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Saturday, March 18, 2006

Cell Phone Reception Experimental Results.

For those of you who understand the implications of this experiment... "SHIT"

A few weeks ago I did an experiment with cell phone reception vs altitude. (Sorry I forgot to publish the results untill now.) I was testing the possibility for use of cell phones at verious altitudes...

First of all, I made sure that at the surface level I had good reception.

-Full bars at 500' AGL, (Above Ground Level)

Second, I also made sure that I had line of sight to at least one if not more cell phone towers throught the course of the experiment.

-Trust me, I am very aware of where the towers are!

As I climbed reception did indeed go down.

-By about 3000' AGL I was down to about 1 bar.

-I had absolutly no reception at 4500'AGL

-Several of us checked our phones and there was ablsulutly no inkling of sevicability at 5000'AGL for any brand of phone or cell phone service provider. This was the case even when holding the phone out the window for optimum reception and least iterferance from the Feraday Cage like properties of the aircraft.

I was only able to climb to 6000' AGL due to the service ceiling of the aircraft of 10,000' MSL and ground elevation of about 4000'MSL, but I think that it is very unlikely that we would have been able to re-aquire signal by climbing higher.

RESULTS: It is very unlikely that cellphones could be used above 5000' AGL.

If anyone has questions about my methods or sees flaws in my experiment, please comment. I will be able to retest if needed.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Cars and a Courts Marshal

The Fiat is back on the road... sort of... only temporarily. You see, the thing is that there is a dude up here from the squadron in southern california. The air forced issued him a big blue AF pickup truck to use while he is up here. Well he parked it at a cigar shop, someone saw it and called their congressman.... bla bla bla... now he cant leave base with it. I lent him my truck so he could not be stuck on base. Then today my buick started clunking signifiantly when I shifted from reverse to drive... you are exactly right... it is the u-joints. So I went to the parts store and got myself 3 u-joints figuring I was in for an afternoon of cold metal... but I sould be back on the road by evening.

Shit... it didn't work like that. It never does.

I had never seen U-joints like this. I need a press to get the old ones out... and on a saterday afternoon I am fresh out of hydrolic presses. So then I am looking at my other broke ass cars. The brown buick hasn't moved in 6 months and hasn'tb been registered since jan of last year, the blue one is up on jacks with no driveshaft, and the fiat is massivly out of alignment and has no front anti-sway bar. That was the easyest to fix... so I put on the old sway bar and drove it around the block. It is a little sqirrly to drive with shitloads of toe out alignment... and the back has about an inch and a half higher springs. It looks like someone kicked it in the ass and now it is stuck up in the air.

I suspect that the girls will still all want rides. I'll have to move the greasy suspention parts to the back seat for that.

Also, I have been selected to be a member of a Courts Martial. (Essencially I have military jury dudy.) I don't have any idea what the guy did... it could be anything from a muder-rape to sleeping on duty. I guess I'll find out Tuesday. I guess I should find my shoes and shine them.

Monday, March 06, 2006

I got my cherry popped today!

Yes it is true... My AC cherry was popped by Lt Ben Brown today. It was very nice and gentle. The weather was great, the mission was a milk run, and he only made me nervous once.

My road trip to Gladstone, Detroit, Spain, and Madison is comming together. It is looking like all events will take place between 1 and 17/18 July... can't know for sure anything because the guy that approves leave... is on leave. Makes sence really. If that was my job... I would be on leave too. Tenative schedule is as follows:

30 June - attempting to seduce mermaids.
1-2 Jul - fighting grizzly bears in Glacier National Park... (unfortunatly no .45 cal Bear repelent alowd in the park)
2-3 - Land speed record accross the flat parts
4-5/6ish - beer and fireworks in G-town
6ish-8ish - Detroit... Hot cars and fast women, also My grandmother lives there so I should stop see and her.
8 - 14 - Ibiza, Spain... I know there are no full weekends in those dates... but I don't think that will be a factor...
14 - 16 - Detroit to Madison; obviously guns, booze, and strippers...
16 - 17/18 The flat parts again... passage back to real life

All are welcome to join me on any/all/some parts of the journey. I know there is a lot of travel in this plan... possibly a detrimental amount... but if you arn't going somewhere, what are you doing? That's right... then you're not going anywhere.

The morning fast approches...

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Holy fuck!!!!

Ok... Kids... I have had a very shitty week... Granted I have been flying my ass off, so I can't complane to much... But "Holy Fuck"

Monday, there was a broken helicopter and maintainance asked for some willing pilots to see if they fixed it correctly... NO... they didn't get it right. Don't worry it was just the engines that didn't work right... ouff!!!

Tuesday, I flew with the dude that I went throu Air craft commander upgrade with. I was on the schedule as the Aircraft Commadner, but he out ranks me so he pulled rank and took the A-code and I was his yes man. He didn't try to kill me so it was all fine.

Wenesday, I few with the worst pilot in the 40th Helicopter squadron... Ok... i survived and didn't get embaresed on the radio to bad... good enough. But... come on man! Listen and look!!!!

Thursday, I had the Aircraft as my own... and the weather was so shitty, that maintainance didn't want to come out to man the fire extinguishers for the engine start... I started the helo anyway... then, as I was watching my co-pilot run up the engines and out side the widsheild I couldn't see the end of the taxiway... my first act as an AC was to cancel myown flight for Weather... FUCK!!!!

Friday, the weather was even shittier... but there were some O-6's that wanted us to go... so we took off as the "weather ship," (that is an expendable aircraft to check the weather) Well, the weather was shit- ... but they told us to keep going... We went. Holy shit! At the worst point all I could see was powerlines and ice fog. I honestly thought we were going to have to climb into the ice or take it in the face with a powerline. I was resigned. We spent all day in a gigantic laberinth of ice fog and streambeds. (as in we would fly up the stream beds under the fog looking for a way through the helo killing moisture.) We made it... but I think I sucked up a seat cushion into my ass.

Well don't worry sports fans, next week will happen anyway.