Re: Angel WP3R Update

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

I am sorry that I have not been able to get on for the schedules with Angel at 6PM yesterday and today
and thank all who were able to get on.  Special thanks to Chip Cohen, W1YW, and Tom Roscoe, K8CX, for
taking notes and putting out summaries.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it tomorrow night either.

I should be OK for Thursday night.  I just have had other events this week at 6PM.

Here is a summary from Tom, K8CX, to add to what Chip wrote below:

Hi Jim,
I see Chip also was monitoring and sent out a report to the group. I will fill in the blanks as I did yesterday.
Angel is going to FedEx in San Juan tmw.
The W2LNX spam has arrived.
Tina Nunnaly in NM sent 40 units of dry food and paper goods. He wasn't sure who that is.
Kirmuss in CO sent 62 units of non perishable items, batteries, and flashlights.
The chargers for the solar panels will be picked up tmw.
The substation down the road in Green is energized and they are inspecting power lines coming close to Angel's area.
There are no longer lines for gas.
There are still large lines at the ATM.
There is a C band provider down the street that is getting back on line. This may give Angel internet and phone access.
Angel wanted you to contact Mike Jacobs and find the status of the satellite kit he was suppose to send.
Thats it for today.
Tom K8CX

Thanks Tom and Chip.

Jim  WA3FET
Penn State

On 10/10/2017 6:24 PM, Nathan Cohen wrote:

Angel had a brief report--

1) ALL packages received except for the solar chargers;

2) Provisions being distributed;

3) Electricity, water, cell still down--but electricity and internet might be up soon--days.

I passed along some email questions earlier on  need for more GENERATORS and other needs, but we can wait tomorrow for that. 

Tom,K8CX may be able to add here:-)

Best to all!  

Chip W1YW

-- 
James K. Breakall
Professor, Electrical Engineering

225 Electrical Engineering East
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802

Tel: 814-865-2228
Fax: 814-863-8457
Cell: 814-883-6521

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

We were able to make contact with Angel today, Thursday, Oct 12 on
14.260 Mhz.  I had talked to Mike Jacobs
today and was able to relay info to Angel that Mike is working with John
Kelly SRI to get a contract for service
with Hughes and to send two satellite terminals down to Arecibo so they
can have telephone and internet service there.

Angel said that SRI is going to supply quite a few generators to the
staff there and that is good to hear.  He said that everyone
should hold off for sending any more generators there for now.  He also
said to hold off for anything else for now.  He will ask
at the daily meeting tomorrow if there are any items that are needed
right now.

I mentioned about the X (Google X) project Loon and he did not know
anything about that.  He is going to bring it up
at the daily meeting at the Observatory and also check FCC rules there
if there are any problems.

If you do send anything more to Angel, please make sure to put Arecibo
Observatory right under his name.

For mailing using the US Post Office (delivery is happening now), then
use the following address:

Angel M. Vazquez Jr
Arecibo Observatory
HC3 Box 53995
Road 625 Final
Arecibo, PR 00612

He said that there is now electricity to Route 129 about 1 mile from his
house to various businesses there.  He talked to the
electrical workers and they said it might be 3 to 4 weeks before it gets
back to his road.  It might take longer to get it to
the Observatory too he said.  He said they are still keeping the
Observatory in its minimum state to get by and keep
things in a non-shutdown state but still not moving the telescope or any
other things taking a lot of power.

He said that FEMA landed a helicopter to the helicopter pad at the
Observatory today to bring in some supplies.

I think that is about it for now and I will not be able to be on
tomorrow Friday myself.  I hope Tom and others can make  it.

Thanks and glad to report the latest.

Jim  WA3FET
Penn State

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

Yesterday (Saturday - Oct 14), we made contact with Angel at around
6:30PM and he had good news.  He now is on
the grid and has electricity as of yesterday.  We do not know how much
further it goes past his home and towards the
Observatory, but this is really good news indeed.

With that in mind, we will check and see if he still needs a generator
that he requested.

We will find out if he needs anything else today and also on the
stability of the electricity at his house since yesterday.

Yesterday we were joined by Tom, K8CX, and Howard, VE2AED, and others.

I plan on getting on today at 1800 (6 PM EDT) on 14.260 MHz plus or minus.

Thanks,  Jim  WA3FET

[Dana Whitlow]

Hi Jim,

Should we begin sending long extension cords now?   Do you suppose

Angel's place is wired for ~3000 A service?

In any event I bet it's a terrific relief to Angel and Eva.

Have you received the check I sent for Pedro?

I listened for about 20 min yesterday, then gave it up as a lost

cause for the day.  Propagation conditions were really bad from

my perspective.

Dana

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

Yesterday, Monday, October 16th, we had a good Ham Radio contact with
Angel on 14.255 MHz since 14.260 MHz was busy.

Angel wanted me to correct that the electricity was on Saturday but only
for 2 hours.  He said people were celebrating
in the streets when the electricity came on but it was short-lived and
he found out that it was just the electricity company
testing.  It still could be weeks and months before he gets electricity
and even longer for people up near the Arecibo Observatory.

