Saturday, September 25, 2010

Do her wrong

Glub Glarhgla.

That's "G'Day" in underwater speak for the uneducated.

One is getting good at speaking that, just at the moment, as it has been raining for over a week now. We had a brief respite yesterday, enough to spend the day stuck on a roof with a South African tied to a bucket truck anyhow. It was an interesting day, shall we say. I would love to have video cameras for eyes, as there are certainly some entertaining aspects of this job which are just too priceless to even attempt to put into words. I shan't even attempt it as I know I would never be able to give them suitable justice.

Work has picked up a lot this week. We are stretched to find the man power within the company to get all the work completed, so things are fairly flat out. I have two weeks at the mine coming up for the next fortnight, so that should be an interesting couple of weeks too. The plan is two of us are going out to check the GPS on all the lighting plants. Problem being, the GPS is currently not working, so we have no idea where the ruddy things are. The mine lease is a lot of land, so I suspect that a giant game of hide and seek is about to unfold. On the bright side, having someone else to drive will be advantageous as it should allow me to get some good video footage.

I've been on call the week, usually the only callouts (if any) are to vodafone cell sites. Not so this week, a couple of direct customer callouts. Of course the first thing they ask is "how much is it gunna cost me?" Which of course I had no idea, I don't do the billing. So I tell them that it's minimum charge of 4 hours at overtime rates, and apart from that I can't be much more help.
First callout was a good one, to a pub, and given the friendliness of the stunning waitress that I was dealing with, I was quite happy to get out of bed for her. (I would have been even more happy to get IN to bed for her now I think about it)...
And the second callout was to a boat to fix up a satellite phone, so that wasn't quite as interesting.

I had an interesting job up at a cell tower about 2 hours drive away, it's up a 8 KM 4WD track, which was good fun after the week of rain. There were some serious ruts on a steep bit near the top, but low 1st and a strategic approach angle allowed me to traverse them without too much hassle. The ruts were about 1 foot across and easily 2 feet deep. Just goes to show how a little bit of previous experience can be handy, if I had tried to drive straight over I would have been instantly struck, likewise if I had tried to drive down the rut sideways I would have just slid into it. The poor old apprentice sitting next to me didn't have much faith that we would make it up there though. The last bit was seriously overgrown, with grass taller than the truck. Couldn't see a helluva lot, but given the "beware of snakes" sign, I was buggered if I was going to get out and walk it first.

I also had an interesting job down at a place called Agnes Waters, we had to go and perform a routine check on a country radio station transmitter. The trip down was different, as I was going with an old guy from work who drives the only remaining range rover in the fleet, so it was good getting to ride down in a real vehicle.
Well, when we got on site, we discovered that the power supply for the transmitter had carked it and of course this meant that the station was off air. Just goes to show how many people in Agnes actually listen to country radio, then. Usually when a radio station goes off air it's a major panic to fix it, these guys didn't even know it was down. After a bit of bodging repair work we managed to get it on air, but not before we managed to blow the protection fuse. Which of course we didn't have a spare for. So I ended up soldering a single strand of power cable across the blown glass fuse and deciding that it looked pretty close to a 1 amp fuse. Worked OK however, so eventually I'll get around to replacing it with the genuine article.

Apart from that, I can't think of any one major event worth writing down... the week has been that busy I can't even remember what else I got up to. I remember something about trying to use a power cable to pull another cable up a wall, and getting them both stuck half way so I couldn't go up or down. That wasn't much fun. Typical short cut really, ended up adding 1/2 hour on the job where as it was supposed to save about that time.

I really ought to write all of this at once instead of ducking away to do other things in the middle, I imagine the whole thing would have much better continuity if I remembered what I had just written. Never mind, we get there in the end.

I've been too busy to take any interesting photos this week, shock horror. I'll try and make up for it next week.

TTFN

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Lady Madonna

G'day.

Yet another week has disappeared without a trace, time is certainly flying by. Before we know it I imagine it shall be next year.

Again a busy week, fairly full on. Spent monday messing around with concrete truck repeaters, installing new bits to it and testing it live to see if it fixed the problems we had. Which it has appeared to do, so that is good. Tuesday I spent a fair bit of time wrestling with an induction for Optus, to allow me onto optus sites. Their stupid online site kept crashing and I had to do each of the 4 tests about 3 times each before it actually worked. Good old inductions... will be interesting to see how long before NZ is as bad.

Wednesday was spent preparing and programming a wireless internet system, and general bench work, and then Thursday was spent installing the pre prepared wireless internet system. And a small afterhours job, just as we were packing up to leave for the day the supervisor came out and asked if we wanted to do some overtime, as we needed to get a vehicle to Biloela (about 160 KM away) by tomorrow. So we ended up taking two vehicles out to Bilo then coming back again, so that was thursday evening buggered.

Friday most of the day was spent trying to get equipment ready for a big three day microwave install job, half the parts still haven't arrived though so I'm not sure how well that is going to go for us. I don't think there is any techs left in the workshop next week, we are pretty flat out and all tied up with fairly good sized jobs. Apart from Ryan, the slacker, who has jumped back to NZ for most of the week. Alright for some.

