Fotos

That's Spanish for "photos", and here are some. When COPINH got Utopia last summer, it was a plain, whitewashed building. This past dry season, (our winter) many people decorated the plain walls here's some scenes.....









What I like about these pictures is the great diversity of styles ansd abilities of the painters. And here's caballo con duraznos (The Utopia horse amongst the peach trees with almost-ripe peaches).



We're getting ready to fly back. I finally got the electric power restored for reliable operation yesterday. What I found out after turning on the transmitter wasn't the greatest...some transistors I'd bought just before leaving don't seem to be working well, causing the modules I've rebuilt to be low-powered. I'm hoping I can get a suitable collection of stuff together to get on the air before I leave, but it would be wonderful to be able to be able to substitute a more reliable transmitter instead. It turns out that with the present state of broadcasting regulation here in Honduras, La Voz Lenca could actually increase coverage with a better transmitter and AM repeaters.

Thanks for all your help!

Peace, Bill

Getting Done

Sorry to have no pictures lately...It´s a combination of software and hardware problems. I think the transmitter´s good to go...¨think¨ because the power lines coming into the building have a problem which makes turning on the transmitter problematic. I´m hoping to rectify that soon.

Meanwhile the weather has been cold and rainy...strange to have cold winds blowing damp fog and rain coming out of the north, since we´re south of the hot, steamy caribbean coast. The folks here, though, are the opposite...warm and gentle...and inspired in their desire to protect the environment and their way of life.

At the transmitter location, Utopia, there are regular weekend classes to teach young Lencas to be teachers, so that they can go back in the remote areas to teach Lenca kids in Lenca-sensitive ways. It´s a program initiated by COPINH in cooperation with the Normal teacher´s school here in La Esperanza. Like so many COPINH projects, it´s ambitious, and it´s working!

We´re planning on taking off for the homeward journey this weekend. I´ll put up a summary of the trip, plus more pictures soon after we get back.

Peace, Bill

Getting down to bizzyness

The good folks from Comppa in Mexico arrived. They had coordinated the initial preparations for the tower construction, and are improving computer and the low-power FM station here. Its really nice to be working together with them -- all of us together here in La Esperanza at the same time.

Don has done a lot of work -- he claims it's vacation -- fixing the old, but reliable generator that Bob Wahlfeldt donated. It should be good to go for a long time. Thank you, Don!

I've been slowly rebuilding the transmitter with parts I brought down. Ironically, the more parts, the longer it takes to rebuild things, but its coming along.


Peace, Bill

Success Already

Hi Folks,

We arrived here in La Esperanza Saturday evening. It's great to be back with my friends here! Many people of COPINH have been out of town attending two regional meetings dealing with various aspects of water use and availability, reservoir projects and the threat they pose to the indigenous peoples' lands, so I'm encountering them one- or two-at-a-time...like a continuous flow of little gifts.

When I first looked at the tower, it was clear that weeds had grown up and were affecting the tuning of the tower. Rolando, our friend and watchman of the site, soon dispatched those with his machete. --



Yesterday, I did a really thorough analysis of the tower tuning box (ATU) and set up the tuneable coils to the exact values that Gray Haertig provided. I had sent him data on our tower which he ran on his sophisticated tower modelling program. Again, great thanks to Gray for all his help! With the coils adusted as he perdicted, the transmitter was ecstatic! It looks great! Should be up to full power very soon, as soon as I get done with some rebuilding inside. Here I am doing that --



Meanwhile, Don's been vacationing by rebuilding the generator that was donated ny Bob Wahlfeldt, who died just a week before we left. In this as in so many other ways
his spirit carries us on. La lucha sigue! Here's the work in progress --



While I've been gone, a lot of decorating, murals, was done at Utopia (the location of the AM transmitter). Here's one --



Many thanks to Don for getting us here in style, for doing the generator stuff and, leastly, for these pictures.

Some Pictures From Our Trip

We´re in Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, on the bottom of the Gulf. Hoping to Fly to San Pedro Sula, Honduras tomorrow, take a cab to the bus terminal, then a bus to La Esperanza tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, a few more pictures:

Here´s Don and me just before taking off.



In Austin, we stopped to visit Shaya and Charles Zucker. Shaya is a past station manager of WEFT in Champaign, and is very active in community activities. They treated us royally! Here´s Shaya and me:



Last night we stayed in Tampico, I visited an old friend, then we zoomed off around the south side of the gulf. Here´s a picture of the mountains north of Veracruz:




The little plane´s doing well. we´re spending more time hassling with customs and flight-planning people than actually flying.

Peace, Bill

We have lift-off

Bill and Don went to Frasca field early yesterday morning. They had packed everything in the Mooney's tiny cargo space the evening before.

It's a beautiful plane, manufactured in the 1970's, Don bought it as a wreck and lovingly restored it. Mooneys are high performance planes and this one is capable of flying at a land speed of 150 MPH. They were planning on flying to Austin for the first leg of their trip. Don planned on that journey taking five hours of flying time.




Don removed the covers and tie-downs from the plane while Bill gathered up the last bits of test equipment, transmitter manuals, and spare parts from his car. They took an important last trip to the airfield's bathroom (they can't just pull over when the need arises!) and they both climbed inside the cockpit.

Don described the cockpit as being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle's interior. I think that's overstating the size. It looks very small when you see two men pouring themselves into the seats.



They put on the noise canceling headphones since the engine and wind noise will be very loud during the flight. Bill's ear jewelry made it difficult to fit the headphones and it took some adjustment to make his ear's ready for flight.

At last Don told me to step away from the plane, he shut the door and began the pre-flight checklist. I received a wave from the cockpit and heard the engine's starter wind up.... and then wind back down. Oh dear. The cockpit door opened and Don crawled out muttering about the starter solenoid. He applied a little tuner spray to it and tried again. Contact!

They rolled out to the edge of the field, roared down the runway and took off into the morning sky towards Arkansas, Austin, and Honduras.