He wanted me to stress that the most important items that are needed
still are generators.  Chip Cohen has said that a good unit
to consider is the Honda EU1000i since it is lightweight and small and
easy for shipping there.

http://powerequipment.honda.com/generators/models/eu1000i

It is fine for running a refrigerator  and lights which are the most
important things.

I am sending this info out so that maybe some out there might want to
try to get generators and send down to the Arecibo Observatory.

He said that they got a package via Fed Ex to the Arecibo office and
that is the best way to get it there.  It looks like the US Postal Service
is working too and delivering mail to the Observatory.

The address to use is:

Angel M. Vazquez Jr, WP3R
Arecibo Observatory
Road 625 Final
Arecibo, Puerto Rico 00612

Tel: 787-878-2612 Ext 304

He said that he has seen the electrical company doing testing with
tones, etc. but there have been no construction workers
trying to replace or repair the lines yet.  It is going to be a long time.

For some of you who have seen this, there was a huge communications
tower that looked like a copy of the Eiffel Tower on one of the
mountaintops south of the Observatory named Roncador.  It was very
strong construction but came down in the hurricane.  This is
really hard to believe but that just shows how strong this storm was. 
Hearing that this came down and the Observatory did not
have catastrophic damage similar is really good news.

That is the latest from Arecibo.

[Dana Whitlow]

I'd say that the platform's survival given that huge dome on it, while the

Roncador tower (just 8 miles south) came down, is a fine testament

to the designers and builders of the Arecibo telescope.

Dana

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

I was on last night, Wednesday, Oct. 18th, with Angel, WP3R, and Angel,
K8CX, and have some news from that.
I could not be on today, Thursday, Oct. 19th, but Tom, K8CX, was on today.

Here is a summary of news.

A package from Arlington, VA, got there damaged with items broken inside
(mainly food items) but the first aid kits were OK.
He is going to get a tracking number so we can find who sent this.

He said that tarps are no longer needed.

They are trying to get a duplexer that was given to them by another Ham
working for the repeater that came from Yasme.
If that doesn't work, then they have another possible unit that will
work too.  If they get this working, then it can provide
communications for the local staff workers around the Observatory. If
none of this works, then we are trying to see
what we can do from here to get one to him.

Don Campbell asked if Angel could find an organization that donations
could be made to help the general Arecibo area and
Angel is checking on this.

Angel wanted me to let everyone know that there is a Gofundme website
where donations can be made for staff at
the Arecibo Observatory and it has almost $37,000 total up to now. Here
is the website for making donations:

https://www.gofundme.com/AreciboStaffAid-USRA

He said representatives from the electric company were at the
Observatory today and the damage to the electric lines, poles, etc.
is much worse than they had thought after a more detailed inspection. 
This is bad news for the Observatory since these lines
provide the electricity to the Observatory.  It could take a very long
time before the Observatory gets electricity, maybe months
now.  One of the problems is the power company has no poles and can't
get any.  Some of the poles down are concrete and some
are wood.  They may have to take down poles from construction projects
elsewhere on the island that are not finished and use
them to fix the lines.

They are also talking to some wireless internet providers to see if they
can get wireless at the Observatory to bring back communications.

That is about it for now and we will try to keep providing news as we
get it.

If you want to see Angel's Ham Radio antenna and look around the
Observatory, you can go to the following NOAA website
that has satellite photos of the island after Maria.  You can move the
cursor around and see the latitude and longitude
at the bottom left.  To see Angel's antenna, got to the following
coordinates:  18.40870, -66.76975  If you look carefully,
you will see how his antenna is bent but amazingly stayed up and was not
destroyed.

https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/maria/index.html#7/18.056/-64.824

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

Here is the latest from Angel.

Denny's opened and he went there for breakfast and had to wait about 3
hours to get in
but when he got a seat he ordered a double cheeseburger and fries and
said it was one of the
best meals he ever could remember !!!

He said that he had electricity off and on this week (mainly off) as the
electric company is still
working and doing testing of the lines.  He said the electric company is
trying to put
higher priority to get power to the Observatory.

Angel has been distributing water and food to the people living around
the Observatory and that is
good.

Mike Jacobs said they now have a VSAT terminal and they are able to do
email and phones from
the control room.  More info to come on this.

The Arecibo Observatory GoFund is up to about $39,000 now and that will
be great for it to help
all of the Arecibo Observatory staff in need.

Angel got another generator from the Yasme foundation and that is great
news too.

Lines are getting smaller at gas stations and more food is showing up at
stores but the lines
are still incredible especially at ATM machines since cash is still the
only way to pay for things.

Thanks and we will keep updating you all as we get more information.

Angel wanted me to pass on his very big thanks to all.

