My Interruptions Keep Getting Interrupted!

August 26, 2010 By

Tomorrow is the big day! Well, it’s another big day, anyway. We have lots of them here. We’re getting ready for a visit from our founding president of Bible Basics International, Dr. Eugene Priddy; our current president, Rev. Evan Drake; the vice president of International Ministries, Rev. Herman Meister; and BBI’s Spanish director, Rev. Samuel Montoya. This weekend is the celebration of 50 years of ministry for Dr. Glen Solomon, the president of Baptist Ministries here, and these men are coming to participate. They will also be conducting some seminars in the days to come. Herman even said he would help fix the mower and then use it if we get it going.

Sandy Bay Sunset

At the bottom of this entry, you’ll find this week’s HRGS Update. Once again, we had way too much fun with that! But first, let me tell you another reason why being flexible isn’t enough for Roatán missionaries. We need to be liquid. That’s why I’ve included this sunset I shot a few weeks ago to help calm me down. ;-)

In an effort to get things looking a little less “lived in,” I wanted to finish setting up the new work station I’m building for our studio operations. That project has been sprawled all over the reception desk and the plan was to get it done and into place on Wednesday. I didn’t want our president to walk in and have the first thing he saw be computer parts scattered all over. He probably wouldn’t mind, but I would. However, at about noon on Tuesday, the florescent light in the on air studio quit. It would have been nice if it was just burned out bulbs, so that was obviously not the case.

First thing, Wednesday morning, I went to the shop to get my electrician’s tool belt. When I got to the shop, it was hot, hot, hot!! No air conditioner. The line conditioner that we had installed recently blew its fuse, probably because of abuse from the power company the night before. I briefly lamented the fact that it uses a fuse instead of a breaker. (Peter hadn’t noticed that when he bought it because he thought it was the same as the one he’d gotten previously for his house.) Then I dug out a 10 amp fuse, put it in the fuse holder, and found out that the fuse holder was just a tiny bit smaller than the fuse. I tried to pull it back out and the end came off the glass fuse. When I tried to pull out the remains of the fuse, they just crumbled. Sigh! So much for hurrying up to replace the light ballast so I could get back to what I needed to be doing.

I rooted around and found a fuse holder that takes a normal sized fuse and soldered it temporarily in place until we can get the right circuit breaker and install it. I fired up the air conditioner and the compressor did not run. Now what!! I eventually found a loose connection in the control section of the A/C and was finally able to get back to the original interruption, replacing the ballast in the on-air studio light fixture. I think I got to work on the computer for about 30 minutes Wednesday. Oh well! Since today is our day off, I didn’t touch it today. I still have till about 11:00 tomorrow morning to check all the satellite downloads and get that computer wrapped up and put in a better place. No pressure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:57 — 7.5MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, Scenery

Burning the Midnight Oil

August 15, 2010 By

Peter and I were hard at work after midnight this morning. Yesterday was the day we’d set for installing the “new” refurbished FM computer. It would have been much easier if we actually could have installed it. I use the term “‘new’ refurbished” because none of the computers for our dual language project are new. They are just cleaned up with new hard drives and upgrades to the operating systems and other software.

We had run into a bit of a puzzle when I had the new FM computer almost ready and tried to install a new video adapter so that we could spread the desktop over two monitors like the old FM computer. When I powered up the refurbished computer with the new adapter installed, nothing happened. No power on self test, no beeps, no humming of hard drives, nothing but a blank black screen. So I tried a known good video adapter from my own computer and had the same problem. I wondered if the power supply wasn’t up to the job. So I unplugged everything but the motherboard and one hard drive. Still no joy. It looks like the video slot on the motherboard itself is bad.

That brought us to plan B which we executed last night. Plan B was not too difficult because both the old and “new” computers have the same motherboard. We pulled all three new hard drives from the refurbished machine and when the broadcast day ended at 11:00 pm last night,  we shut down the old FM computer and went to work. We removed all the hard drives from the FM computer and gave the inside of the machine a good cleaning. Next, we popped in the new drives and connected all the internal cables. The next step was to put the computer back in its cubby hole and hook up all the external cables.

