Heya to everyone that had wanted to hear about my work trip to the gulf coast to restore customers satellite tv service.
After 2 days of driving we made it to Mobile AL or as many locals call it L.A. short for lower Alabama. There wasnt much damage from wind evident in the mobile area though much of what I saw was at night and it seemed like it was business as usual except for the police stationed at the entrances of several refineries in Saraland AL. Once we got to Saraland we had to wait to find out where we would be staying at and after 2 hours we where on our way to Pensacola to stay at a small roach motel called Hospitality Inn. Let me say this, if your ever in Pensacola I advise you in all seriousness to avoid this roadside motel even if there is nothing else available and your left with sleeping in your car or the bus station.
Ok so on to day one, well thank god I was smart enough to bring the lap top and get the latest gates maps program for it. My day started out with 3 trouble calls, a service call and a superdish 105 upgrade, out of all the work only one job was due to katrina and that is sketchy at best. All work done that day had to do either with long term repeat troubles or with recent install issues. I finally got to do a dual tuner relocation of the uhf remote antenna with splitters ( thank you simplesimon ) because no matter what I did I couldnt get the 625 to pick up the remote singals from 35 feet away in this house. My whole day was spent driving between Bay Minnette and Spanish Fort AL, there was wind damage evident along 31 north of Spanish Fort up into Bay Minnette but along route 112 from north of exit 53 off of I 10 there was littel to nothing.
Day 2 was what I would call total cake, the work load today was less, most likely due to the amount of people that had left the area out of concerns for Rita. All that the area had recieved from Rita was some feeder band rain and minor thunder storms and moderate winds. I spent my day in Gulf Breeze on service calls related to Katrina and one related to Dennis. My service call for Dennis involved relocating a superdish pole mount from 1.5 feet off a privacy fence to 3 feet off it. When Dennis came through it snapped the fence off at the ground due to rotten 4x4 posts and seperated the skew plate adjustment assembly from the mounting ring atached to the dish. The LNBF cluster was also replaced as was the dp34 and the ground block due to water damage and transponder polarity issue's. The last job was a home that had a pine tree fall on the home and blew the super dish off the roof, this dish was replaced and put onto a pole mount in the back yard.
I havent seen any dish's folded or bent by winds yet, this area didnt seem to have winds strong enough to cause this kind of damage, most of what we have been dealing with has been retunes and non storm damage trouble calls. Most of the service calls Ive had were no charge by Dish so thats a good thing for anyone in the area that isnt working due to Katrina. I dont have any pictures right now as there really isnt much to show for this area as far as damage goes, Gulf breeze had more wind damage than any other location Ive been to so far, I will have to see what tomorrow brings to my plate.
After 2 days of driving we made it to Mobile AL or as many locals call it L.A. short for lower Alabama. There wasnt much damage from wind evident in the mobile area though much of what I saw was at night and it seemed like it was business as usual except for the police stationed at the entrances of several refineries in Saraland AL. Once we got to Saraland we had to wait to find out where we would be staying at and after 2 hours we where on our way to Pensacola to stay at a small roach motel called Hospitality Inn. Let me say this, if your ever in Pensacola I advise you in all seriousness to avoid this roadside motel even if there is nothing else available and your left with sleeping in your car or the bus station.
Ok so on to day one, well thank god I was smart enough to bring the lap top and get the latest gates maps program for it. My day started out with 3 trouble calls, a service call and a superdish 105 upgrade, out of all the work only one job was due to katrina and that is sketchy at best. All work done that day had to do either with long term repeat troubles or with recent install issues. I finally got to do a dual tuner relocation of the uhf remote antenna with splitters ( thank you simplesimon ) because no matter what I did I couldnt get the 625 to pick up the remote singals from 35 feet away in this house. My whole day was spent driving between Bay Minnette and Spanish Fort AL, there was wind damage evident along 31 north of Spanish Fort up into Bay Minnette but along route 112 from north of exit 53 off of I 10 there was littel to nothing.
Day 2 was what I would call total cake, the work load today was less, most likely due to the amount of people that had left the area out of concerns for Rita. All that the area had recieved from Rita was some feeder band rain and minor thunder storms and moderate winds. I spent my day in Gulf Breeze on service calls related to Katrina and one related to Dennis. My service call for Dennis involved relocating a superdish pole mount from 1.5 feet off a privacy fence to 3 feet off it. When Dennis came through it snapped the fence off at the ground due to rotten 4x4 posts and seperated the skew plate adjustment assembly from the mounting ring atached to the dish. The LNBF cluster was also replaced as was the dp34 and the ground block due to water damage and transponder polarity issue's. The last job was a home that had a pine tree fall on the home and blew the super dish off the roof, this dish was replaced and put onto a pole mount in the back yard.
I havent seen any dish's folded or bent by winds yet, this area didnt seem to have winds strong enough to cause this kind of damage, most of what we have been dealing with has been retunes and non storm damage trouble calls. Most of the service calls Ive had were no charge by Dish so thats a good thing for anyone in the area that isnt working due to Katrina. I dont have any pictures right now as there really isnt much to show for this area as far as damage goes, Gulf breeze had more wind damage than any other location Ive been to so far, I will have to see what tomorrow brings to my plate.
