..or however the "old saying" goes.
I was hired to lay out staking for a series of concrete foundation slabs for an array of larger satellite dishes.?ÿ The client is the internet provider partnering with one of my other client's; a rural electric co-op.?ÿ The dishes are being built within an area fenced in with an existing power sub-station.?ÿ All that means is that PPE is required.?ÿ And I deplore wearing my fire-resistant "onesie" and a brain bucket, but rules are rules.
The plans state the alignment of the construction base line is to be "at an Azimuth of 191?ø from True North".?ÿ?ÿI spoke with the engineer earlier and he agreed that "true north" would be defined as "geodetic north".?ÿ Cool.?ÿ I still had a few questions but I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to answer them for me.?ÿ?ÿ
I got out there this morning to get some points in the ground.?ÿ I used a couple of city GPS monuments for control.?ÿ One of the satellite dishes had already been delivered and there was a crew working on assembly.?ÿ After my staking I eventually found their foreman and asked him about the final installation and the fine tuning.
He was equipped with a fairly nice lensatic compass and a chart of unknown age showing the magnetic declination across the US.?ÿ The craticulations were in 5?ø increments.?ÿ He showed me the plate near the satellite's pivot point and how he roughly aligns the dish.?ÿ I asked him to check out my alignment as I had it staked.?ÿ
He slapped his compass down on a stub 2x4 laying on the ground. eyeballed down the lath line and then twisted his compass a bit as he scrutinized it.?ÿ "Looks good to me" was his reply.
I boxed it up and was gone.?ÿ No need to complicate things.?ÿ ;)?ÿ?ÿ
?ÿ
I've never laid out satellite dishes, but my understanding is that they only need to get them close enough so that the adjustment limits of the mount allow the installer to tune the direction for max signal strength.
I get more nervous with tower-mounted radio antenna booms, which have to be certified as being within 1 degree of design azimuth.?ÿ The tower legs are fixed (duh) and the antenna manufacturer takes the leg as-built and builds a fixed mount that bolts to the tower legs a hundred or two feet above ground and points the boom in the right direction.?ÿ Boom as-built day is a little intense.?ÿ I don't know if the installers have some way of tweaking things should the direction not be right, but both times I've done this the boom was right on.
Dang.?ÿ I thought you were supposed to sit out there until you got a?ÿ clear night sky so you could sight on Polaris.
Found this from The Sermon on the Mount.
What's the origin of the phrase 'Pearls before swine'?
This expression is usually expressed in the negative proverbial form - 'don't cast your pearls before swine', and is found in the Bible,?ÿMatthew 7:6,?ÿfirst appearing in English bibles in?ÿTyndale's Bible, 1526:
Nether caste ye youre pearles before swyne.
I have some experience with such. One day my AP Calculus kids, the 11th graders anyway, came in wearing Puritan costumes. Turns out they were studying The Scarlet Letter in American Literature. I asked them if they had come to the part where Rev Dimmesdale took Pearl to the farm. They said they had not.
So I proceeded to enlighten them. It seems, I said, that Rev Dimmesdale took Pearl to visit a farm. Pearl was standing on a fence rail around the hog lot when she lost her balance and fell in.
Afterward, the congregation accused Rev Dimmesdale of casting his Pearl before the swine.
The next day, I had a visit from the two 11th grade English teachers. I was told in no uncertain terms that my help in teaching their courses was neither needed nor appreciated.
I apologized and then told them that I didn't appreciate writers referring to someone going off on a tangent as a bad thing. I explained that going off on a tangent is what we do for the full first half of AP Calculus.
They were unperturbed and unimpressed, and they gave me one more warning before walking out in a huff.
walking out in a huff.
Groucho: you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon you can leave in a minute and a huff.
And I can't find it to confirm, but I think in one movie he said, "She left in a Huff. Or maybe it was a Packard."
Some years back I had a job to as-built a comm tower on a mountain top, only accessible by chopper. One of my mentors had done the original boundary survey thirty years prior to my arrival and his basis for bearings was an USCGS monument about five miles distant. This was pre-GPS days and I was retracing his survey to tie in a bunch of new antennas that had been added. Found a good spot for the base and set about getting onto his original corners and my jaw hit my naval when my GPS derived bearings were matching his within 2". Later I asked how he had managed that and he told me how they erected a tower over the USCGS monument five miles distant and built a high-vis target 6' is diameter and were barely able to sight on it and get their bearings before the clouds moved in and they were stuck there for two days as choppers don't fly in clouds in the mountains. The last item on my check list was to give them a bearing to orient their microwave antenna to another microwave relay station I computed to be 56 miles away on top of another mountain. If I ended up being only 2" off I can tell you that it was purely a result of divine intervention and not my survey wizardry.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
That is absolutely fantastic!?ÿ I love it, love it, love it.?ÿ Perhaps you could send some ideas to the dude who creates the comic strip, Pearls Before Swine.
One thing I recall that I learned from my Algebra I teacher way back in high school is that everyone on this planet has a purpose.?ÿ Sometimes that purpose is to be used as a bad example.?ÿ That has been my goal ever since. To be someone that someone else might name when wanting to give a third party an example of a bad example.?ÿ I am certain it has happened but no one is brave enough to tell me about it.
A gal that was a couple years younger than me had a brother in my class.?ÿ One day her mother was griping to her about the brother in my class.?ÿ The mother went on and on and then wrapped it all up by saying, "Why can't he be like J***** P*****?"?ÿ The daughter said, "So, you want him to be a q****?"?ÿ The mother almost had a heart attack.?ÿ Her precious little daughter not only was familiar with the word "q****" but she seemed to know what it meant, plus she discovered her shining example was not all she thought he was.?ÿ Suddenly my classmate seemed a bit more acceptable to his mother.
Meanwhile, my high school Government teacher announced in front of the entire class that he had apparently been educating the wrong end of my body, because I definitely was a smart a$$.?ÿ I stood up and took a bow.
@mathteacher?ÿ Hell hath no fury like an english teacher.
If those two English teachin?? School Marms were Nun??s you probably wouldn??t be here today. ????
everyone on this planet has a purpose
"All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds."
?ÿ- Richard Brautigan
@flga-2-2
I've heard rumors that the CIA has a couple of retired nuns on the payroll at Gitmo.?ÿ Anyone with their tactics probably has a near 100% batting average when it comes to prying intel and confessions from unwilling participants.