[Dana Whitlow]

Hi Jim et al,

I got an email from Prof Ierkic at UPRM a day or two ago, and he says that the extreme west

end of the island generally got off light.  He's got power, water, telephone, and internet.  So there's

just about all one could ever desire just a two-hour drive from the observatory.  Except maybe

for pizza and hamburgers- he didn't mention those and I forgot to ask.  But just knowing that

life still exists just 30 or so miles away might be a bit of a morale booster to folks on the AO staff.

You might want to mention to Angel that there are better hamburgers to be had than at Denny's,

like at Mugs (between Ponderosa and T-Mobile).  In fact, I never went to Denny's the whole

10 years I lived there.

I sure hope that VSAT terminal gains us some useful additional comm with the observatory.

Dana

[Jim Breakall]

Hello All,

Dana Whitlow, K8YUM, has been in contact with Phil Perillat who is one
of the key
technical personnel at Arecibo.  I am summarizing some of the comments
that Phil
made about the Observatory to Dana.

The electric power is getting closer to the Observatory within maybe
about as close as 3 miles.

The diesel generator fuel usage has dropped a little to now around 750
gallons per day at the AO.
I am sure the AO gets some discount but if it is the average price of
$2.74 per gallon, that is
$14,385 per week.

Phil said the number of holes in the dish is about twice what we have
heard before.  He described
it "as a bunch of holes with panels around them."

"The tie-down system is not working- there are still a couple of feet of
water under
the dish and apparently some necessary comm cables for the system are
shorted
out or something.  He tried some S-band measurements which show that
something
is not quite right (wider than normal beamwidth and half a minute or so
of pointing error),
but he suspects that this may be due to the absence of tie-downs needed
to put the
optics in focus, as well as due to the fact that the platform is thrown
out of balance
by the missing weight of the line feed."

The big Diesel pump under the dish got flooded out and will need major
cleaning
up.   They hope it did not suffer hydro-lock damage.  Phil indicated
that the water got
within a couple of feet of the AO9 survey marker platform at the vertex
of the dish.
They had some 39 inches of total rain during the storm.  A very big
issue is being
concerned about the state of the heliax lines to the HF dipoles. It is
clear that the
water got over the bottoms of the baluns, so there is a big risk of
water having gotten
into the horizontal sections of the feedlines through various
mechanisms.  This is a very serious
problem with mold and dirt, etc. from water in those locations and is
not going to be easy
to eliminate.

In addition to the line feed, about the last 30% of the catwalk lost a bunch
of pieces which also went down through the dish.

The wind log is attached with this email and it covers the day of the
hurricane,
and the plots of wind speed, direction, etc, tell the conditions as the
eye passed over the AO.

Thanks to Dana Whitlow for obtaining this information and I hope this
brings everyone up a little
more on the latest status of the AO.

Jim Breakall

[Gerry Creager - NOAA Affiliate]

I'm professionally interested in what instrumentation was used to get the meteorology data. I'd like to share this with colleagues at NHC and NWS WFO/San Juan, if that's OK.

gerry

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“Big whorls have little whorls,

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And so on to viscosity.” 

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[Jim Breakall]

Wow Angel,

That is an amazing photo.  I sent out the photo of your Skyhawk antenna from NOAA imagery and it is sure interesting to see it
up close.  The other photos are also amazing too and there is more of the line feed there than I thought.

Great to see the flags that we got and sent down too. 

That is also great that you have internet there.

I know that there is still a long way to go but this is so encouraging.

73  Jim  WA3FET
Penn State

On 10/31/2017 10:12 PM, Angel Vazquez wrote:

Hi all,

Just wanted to share pic of  my Skyhawk after surviving 125 mph  winds. If anyone had doubts about this design, think again!! Hats off to Jim WA3FET and Tim K3LR. 

Also included pics of Old Glory and the "monoestrellada" majestically atop of the telescope platform!! "Puerto Rico se levanta"!!

Eternally grateful to all my dear friends!!

73,

Angel WP3R

On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 2:18 PM <w1...@aol.com> wrote:

BTW,

it would be extraordinary if the pointing was NOT affected by the (weight) load imbalance, and this is not a show stopper, IMO: correct the weight or re-map the pointing  thru calibration (in the future).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The tie-down system is not working- there are still a couple of feet of
water under
the dish and apparently some necessary comm cables for the system are
shorted
out or something.  He tried some S-band measurements which show that
something
is not quite right (wider than normal beamwidth and half a minute or so
of pointing error),
but he suspects that this may be due to the absence of tie-downs needed
to put the
optics in focus, as well as due to the fact that the platform is thrown
out of balance
by the missing weight of the line feed."

--

Angel M. Vazquez     

Head of Telescope Operations - RFI & Spectrum Manager

Arecibo Observatory - SRI USRA UMET

National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center

(787)878-2612 ext.304    

[Angel M. Vazquez]

HI Chip,

We are already putting together the new pointing model. Much more data still needed though.

73,

Angel

 

Angel M. Vazquez     

Head of Telescope Operations - Spectrum Manager

Arecibo Observatory - SRI International

National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center

(787)878-2612 ext.304