When we powered it up, we found out that it was confused about which drive was which. That was an easy fix. Then I installed the drivers for the dual head video adapter and the audio card (which was slightly different from the one in the original “new” computer). After making some adjustments to the audio levels and screen resolution, we were off to the races.

Once we tested everything we could test, we headed for home. I got to bed about 1:00 AM. I know, that’s not late for many of you, but I usually get up at about 5:30. This morning I slept in till about 5:55. After putting on some clothes, I stumbled to the office on the other side of the house from our bedroom and turned on the radio. At precisely 6:00 the Honduran national anthem began to play. Had Mildred been awake and had I been a little more awake, I may have quoted young Anakin Skywalker when he first started up the pod racer he’d built – “IT’S WOORRRKIIINNGGG!!!!” Let’s pray that it keeps on working so I don’t have to. ;-)

Dual Language Short Clip from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Praises

Who Says We Have No Culture!?

August 10, 2010 By
Island Kids

Island Kids

In the early years of modern missions, the philosophy seemed to be that, when entering a new mission field, the first task was to westernize the local population before focusing on sharing the actual Gospel. Thankfully, we have grown a little wiser over the years in that regard. But the loss of heritage in any society is tragic. While presenting the Gospel and dealing with sin, it’s important that missionaries remain sensitive to the non-sinful traditions that make each culture unique. I love to learn about the history of this place. Beside being fun for me, I think it helps me relate and communicate better.

That brings us to a special HRGS Audio Update. I’ve probably lamented publicly before how the mainland culture is overwhelming the island culture. I would guess that somewhere around 40,000 people have moved here from the coast in the last 10 years, roughly tripling our population. The younger generation is losing their sense of history and forgetting much of what makes this such a special place. But there is a group of people who are working to rekindle a love for the culture and history of these islands. Two of them, Artlie Brooks and Pastor Felix Gale joined Peter in the studio this week to talk a little bit about our history here in the islands and some of the activities they are planning.

The Update starts, as usual, with Peter and me reminiscing and prognosticating and then moves on to Artlie and Pastor Felix. I really enjoyed hearing this conversation because I love to learn about the history of the places where I live and visit. If you enjoy that too, set aside about 27 minutes and learn a little about this fascinating place.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:06 — 21.7MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, podcasts

Back from Tegus!

August 8, 2010 By

Tegus — that’s short for Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras. It’s pronounced Te-goose.

The trip last Wednesday to Tegus went very well. I got all our business done with the lawyers and at the immigration office. The flights over and back were spectacular. When you’re cruising at an altitude of only 10-11,000 feet and the mountain peaks beneath you are often upwards of 8,000 feet, it’s a pretty cool experience.

When I’d finished the video it sounded a little like a commercial for Central American Airlines. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but it was my first time flying with them, they are a new airline, and they exceeded my expectations. The other airlines here do a good job as well, except when they sell you a ticket for a flight that has already left. ;-) (Easier than Slamming a Revolving Door)

I mentioned that, while I was over in the big city, I did some shopping for the radio station. Believe it or not, we still have not completely finalized the dual language project. We haven’t been able to put the new FM computer on line because the motherboard, incredibly, has only two SATA hard drive ports and we need three. There are adapters that let you plug the new drives into the old fashioned IDE ports, but we can’t get them here on Roatán or over in La Ceiba. I found one in the third store I checked while I was in Tegus. So, once Peter gets a few details straightened out in the automation software, we should be ready for the late night chore of putting it on line, when we are off the air after 11 pm. Afterward, I need to rebuild the old FM computer and put it into service as a station for preparing broadcast logs, downloading FTP files, and so on. Then I need to take the computer that now does those chores and get it upgraded to replace the dinosaur Mildred is using for the finances. So there is still a lot of computer building in my future.

