One thing I forgot to mention was that I cut my knee on the angle iron for the dish. I went to the hospital and paid $500 for 6 stitches and my medicine. Then I went back and finished putting together the dish.

Yow!

at the hospital

Here’s some pictures of that 12 foot dish I’ve been working on. When I started, I had a box with eight petals, several bags of nuts and bolts, and a few stacks of angle iron. It’s all together now, waiting to go on the pole. The pole is waiting on the hole, and the concrete man.
Happy Days asked why such a big dish… There could be several reasons. We could be on the edge of the satellite footprint. Imagine being in space over the same spot equator, shining a light on the the same spot at North America. The lit part is called the footprint. The signal from the satellite is kind of like the light from your flashlight. Down here in the Caribbean, we’re on the edge of the footprint, so a bigger dish helps us get more signal.
Another reason could be that we may receive large amounts of data. Where you are receiving and using only one audio and video channel at a time, the broadcaster may receive numerous CD quality digital audio and video streams simultaneously, as well as data feeds.
Also, I have installed little 30 inch TV satellite dishes, and the strongest signal I could get was about 40% on my receiver signal strength meter. If it rained or got cloudy, you could see the TV picture get worse, or drop out completely. With this dish, I expect to receive 100% signal strength and a signal suitable for Radio Broadcast in any weather conditions.

Although, I must admit, I think we could do just fine with a 10 foot or even an 8 foot dish. But the receiver vendor insisted on a 12 foot and I was given a 12 footer to install.

“The dish is now strong enough to support the weight of the assembler”

The support struts.

Me on top of a dish that looks small in this picture.

Looking up.

The weekend is over, It was cold and windy, I went diving Sunday and it was cold out of the water, not so bad in.

I have not much to say today, so I will say thousands of words with a few pictures.

A spotted lobster in a swim-thru from yesterdays dive.

A brick wall inside a tree. Click to enlarge, the tree grew over the wall. The rest of the wall was torn recently down and the land cleared so they could build a new shopping mall. I took this pic when I was sitting at a red light.

My feet at the grocery store, I took this pic when I was sitting at a red light. Not really, it was a long line… same thing.

Yesterday The Wife and I were invited by our Old New Friends, John and Diane, to the Cayman Cookout. It was a lot of fun with lots of food and drink on the beach by famous chefs from around the world. Here’s a pic I took of Anthony Bourdain with my Gloriously Famous Wife, I’ve never heard of Anthony Bourdain.. Sorry Anthony!

Thanks again to John and Diane for generously inviting us to such a wonderful event! It was great to see them. I hope they get the chance to come over to our house this trip.

Yesterday I started assembling the 12 foot (that’s big!) Satellite dish. The instructions that were in the box were kinda lame. They said, basically, assemble the reflector assembly as shown in figure 2.1. Assemble the mounting assembly as shown it figure 2.1. Figure 2.1 was a picture of the dish.
I put it together, because this aint my first rodeo, but there were leftover parts, not in figure 2.1. I knew where they went, but since they weren’t in figure 2.1, I left them out, knowing as Arnold said in Terminator, Ahlll Be Bock!
So this morning I downloaded and printed the “Other Instructions”. They show all the steps to assembly and I will finish up the dish today.
Except the concrete pad and the pole for the dish aren’t there yet. So I’ll leave the dish there laying on the ground, all pretty.

Also Happy Friday the 13th! You know the guy in the pic below is happy today!
Friday the 13ths are usually lucky days for me!

Today I’m assembling the satellite dish, as much as I can. I went out to the transmitter site yesterday and was quite busy for a few hours, and got a lot done.

Although the days are supposed to be getting longer, it still seems darker each morning when I wake up. I’m trying to figure out the astronomical reason it seems like that to me.

I heard the weather yesterday, and today it’s supposed to rain. I DO NOT want it to rain today or this weekend.

I got new wheels for my lawnmower. I will put them on before I mow again, which must be soon. I have problems with all my plastic wheels, but notice the one (newish) metal one I have on there is the only good wheel I have. So I got three new metal ones. And new axles.

I have found the next phone I want. The Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s not out yet. It is a giant phone and/or a tiny tablet. Read the article by clicking the purple text above.

I woke up this morning in a pretty good mood. Jumped in the pool, made the coffee, got dressed and walked the dogs.

I had Ditto and Sheba on their leashes, and this little boy comes out of his house with his little dog. I made Ditto sit next to me, (because Ditto is a true killing machine and NOT to be trusted) . Sheba loves everyone, and she wanted to check out the tiny dog. I had Sheba laying on the road. She was at the end of the leash, pulling as much as she could laying down, trying to get closer to the little dog, who was slowly advancing toward Sheba.

The teeny dog looked like this

This is the same mean old lady who told my Wife our cats were getting big enough to eat.

I wasn’t going to post anything today, but I figured it would be easy to post a few pics from yesterdays dives. Especially since I had one that I think turned out cool.

This is the bow of the Kittiwake, it is from the same pic as the last pic in this post. I kind of bastardized the adjustments…

This is red rope sponge with (I think) the orange is elephant ear. I really like this pic, although as UW photos go, it’s worthless.

This is a moray eel.

above is a juvenile spotted drum. Click pic to get a better view!!!

If you click this picture to enlarge it, you can see a really large grouper hiding in the little ‘cave’

The stern of the Kittiwake. The whole wreck is much closer to the reef and I think it is in much better shape here than where it was before.

This is the bow of the Kittiwake. The first pic of this post came from this one