek are pretty high but I have seen times when this park was completely covered in water with three feet of water. This does not happen very often but can at times. My wife and I had this day scheduled off for a year as it followed our anniversary yesterday. Sometimes it is nice to just get out of the house and see what God has made. It sometimes amazes me when I have gone a long time without getting out just how fresh and refreshing it can be. It does not help things that I just love being on the computer. This also prevents me from getting out more than I do. I just wanted to share the peaceful morning I had with the world since God shared it with me.
Dead Tree
This tree is finally dead after I have cut roots, cut the bark, and poisoned it. After the terrible ice storm we had back in December we lost power for a week. These fences were covered by trees all the way around. I have poisoned them and cut them down over the last few months and this was the last hold out. This tree is on the other side of the fence and has been a vacant rent house. As you can see in this photo, this was growing right into the power lines with a transformer on it. After the ice storm, OG&E installed a new pole but left over half the old pole so now we have two of them. As you can see they are very unattractive.
We have had two major ice storms in the last five years that have not only knocked out the power for a long time but has had damage to my house and power box on the back of the house.
In the picture above you can see this same tree with all the ice on it. The picture below shows it from a wider view with all the other trees that we have already removed. As you can see, this was a nightmare. It was like a forest in the power lines and we were constantly losing our power. It was nice having the coverage but not at the expense of the never ending damage.
This last storm was the final straw as all these houses around us are rent houses and the neighbors just let them grow wild into the power lines while we lose our electricity when storms come in. This tree took multiple high dosages of woody brush killler into about 13 1 inch holes drilled into the trunk. I also cut the bark all the way around it. This should be a little more peace this winter knowing there are no trees to fall on my house. Not surprising the neighbor’s have been glad to see them go but could not afford to cut them down themselves. One of the trees that you cannot see in this picture cost me $1,500.00 to cut down. I was not brave enough to cut it myself as it was very large and was growing into the high voltage lines on the top so we hired someone that was licensed and bonded.
As you can see, the tree above colapsed on the fence after a storm in 2005. I really hate to kill trees because I love the way they look. Unfortunately in my small yard with a 70 foot tower and a power pole with a large transformer on it, trees are just not an option. I realize that my actions will not likely prevent the next power outage because this naighborhood is filled with situations just like mine. The one thing that I will not have to worry about is an insurance claim for damages done to the house. The first storm was so bad because at the time the only heat we had was our central heat and air that requires electricity. That night the temperature dropped to 19 degrees. I had to borrow a portable propane heater from a friend to keep the pipes from bursting. Unfortunately it put off fumes where we could not stay in the house. I plan to cut this tree down now that it is dead. This way it will be out of the way. Everyone involved is happy to see all these trees gone from the lines. One time, I had to make a claim because the power line was intermittent and blew out one of my computer monitors and my neighbor’s television.
It looks as though the nightmare is almost over and maybe we do not have to sweat the next time an ice storm is forecast. The last storm we bought a power generator so we can still live in the house. I hope this is the end of all the repairs. As much as I like trees, this is not the right environment.
Del City Shooting
My wife and I went to run some errands this afternoon and enjoy the wonderful rains of hurricane Ike when we stopped at a 7-11 store. We saw many cars lined up on both sides of the road that to me indicated a funeral. When we went into the store, there was a Del City police officer in there and the store clerk told us that a woman had been shot across the street. I really hate to hear sad news like this particularly when it is walking distance from my house. I grew up in this neighborhood, then left for the Air Force, just to return again. This neighborhood may have its share of crime but so do many other parts of town. We need to keep this family in our prayers and hope the victim survived and doing well. In the image above you can see the yellow police tape, a police car, and the remote broadcast van for KWTV, channel 9 in Oklahoma City. For those not familiar with Del City, it is a small community of about 25,000 totally surrounded by Oklahoma City, Midwest City, and Tinker AFB. Del City is a town that was founded in the 1940’s as a result of Tinker AFB being established. If you would like to see the rest of the photos that I took of this event, just click on the photo and it will take you to Flickr, where this set is hosted.
UPDATE
I was mis-informed on this story. According to KFOR this morning, the mother has not been seen since Friday and the Ex-husband was arrested on Saturday in the victim’s car with her kids. They were searching an empty field near their home near SE 15th Street and Bryant Avenue.