I’m juggling all that with trying to get the station’s lawn tractor running properly and installing a line conditioner in the audio shop so we can get 220 volts to the air conditioner. It doesn’t like running on the 198 to 205 volts that the electric company gives us. Peter and Sandi leave for a three month furlough in less than four weeks, and we are still getting ready to replace the guy wires on the AM tower over on Utila. So our plates are full — as usual.

I hope you enjoy the scenery in this video as much as I did while recording it.

Trip 2 Tegicigalpa from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Video

Never at a Loss for Words

August 3, 2010 By

This week, as Peter and I sat down to record the HRGS Update, we wondered what we would talk about. We felt like last week was such an uneventful week that we would not have much in the way of news for our listeners. Having been slowed down with some kind of bug that showed me a lot more mercy than it did Mildred, I was a little behind on just about everything last week. Then, of course there was the trip to Utila, which put me even further behind.

But, as you will hear, we just started in recording and soon discovered that there was plenty to talk about concerning HRGS, especially our exciting new programs. At the end, we mentioned that Emily Mitten was about to be induced so that she could deliver the remains of their baby. That happened yesterday and the baby’s remains as well as the placenta came out quicker than expected and with no serious incidents, praise the Lord. She is feeling much better, but the whole Mitten family needs our continued prayers for comfort and guidance.

Mildred is feeling considerably [Read more...]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:25 — 7.2MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, podcasts, Prayer Requests

A Short Trip to Utila

August 1, 2010 By

I had some fun throwing together this little video of my trip to Utila. I left Friday afternoon right after finishing Request & Dedication. I got to Utila at about supper time. The first order of business, of course, was transportation. My friend Lance Bodden helped me out as always with an ATV. Then I took a quick trip out to the transmitter site to get the AM transmitter back on the air.

Following that, I headed over to the Utila Lighthouse to get my room and drop off my bag before supper. The shower sure felt good that night after a day that had started at 4:30 AM.

The next morning, I bought electricity (it’s a pre-paid system) and tried to arrange for the phone company to fix the line out there this coming week so we can once again use the remote control system Frederick Henderson had put in a few years ago. The phone quit working last week. The secretary at Hondutel said they would try to get it fixed soon. I hope we will get our remote control back on line this coming week. I did some cleaning and removed some unused wires that used to run from the fatally vandalized generator to the transmitter shack. I think I see where the crooks are getting under the fence, but it will take quite a bit of work to seal it off. So far, they do not seem to be trying to get into the transmitter shack. I hope we do not end up having to take the extreme security measures we have taken at our FM transmitter site here on Roatán.

I got back home last night after one of the smoothest trips to and from Utila (via ferry boats) that I’ve ever had, but still pretty tired. I hope you enjoy the little 10-minute version of a 30 hour trip.

A Short Trip to Utila from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Video

Hummin’ in the Rain

July 29, 2010 By

Remember the old Gene Kelly song, “Singin’ in the Rain?” If so, you’re kind of showing your age. I have always enjoyed being out in the rain, as long as I can stay reasonably dry, but I admit that I liked it better when I was a kid. Of course, when you have work to do, there’s not much chance of staying dry. Some people (including me, on occasion) don’t have the option of choosing the weather in which we work.

Most animals don’t have the option either — especially hummingbirds. These little high energy buzz bombs need a lot of calories, so hunkering down and waiting out the rain is not much of an option for them. When they gotta eat, they gotta eat. I just made a little video about our little green friends, but we had a brief thunderstorm this morning, so I thought it was time for a sequel. Today is our day off, and Mildred still doesn’t feel up to going anywhere, so here are just a couple minutes of video showing a few of the little guys keeping their boilers stoked at Mildred’s feeder.

Humming in the Rain from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Video

A Bitter-Sweet Week

July 27, 2010 By

We had a mostly glorious week this past week with one major exception. You’ll remember Travis and Emily Mitten who had to return to the U.S. because of Emily’s incredibly difficult pregnancy. We learned last Wednesday that they lost the baby. She is still carrying it and and we are all praying that her body will release it soon and naturally because she is so weak from her illness that surgery is pretty risky right now.