Ended up getting up at 5:00 on saturday morning and driving to Moura for a mine golf tournament, Nixon's sponsor it and haven't entered a team for a few years. Was a brilliant idea, apart from the fact none of us had played golf before. We were playing Ambrose rules, so you basically have four people take a crack then you all play from the best of the four ball locations. Which was mighty lucky, as it increased our odds somewhat. Was quite a unique experience, dodging the kangaroos that were bouncing all over the course. I think I personally lost around 20 balls over the 18 holes, and my team mates were not much better off. Water hazards are indeed a hazard, although I had one excellent shot that managed to skim the water hazard, bouncing off the water three times then up onto the bank on the other side. That was a very lucky shot. Some practice at the driving range before we went would have probably been beneficial also...

We ended up winning a the NAGA prize, for the highest score. By about 20 points. But we were definitely improving by the last few holes. NAGA is an Australian term for "Not A Golfers Arsehole" meaning basically that you are no good at golf. I figure they got that bit right. I might have to come back and get some tips from the golfers in the family so I can have a crack at winning top prize next year.

I did score some free hats and stubbie coolers however, so all was not lost. The prize we won was some jams in a display case and a margarita kit. So I might have to find someone suitable to offload that onto, I don't think I'll get through the amount of jam that is there, and I don't drink, so no point in the margaritas.

The other downside to the golf day was the blasted mozzies. They breed in the water hazards and these were big suckers. You kind of get enveloped in a cloud of them and they just go for ya, they will even bite you through your clothing. I am feeling the effects today... Mongrel things. When you squash them the explode and about a litre of what you hope is your blood goes everywhere. These are not small every day mozzies, these are big fat slow flying, and about the size of a Boeing 747 with needles about the size of the skytower. Apparently if you tense up and rush blood into them while they are feeding it chokes them, a bit like someone squeezing your paper McDonald's cup whilst you are drinking through a straw I guess. I lost count of the number I killed, they stick to your back in big swarms, we kept on having to slap each other on the back to stop them sucking blood through your t shirt. You could get 10-15 in one hit if you were lucky. The joys of this country...

Well I have managed to get the lawns mowed today, now I just need to track down a whipper snipper to do the edges, and round the blasted palm trees on the front lawn. Whoever planted those is an idiot, they are a pain in the neck to mow around. Especially on a slope filled with rocks.

Better go and do something productive I suppose, here's a photo of the kangaroos on the golf course.

TTFN





Sunday, September 12, 2010

Don't look back in anger

G'day.

As the aussies would say... "not happy Jan!" After all my effort spent on the mighty Range rover... turns out the block's cracked. Bit of a major, then. Might be time to cut my losses... either that or do an engine transplant from the old discovery... might not be worth the hassle. We shall see. Will be interesting telling the manager, after being pretty confident I could get it running. Well, I did get it running... just happens that the stuck thermostat and the overheating wasn't part of the original equation. Not sure how easily they are going to be able to shift it now either... guess if we sell it as is where is with the discovery too someone will get a bargin.

Anyhow, fairly interesting week out at the mine, typical mine scenario, the rules kept changing. Turns out the dragline shutdown is weeks behind schedule, so I won't be out there next week as previously thought.

I went out first thing monday to be onsite by 6:30 to do an induction for the dragline area, and boy was it wet. Raining cats, dogs, and small elephants. I got to the usual mine road, and it was cut off and closed due to flooding. So I took the alternative route, and the water was deep there too, but crossable with the 4WD. Brendan was going to meet me out there in his commodore, so I rang him up and met him in the town just before the water. He asked why, and I told him he would soon find out. So he jumped in my truck and we forded the river across the road, and finally made it to the camp. We carried on towards the mine, just to be told that the mine was closed as there was yet more water across the road and they couldn't get mines rescue personal on site. So, that was pretty much monday buggered, Brendan ended up going back to Rocky, the other tech went back to Gladstone, and I ended up staying at the camp incase there were any major repeater outages when the mine opened again.

Tuesday the rain had eased off a little, and there was access to the mine via a third route, which involved going down the main haul road as the usual access was still cut off. (And remained so until Friday). I went and completed the induction which was going to be on Monday, and then carried on doing the usual mine stuff that I was sent out to do. The other two guys carried on doing the dragline stuff, and found out that the place we were going to run all the cables to had been deleted off the new dragline plan. So, they are going to have to build us a new room to put the camera stuff in before we can run any cabling. That pretty much was the end of the 2 week job at that point, so the other two guys went back to town.

I had a few jobs to look at on Tuesday, but nothing too serious. Wednesday was pretty busy, installed a new radio to a dozer, looked at a few faults, had plenty of work to keep me out of trouble.