Del City Development
If you have driven down I-40 at the Sooner Road exit you may have noticed the area on the South West of the intersection being cleared. There is a new commercial development being built there that will have several stores, restaurants, and at least one hotel. This is very good news from Del City as we have never been able to build there because of the save Tinker AFB crowd. As an employee at Tinker I can appreciate the desire to protect the largest single site employer in the state. This development however is no where close to being in the flight path without taking out other developments first. As you can see in the image below taken from the RCL website, the new development will be on the South side of I-40 and on the West side of Sooner Road.
This rendering came from RLC Development in Oklahoma City. To see larger images, just click on the link and visit their site. The city has been moving dirt for some time trying to re-route the creek that goes through the area so flooding will not be an issue. This development is way over due as far as I am concerned.
There have been concerns for a long time that this undeveloped piece of prime real estate could never be developed because it was too close to Tinker AFB’s runway. As you can see, this picture taken from Google Earth shows this is untrue. I drew a line straight off the end of the runway and you can see that it crosses right over the Tinker Industrial and Business Park long before it gets to the area being developed. This development is more than 8,000 feet off the end of the North West runway anyway. If you would like to see a bigger image of this map, click on it and it will take you to Flickr where you can click “All Sizes” and view the larger image.
Del City has long suffered from not being able to grow because they are surrounded by Oklahoma City, Tinker AFB, and Midwest City. The limited land they do have has been off limits for a number of years because everyone worried that putting things next to the base would make them vulnerable to being closed down. I believe these worries are completely unfounded as former General Burpee, now sits on the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce uses the unprecedented Base Realignment and closure (BRAC) closures to scare people. It seems that every since he has been associated with the OKC chamber, there is a new initiative or bond issue going before the voters to take more Oklahoma City area land and make it off limits all in the name of “Saving Tinker AFB” from impending doom. I am not saying he is maliciously trying to take over the world but sometimes I do think he overstates the dangers. The BRAC has never happened before and when it did, it was done to a point where there were too many cuts. Many of the bases that were closed, such as McClellan AFB, and Kelly AFB, actually moved their work load to Tinker. This workload did not simply go away. The closest thing that I can think of that compares to the save Tinker hysteria would be the never ending mantra “We have the lowest paid teachers in America” from those wanting more money for the University of Oklahoma. They advocate raising taxes over and over and over again to help the low paid teachers but somehow the money never makes it to them. I have come to the point that I will vote no on any initiative that is earmarked for education without being more specific because the money continues to go to OU.
Back to the Del City development…
I think this new development is critical to the survival of Del City because many of the homes there are old rent houses without much potential for tax dollars. The large F-5 tornado in 1999 though terrible at the time actually improved Del City in the long run. When all the rebuilding began, the city had some opportunities to clear out some old homes and businesses and build new ones. The Mid-Del area is no different than the rest of the Oklahoma City metro area in that growth has been exceding expectations. In Del City specifically this growth has been slow because they are surrounded with no place to build. The only places that are vacant are in flood prone areas near the Oklahoma River betwee N.E. 10th and N. E. 23rd Street. This development is right across the freeway from the new Wal-Mart store and the hotels across Sooner Road in Midwest City. Lets hope we hear of more of these developments in the area.
Update June 14, 2008
This week I have been in school half days at work. They have me taking a class on how to use a program that my office will never use. My job series uses this program but in my particular office, it will never be used. I am always open for training at work whether it is relevant or not because it always helps to make me more rounded and better qualified for future opportunities. I just want to thank God for helping me to stay healthy this year allowing me to build my leave (vacation) back up. In 2007, I had a bad year where I was sick all the time and missed a lot of work. I missed more days last year than I have missed during the last three years combined. This year I moved to a new position that I am thrilled to be in. Now I can actually look forward to going to work. My wife works down stairs and down the hall from me so I have been pretty blessed on that. With gas getting out of control, it is comforting to know that I can ride to work with my wife. I was browsing around on Friendfeed and stumbled on a streaming audio of an HF radio being streamed on Ustream. I have been listening to a net in Tennessee for a while and it is pretty interesting. You can find it here.
