Technological challenge

When we moved to Pittsburgh a decade ago, we decided to get Dish Network (satellite TV), due to the extremely poor reception of "over-the-air" TV here (many hills and valleys). The receiver dish is not large (maybe 40 cm diameter), however it needs to have an unobstructed view of a certain part of the sky, where the transmitting satellite is located in geosynchronous orbit.

The installer attached the dish to the side of the house. He failed to notice a young fir tree in a landscaped area however, which was located close to the line-of-sight of the receiver. As the tree grew over the next few years, it's branches spread out and soon encroached on the dish's line-of-sight to the satellite, thus the signal was lost and we also lost TV reception.

When we called the repair crew, they decided to re-locate the satellite dish onto the house's roof, where it would have an unobstructed view of the sky. It was a very difficult climb up to the roof, but the installer insisted it was the best option. Things worked great up until the latest mega-blizzard (Snowpocalypse as some have called it) that we experienced in early February. The roof was covered with many inches of snow and the snow was so deep, that it also managed to cover at least half of the satellite dish - no satellite signal meant no TV reception was possible. We waited a couple of days for the snow to melt, however it just kept snowing and piling more and more snow on the roof. We resorted to listening to the radio - just like in the old days - but it soon got "old".

With the transition to digital TV all across the US on June 12, 2009, even if we could manage to somehow "find" a weak TV signal with an antenna, we would still need to get the required digital converter box to be able to watch TV. After 10 days without TV, we decided to call the service crew. They arrived and told us the best option was to relocate the satellite antenna somewhere where it would both have an unobstructed view of the sky and where it would be within relatively easy reach, in case we needed to clean snow and ice deposited by some future storm off of it. Thus it was relocated onto the side of the house and we are keeping our fingers crossed the third time will be the charm and we will not need to relocate it again.

Snow

Have you heard the latest 4-letter word?
It is spelled S-N-O-W and I'm hearing more and more people in this area who are disgusted by it.

Groundhog Day was Feb. 2 and unfortunately Punxsutawney Phil (the very rotund prognosticator groundhog) saw his shadow that morning, which according to lore means we can expect six more weeks of Winter.

The Pittsburgh area got hit with around 2 feet (60 cm) of snow between Feb. 5 and 6.
Then we received another 8 inches (20 cm) of snow on Feb. 9 and 10.
It has been a week since then and every day we get a bit more snow - sometimes a dusting, sometimes an inch or two (5 cm) - like this morning for example.
My morning routine now is to shovel the driveway, clear the snow off the cars and then carefully negotiate the sloppy roadways to and from work (this morning's commute was twice as long as it normally takes).

Meanwhile our temperature has not been above freezing since late January.
All this snow is not going away - it is just getting piled on top of the older snow and the snowbanks are getting quite large.

The landscape is white and "cabin fever" is very real - it is palpable in this area.
Quite a few folks are planning getaways to warmer places - meanwhile those of us who are still here eagerly await the coming of Spring.

Forecast for tomorrow ... more snow.

Spelunking

I heard a story on the radio while driving the other day, which I found interesting enough to write about it here.

The story discussed the limitations of electronic communications between people underground (e.g. in a cave) and those on the surface. Alexander Kendrick, a 16-year old boy from Los Alamos, New Mexico, working on his science fair project, invented a device that allows text messages to be sent via low frequency radio waves from deep within the Earth. He won the 2009 International Science Fair competition.

This story brought back memories from a few decades back, when along with some other adventurous young people from our local Eagle scout troup, we explored a couple of caves in Greece. A number of impressive caves have been discovered in the southern parts of the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece, most famous among them the Diros cave, which is typically experienced by visitors on a boat. After visiting the Diros cave, we ended-up exploring a cave near the village of Harouda in Mani - a cave we entered and exited using a rope ladder, since the only way in was by descending around 20 meters into the main chamber through the collapsed cave roof.

I still remember the unpleasant surprise caused by the discovery of a colony of black scorpions which were nesting in the rock pile caused by the collapsed cave roof -- the exact spot we landed-on as soon as we got off the rope ladder. None of us were stung by the scorpions during that adventure, but it just drove home the point that when mishaps happen under ground, it might be important to be able to communicate with the folks on the surface.

I think what caused me to be even more interested in this story however is the fact that this young man was working on his science project! I have already helped judge one science fair at a local school and I am also helping my daughter prepare for her science project as well.
I think this is a story that would be fun to point-out to all the young people who think that these science fairs are just boring affairs...