Just over a week ago I was preparing for a radio frequency coverage test trip on the weekend. It was a lot like the last one I blogged about. I was also coordinating hotel rooms for two different groups of people in two different places. I was researching hotels in Las Vegas that were cheap, but not places that were too run down or had bed bugs. Many people were waiting until I made a hotel recommendation before booking. I was also researching hotels in Fresno for next month. People entrusted me (or were too lazy themselves) to find and book a good hotel for a wedding.
On Thursday I spent 12 hours in LA testing the test equipment. Standing in the back parking lot of where I volunteer, I made sure GPS antennas, radios, mp3 players, 12 year old laptops, and custom build circuitry worked. Every time I asked my supervisor about other aspects of the test he would say, "You are going to work on that today." I worked on programming radios and made a few changes I thought could be useful. I was also managing all of the people for the test trip and writing a plan for what we would do when. I got to bed late, so I only got 4 hours of sleep that night.
On Friday I drove myself into LA. My supervisor took the day off so he could drive to the desert a day early. It also meant he was not around for last minute running around and getting everything ready. Instead he called me and explained where I would find (or should find) equipment for the weekend. A lot of things that needed to be done were not assigned to anyone and people assumed someone else was working on them. This caused a lot of last minute work for myself and one of the other people. Friday was also the third and final session of my amateur radio classes. Only one person showed up. Most of the class time I covered FCC rules.
Our big innovation for the testing this time was packaging. We cleaned up our test setups. For the last test we had equipment mounded with Velcro on random wooden boards. We had power cables coming out of a fuse block on another piece of wood. It was a mess. This time we had sheet metal cut on the plasma cam and welded to exactly what we wanted in our machine shop. I mounted fuse blocks and directed all of the wiring. I left LA around 10pm. After packing, I got around 3 hours of sleep before driving out to Las Vegas at 5:30.
We did testing on Saturday and Sunday. My knowledge of Las Vegas came in handy. Everything from express lanes, to freeway exits, to shortcuts in parking garages, to where to find restrooms, and even ideas on where to eat were used. I stayed at the Super 8 on Koval with a few people, while others stayed at the Gold Strike in Jean. There was an equipment failure so we could not conduct our Monday test. The good news is everyone got to go home several hours earlier.
I dove 1,012.9 miles during the trip. This is what my trunk looked like:
There were four laptops, over a dozen radios, lots of wires, many antennas, signs, tools, USB hubs, GPS receivers, calibrated microcontrollers, microphones, and everything I needed for a few days in Las Vegas. This is just what was in my trunk; other people had antennas, repeater boxes, and lots of other things.
On Tuesday night I had a midterm for my electrical engineering class. I started learning things for it 8 hours before the test. While I think I did a good job for a average student, I want to be a great student. In that sense, I am disappointed and missed some questions I should have been prepared for. However, for starting to study for it that day I did an amazing job; at least I think I did.
I am at home this weekend and next weekend. After that, I will be going to a destination wedding (the destination is Fresno), then out to the desert again for the Challenge Cup Race I have been testing for, and then to Berkeley for an alumni event. Those are all a couple hundred miles out of town.
I have been very busy, but these are all great things I want to be doing. I have tried sitting around doing nothing and it is horrible. The only thing I would do differently is plan out my work better so I could get things done before the last possible minute.
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