Still Hot and More Satellite News

I'm going to ramble a little and do this flow of consciousness so reader beware.

Yesterday I did my first ever satellite uplink! The Chief and I drove to a parking lot and tested my skills. I did pretty well. I did all the conversions from NBC to CNN without too many problems. I did get confused a bit on the location of one satellite. I went to the left instead of the right, but I figured it out. We then headed to Garner for another test. Garner is south and east of Raleigh so everything will be a little different. Satellites are in a semi-fixed location so when you move south, the satellites are further up in the sky. I get everything set up and I hear "Do you want to uplink?" I wanted to, but I was afraid of not being in the right spot.

If I power up on the wrong location on the bird I might blowout someone else and ruin their feed. Then the satellite people will call me and yell and the station has to pay for the new time for the station I screwed over... This could get expensive. We get out transponder and time, I call in and I'm clear to go up. I flip the switch and I see the downlink and everything is great! I don't think I'm ready to do this on my own, but I think I should be able to go out with someone and do the job.

I picked everything up faster than the Chief thought I would. I believe the reason is while at The Network we did countless satellite shots and I watched those guys every time. I didn't know exactly what they were doing, but when my training started I started to piece together what I saw for three years to the information given to me. So thank you Manny and Anthony for all the times I watched you guess set up.

Well, on the way to Garner we run into a problem. The Air Conditioning in the back and front of the truck is not working right. In the back, it sort of works, but the temp got up to 90 degrees. As we drove towards Garner the cab air went out completely. We rolled down the window, but that didn't help. Yesterday it was 104 degrees and that is one degree away from the all time record, but it felt like it was 115! That 20 minute drive felt like an hour, the heat was like a weight on your chest making it harder to breath.

This week has been like an oven, I think Lucifer, you know the Devil wants to turn the air on. Monday 100, Tuesday 101, Wednesday 102, Thursday 104, and Friday 103. Saturday it's suppose to be cooler by almost 10 degrees. That still sucks because it's still ass hot! I know this is not normal, but I don't think I can do southern summers. Stupid sun!