My son had some friends over last night until midnight and that was pretty fun and relaxing. Around 10:00 pm we had a line of thunderstorms that came through and the line progressed across the same place for a couple hours and I loved that. I am always open for a thunderstorm. I love to keep the rain coming as late in the year as possible because once the ground gets dried out, we start heating up above 100 degrees and I am not looking forward to that. Last year and this year we have managed to keep the ground wet enough to keep the temperatures relatively low. I was listening to our local NBC affiliate KFOR this morning and they just told of someone here in Del City entering a funeral home and stole the belongings of the mourners at a funeral. It is hard to comprehend someone lacking morals to that degree. If you will steal from someone mourning the loss of a loved one, then you are a sorry human being.
I know I am usually hard on the media and rightfully so because of their political slant in their reporting. Yesterday Tim Russert had a heart attack and died and I would like to pass my condolences to his family. He seemed to be willing to listen to both sides of the conversation when others would not. I heard he collapsed while at work at NBC. I wish his family the best and feel for their loss.
I have a lot of school work this weekend to catch up on as the unit ends tomorrow. I normally do not wait this late to finish up my work but last weekend we had some welcome family and we had a very good time. My wife’s sister and her daughter came to see us after their home was hit with a tornado and we really enjoyed their stay. I hope they are able to get the damage repaired without too much trouble.
This year we managed to get a lot of growth cleared out of the fence line.
As you can see from this picture, you cannot see through the fence and see the houses behind the house. In this picture you can see how one of our neighbor’s tree fell across the fence taking the power lines down. This was a couple years ago. We have lost power so many times because of all this growth out of control. Little by little, we have cleaned out this brush to where there is none left. After the ice storm last December we decided that it all needs to go because it has been growing into the power lines and you could not work on anything. I am pleased to say today there is no vegetation left along the fence line all the way around the property. Hopefully we can keep our electricity the next storm that passes over us. Well I have covered just about everything I can think of so I better get this posted. Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: Friendfeed, ham radio, trees, brush, clearing, Tim Russert, storm, Del City, Ustream
We Have a New Noisy Neighbor
In recent days we have begun to hear a steady engine running 24 hours a day. Occasionally we hear some banging and scraping sounds. I can hear this noise in my own bedroom at night so it is a good thing that I sleep with a fan for noise. I am not opposed to drilling for oil in fact it is part of our local economy. I do wish that these oil wells would equate to some reasonable prices though. This picture was taken from the end of my street here in Del City, Oklahoma. If you are unfamiliar with Del City, it is actually part of the Oklahoma City metro area on the Southeast side. This is only 1 and a half miles West of Tinker Air Force Base (AFB). Recently signs had appeared over there signifying new businesses coming and I noticed a bull dozer moving dirt. Then I noticed a concrete slab going in that eventually had large green tanks on them. I drove over there to see what was going on and was met with a security guard telling me that it was private property and that I would have to leave.
Then one day I came home from work and saw this huge 100+ foot tall oil drilling derrick. If you look behind, you can see the power poles only come up to the bottom of the platform and those power lines are in the Hartsdel neighborhood. This is one of three new oil wells that have sprung up in our neighborhood over the last year. I guess oil is still King in Oklahoma. I will admit though that it creates a different atmosphere in our neighborhood now with that engine running all the time. The last oil well that he had drilled stayed there for a couple years.
Del City is sort of a military town of about 25,000 that was constructed in the 1940’s and 1950’s to support Tinker (AFB). It has become run down at places over the years and it is my hope that some of these oil wells may bring some money to the city to help with some repairs. In 1999 there was an F-5 tornado that came through Del City and the Eastern metro destroying thousands of homes. In a sense, this tornado has actually created growth in this area with all sorts of new development. Del City is completely surrounded by Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, and MIdwest City leaving no room for growth. With the destruction of the tornado, a lot of the older businesses were destroyed and new businesses and hotels have replaced them. I am not at all sure if our city will receive a dime from these oil wells but we can only hope. This oil well will not likely result is a decrease of oil prices by even a penny but hopefully the added noise will help in other areas possibly some tax dollars to the city.
What is That Buzzing Noise?
This is Del City, Oklahoma where I grew up. This is a suburb of Oklahoma City near Tinker AFB. Ever since I was young, I have been amazed at the number of power line poles in such a small area. This view is looking North up Sunnylane Road past SE 15th Street. In the distance you can see the I-40 (Freedom Freeway) bridge. Most of these power poles are more than 100 feet tall and can certainly interrupt amateur radio communications. Turn your AM radio on listening to the OU football game and all you will hear is a loud buzzing noise while driving down this street.
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