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It’s been a while since I’ve seen dead bodies.. While traveling with my fiance to finish cleaning one more bank, we stumbled upon a line of cars pulling over on the side of the road. Getting closer there was a 2 car colission. The first thing I did was jump out of the car then grab my HT and hit the local repeater. N9UDO (I believe) relayed my request for police and medical.

I got up to the scene and it was a mess. Someone was in the red car giving the trapped driver CPR and asked if they should continue. I knew that wasn’t a good sign. The driver of the black car was outside the car kneeling complaining of severe abdominal pain. Someone said something about a baby… but I didn’t hear any crying.

Minutes after the crash, numerous civilians jumped out and helped the scene. Some were nurses and EMS, others were moral support for the sole survivor. I haven’t seen an accident this bad in a long time, it hit me hard, but what made me feel good was the fact that even untrained civilians would stop everything and come to help in any way, shape or form they could.

I wish I had my truck at the time, it had more supplies than my fiance’s car. But  this is only a dire reminder of how prepaired I need to be. This is going to be something that I will have to bring up to the YTARC and Sauk Co. ARES/RACES in the following two tuesdays. It’s nice to help but nicer to be well prepaired.

The full news article is available here: http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/311349

At 1730 hours, I had complete strobe failure AGAIN. When I got home, at about 1915, I tore the bar apart again. The front strobes I can hear clicking but they don’t fire, the corner strobes (which I hooked up again) don’t fire or do anything. The power supplies sound like they are clicking happily. I don’t know.

I tell you one thing, I’m fucking tired of Whelen. Not only is this lightbar near impossible to troubleshoot, but the service people charge $75+ per hour (excluding parts). I volunteer, I’m not government funded… They also do not have any kind of bill me later or financing, its either all or nothing. How gay.

At this point, I need to pay out my god damn asshole and pay some schmuck to figure out if I need strobes replaced or power supplies fixed. I’m not going to like the bill either. I’m really really pissed off right now.

What if I said the key factor here was the fact that the lightbar works at night/morning (when I go to work) but not during the day? It appears as if my lightbar has a case of vampiritis. But seriously, that is the biggest thing I noticed but blew off as thinking it was a power supply issue.

“A Xenon flash tube can be very photo sensitive. One will flash normally when exposed to an external light source, but may become very hard to fire when subject to darkness.”

Lets just flip that around. It makes perfect sense. This ties in with another thing I’ve noticed, one of the corner strobes has blackened but still seemed to fire normally at times.

Thus far I have disconnected the one corner strobe. Firing up the strobes in takedown mode, the front and rear strobes fired up. The corner strobes did not, which I kind of semi half quasi expected. But the front and rear strobes appear to be reliable during the daylight hours.

Could I have finally found the problem? Time will tell as usual.

UPDATE 0100: As of midnight, the lightbar was in complete strobe failure. I’m going to disconnect the remaining corner strobes today.

UPDATE 1430: Disconnected the remaining corner strobes, the front and rear strobes appeared to function. Lets see if this lasts through the night.

I went to my truck during my lunch break around noon. Just for kicks I ran MPC01 diagnostics. Complete strobe failure (again) and flashers were working normally. UGH! :’(

So I got the Serial I/O Controller yesterday. First thing I did was jaunt out to my truck and pop it in. Overall review of the board showed no apparent modifications. Oh well. I turned on the MPC01 controller and ran a lightbar diagnostics test. Looking at the lights I saw what I didn’t want to see. The MPC01 confirmed it as well. Same problem, if not worse. I was very sad :’(  (I also never recieved the power supply data promised to me from Whelen).

After returning home from grabbing a bite to eat with my fiance, I had an idea. Getting advice from the Whelen technicians and someone who has worked on Whelen equipment (Mr. W. Jackson), I thought about the grounding issue they mentioned. I thought, why not give the lightbar dedicated power. Sure sure, most people are saying “well duh, stupid” but at the time my quick fix for hooking it up was piggy-backing with the power to my truck’s subwoofer amplifier. I decided to finally remove my KLM 80-watt 2m amp so I could sell it, I used the power leads for the lightbar. I also soldered the shit out of the connection to make sure not even Jesus himself could interfere with the power transfer.  Last night, the MPC01 diagnostics showed everything was functioning nominally. Sweet. But I wasn’t too excited because sometimes the lightbar works and sometimes it doesn’t.