Thursday was the opposite, pretty much dead, not much to look at at all. I did some site checks on a repeater site, just about got stuck twice because it was so wet. Friday was looking good, started with an hour long safety briefing on faults with EWPs and what to do if you catch measles. Not too many jobs on, I was hoping for an early escape back to Gladstone... when the call from dispatch comes through, "Help, channel one is cutting in and out, needs fixed". This is rather an urgent problem, as channel one is their main operations and haul road channel, if that isn't working they pretty much can't run the mine. So given the bad weather, I figured it could be a battery problem. I collared a passing apprentice and told him he had an important job to do for king and country and got him to give me a hand to put the generator on the back of my ute.

They seemed to be having more problems at the northern end of the site, so we drove up there to the northern most repeater and almost got stuck several times. We eventually managed to get to the repeater, and after scaring off the local wallaby population we checked the battery condition. All was OK, and I couldn't fault the channel one. Thinking I may have got it wrong, we left and went to the next repeater in the chain. We finally managed to get our way over the rills and onto the access track, slowly crawling our way up the seriously rutted hill, trying not to fall down crevasses, and just as we were almost at the top, I see a haul truck appear over the horizon. Which was unusual, as they don't generally drive haul trucks to repeaters. Once we finally made it to the very top I discovered that in the few weeks that I had been away they had formed a new road right up to and past the repeater for dumping more mining spoil, hence the truck.

We checked the batteries here also, all OK. Just as I was lowering the lid to the battery compartment, I was hit with the sudden realisation that I had got sidetracked and forgotten to lower the cover on the battery box at the first repeater we had been to. So, back down the hill, this time taking the easy haul track, and drove back to the first repeater to fix the battery box lid. That was all pretty straight forward, but I still hadn't found a problem. Time was getting on, and I was keen on getting out of there, so I decided to check the last main repeater and leave the other 3 for someone else. So I drove to the last major repeater, just as the rain set in again. Checked the batteries, all OK, and checked the channel, all OK, and dispatch said it was OK, so I left it as it was and headed back to the workshop.

The rain was setting in well by now, so I went and washed down the truck and got off site. The trip home was very wet, in places the water was falling so heavy even with the wipers on full you couldn't see the front of your own bonnet. Finally made it home and called it a day.

Saturday we went to Rocky and I bought some ARB recovery gear for what now turns out to be a non usable range rover, however, always handy to have in case one gets stuck. Bought some more bits for the rather neglected train layout too, hopefully will get a chance to do some more on that soon.

Right, better go and get some dinner cooking, here's some pics from the week.

TTFN










Saturday, September 4, 2010

Enter Sandman

G'day.

Well, another week down. I've said it before and I'll say it again... time flies when you are having fun. And fun is indeed what I am having.

If nothing succeeds like a toothless parrot, you better call me polly and hand me my dentures, as it appears I have succeeded in getting this Rangerover running :)

It has been an interesting quest so far, I have learnt a fair bit about the Lucas "hotwire" EFI systems that's for sure. Turns out my problem was with the distributor amplifier module. I went to grab a spare one off the parts discovery, just to "discover" that it was a different type. I thought it out for a while and worked out that I could modify the rangerover system to accept the discovery dizzy, so I spent a day doing exactly that. Long story short, I finally got it all wired up and installed, turned the key, and... nothing. It wound over fine, but no cigar. Feeling somewhat intrigued by this response, I had a gander under the bonnet, and discovered that in my wisdom has managed to leave the coil disconnected from the distributor. Feeling like an idiot and also feeling pleased that it was a logical easy fix, I made the necessary connections and wound her over again... bingo, she fired first pop.

And, fingers crossed, has been running ever since.

I did and oil change today, and discovered that the rocker cover seals are somewhat lacking... the oil was pouring out the seam almost as quick as I could pour it in, so that's going to be the next mission. Not as easy to get to as a series 2a either...

Work has been crazy busy, I am running around like a headless chicken trying to stay on top of everything. No matter, it's interesting work. Was told I have to be at an induction for the dragline rebuild site at 6:30 on monday morning... it's a 2 and a half hour drive from here, so I'm not looking forward to monday morning getting up stupidly early.

Life in general is certainly busier than it was, a case in point, I started constructing this update about 3 hours ago and have only got this far.

I did find an interesting website in my travels though... "iamageek.com

Gave me a laugh anyhow.

I can't really remember much about what I got up to this week, I do remember it involved a lot of concrete trucks though. And doing a site survey at Moura, basically spent the day driving around proving theories, which was good. The gasfields there are quite interesting, makes a change from the mine side of things. They basically have huge fields with a whole heap of wells dotted around, with pumps going on them getting the seamgas to the compressor station where it is compressed (funnily enough) and sent down the high pressure pipes.

I think I have some photos of a couple of them, I'll attach them if I remember. I got some interesting video footage anyhow.

Still haven't had time to do much on the train layout, but I am intending to give it a nudge tomorrow. I have to get some stuff ready for the mine but apart from that I should be free to model till my hearts content.

Righto I better go and get some dinner, I may get more time to write more in the evening while at the mine.

TTFN