If you’ve been following any of my previous posts you are probably aware of my last trip to Coronation which was, shall we say, less then a total success. As a quick recap, I found myself left with a satellite tuner server that was inaccessible and a backup Internet connection that reset itself every 3 hours. The situation was less then ideal, and I knew that if I left the status quo it would bother me endlessly until my next trip. So…. I looked at my travel budget for the year and determined I had just enough leftover to squeeze Continue Reading
Satellite Communications
Delays, Overshoots and Misfortune – Another trip to Coronation
I should have known the trip would have problems when right from the start a foggy day delayed our flight, but when travel is booked and boxes are shipped, what can you do but press forward and try to make the best out of a rough situation. It was a Tuesday morning and I found myself sitting in the lounge at Victoria’s airport with two of my good friends tracking what should have been our plane as it did loops over Hope, BC. It was a foggy morning in Victoria and our plane wasn’t able to land until the fog Continue Reading
A Trip to Coronation
As I sit on a plane to Vancouver, over 24 hours after my original scheduled departure, with at least four more hours of buses and ferries ahead of me, I find myself contemplating the past 6 days of ridiculousness and how I managed to get here. But, before we get to the day of travel hell, let’s start at the beginning – with a small town of just under 900 people named Coronation. I found myself the owner of a small, 2800 sq ft plot of land in Eastern Alberta. My plan for the property was to set it up Continue Reading
Guns, Grub and a Satellite Ground Station – My trip to Alberta
I am sitting in a restaurant surrounded by co-workers. A server comes comes by with a skewer of beef and looks at me; As I ponder whether I trying to fit more delicious meat into my already full stomach was a good idea, one of my co-workers nodes ‘yup’ and another slice is loaded onto my plate. This was my first evening of a week in Calgary. Things had been a bit challenging of late at work. The company was growing from a small operation to a medium-sized business and was experiencing all the associated growing pains that go along Continue Reading
Two dishes, one scrap yard and no pole
It all started with a Reddit post. A buddy of mine sent me a message linking to a thread where someone was looking for a 1+ meter satellite dish to build what sounded like a laser cannon. While I’m not into death rays, I do enjoy vacuuming up satellite signals, and I was in the market for a new dish to replace my aging mesh dish which had seen better days. And so it was that on a Tuesday afternoon I found myself exchanging messages with two C-Band dish owners eager to part ways with their possession. I know from Continue Reading