This morning I ran diagnostics and everything was working. Even a half hour ago when I arrived at work, MPC01 diagnostics showed everything working.

Could this have resolved the issue? If so, I would feel like a real dumbass, but live and learn. I’m anxious to get out of work this afternoon to run diagnostics again. I’m going to test periodically throughout the next couple of days to verify reliability.

So, on 10/06/2008 I packaged up my Ultra Serial I/O Controller from the lightbar and had it shipped via UPS to Whelen. I called on the 10th to make sure they recieved it and had to dig through the pile of incoming packages. Monday, the 13th I recieved a phone call saying that the controller is ready and is being sent out. The person unfortunatly gave me the wrong tracking number.

Apparently calling Whelen to get any kind of information is mission impossible. The controller passed all tests and was modified to Whelen specs. From what I was told that means minor hardware modifications for protection and etc. Interesting. But I can’t wait to get it back and check it out.

Finally talking with one of the repair technicians, he gave me some ideas on how I can troubleshoot the two power supplies in my lightbar. Instead of the Serial I/O control for the power supplies, I could go parallel and apply direct power to the power supply power feed and serial connection. So the power is obviously red and black. He said that I should hook the white and gray wires to power to manually power the strobes. The blue/green wires are the actual serial control itself apparently. But when in serial mode, the gray/white wires are unused.

The technician also suggested I do a continuity test on all the wires. I was hoping to avoid that because of the ratsnest and apparent overcomplication of wiring. But the more I dive into the bar the easier it seems to get.

I’m also getting a copy of the design sketch for the power supply to help with my wiring and troubleshooting. I’m hoping it is anything but the power supplies. Rumor has it that they are somewhere around $400 new (if they can’t be repaired) but I think some are available on ebay for $60-$100. But thats ebay… I need reliability not junkyard treasures.

Part I is to wait for the Ultra Serial I/O Controller to arrive and test that to see if the ’specs’ upgrade was worth the $20 in shipping fees. I can’t complain though, the test and mofification and return shipping was free.

Vehicle Status:
Engine: GOOD
Fuel: GOOD
Power: GOOD
Primary Lightbar: FAIL (50% functional, known problem)
Front Cauhtion Lights: FAIL (unknown problem)
Rear Caution Lights: GOOD
APRS Node: GOOD (1 watt, 5/8 wave magnet mount mobile antenna)
2 meter Access: GOOD (50 watts, high gain perm mount mobile antenna)
70cm  Access: GOOD (35 watts, high gain perm mount mobile antenna)

Sauk Co. ARES net was brought online around 09:30 hours. I was dispatched from Baraboo to Reedsburg, WI to position myself at the Reedsburg Area Medical Center. I made excellent time from Baraboo to Reedsburg. I positioned myself in an open area in the parking lot and reported my position to the Sauk Co. net on 147.315. All communications were from my emergency response vehicle.

I was told to check in to the Adam’s Co. net on the 147.105 repeater. Their signal to me was weak. My signal back to them was barely copyable but eventually my message got through. Attempted simplex on 146.700 with next control. Signals were just as bad. Adam’s Co. net control had me go to simplex on 147.570 and QSO N9HWP. His signal was barely copyable and my signal to him failed.

I was told to check in to the Juneau Co. net on the 146.850 repeater. Their signal to me was S3-S4, 100% copy. I recieved a good signal report as well. Switched to 147.570 simpled. QSO with KC9IWD at St. Joeseph’s Hopsital in Hillsboro, WI. Good RX and good TX.

Overall the state wide SET was a success this year. I wish I was able to make more simplex contacts with neighboring counties/locations. Next time I will be more prepared.