Travis was here with us when Emily learned of the baby’s death. He and his brother, John, had come (along with John’s two oldest daughters) to finish cleaning and packing their house. Almost all their big items are in a storage building now. Thanks to tremendous help from some friends, they finished quickly and, on Wednesday morning, we all went to the beach. When I got back to my phone I had a message from Emily to have Travis call home right away. You can read Travis’ perspective here: Light in Our Hearts. We also talk about it in the HRGS Update which you’ll find at the bottom of this post.

That’s in contrast to an otherwise fabulous week. We are now [Read more...]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:41 — 7.3MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, Photography, podcasts, Scenery

Changing the Hummingbird Feeder

July 25, 2010 By

On Wednesday, when Mildred changed the hummingbird feeder, I happened to have the camera ready. I was really hoping that one of them would land on her finger again, but it didn’t happen. One of them was thinking about it, though! Later in the week, I changed the feeder and had the camera in one hand and the feeder in the other. Sometimes the simple things of life are the most fun.

Hummingbirds from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Video

The Dual Language Project, T Minus 7 Days – Audio Update

July 12, 2010 By

There’s never a dull moment around here – if you haven’t already figured that out. But I’m excited to be able to get this audio update to you so early in the week in spite of the busyness around here.

Peter is over in San Pedro Sula today, tomorrow, and Wednesday doing some video work for an evangelistic team sent there through our mission, Bible Basics International. The ministry is called STAR Teams and they have a little video on the BBI web site explaining the work. I had the privilege of narrating the video last summer. Check it out. Maybe you’d like to participate one of these times. Anyway, with Peter being gone, I’m getting extra opportunities to handle Sunrise Serenade this week as well as other studio work. This morning, when I got to the studio at about 5:30, we did not have any of the digital satellite downloads for the day because one of the wireless access points between buildings locked up. This particular one has a tendency to overheat, so Frederick Henderson had made a fan to cool it and the fan seized up. I found another one just like it and once I cleaned everything up and soldered the wires to the new fan, I could retrieve the files I needed.

Later, I made the cables we need, in order to connect the new AM computer to the new AM control console. I should be able to connect those tomorrow and finally hear the output from that system. The computer for the middle studio is nearly ready to install and then I’ll begin on the hard one – the present on-air computer replacement. Listen to the HRGS Update below to find out why.

All the while this is going on, I have preparations to make for replacing the guy wires and repainting the AM tower over on Utila. We are close to having the parts list ready. I mentioned a while ago that one of our supporting churches gave $3,000 toward that project. It looks like that will cover a large portion of the cost. We don’t have all the figures yet, but I estimate it will cost about another $2,000 beyond what the Lord has already supplied, so please pray that others will get involved. The project is tentatively scheduled for late September.

I mentioned the evangelistic team over in San Pedro Sula. Four members of the team, Travis Mitten, his brother, and two of his nieces will be coming to stay with us next week for several days. So Mildred has been busy making sure things are ship-shape for them. Travis’ wife, Emily, is doing ever so slightly better the past few days, but it’s a roller coaster ride for her with days of abject misery alternating with days of not as abject misery. But she is in good hands at her parents’ house. Unfortunately, it isn’t feasible for so many people to all be under the same roof, so their four girls are staying with their other grandparents who live an hour or two away. Not an ideal situation, but better than it might have been if they didn’t live so close to each other.

Now it’s time for supper. Bedtime, when I’m doing Sunrise Serenade, is 8:30 and that gets here in a hurry if I don’t watch out.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:43 — 8.6MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, podcasts, Prayer Requests

Dual Language Project and a Video Tour of La Ceiba

July 10, 2010 By

Our “dual language” project is moving right along. It began with rebuilding an almost new computer to feed audio to the AM transmitter. (Right now we have one computer that feeds both transmitters.) The broadcast software we use now has been discontinued, so we had to get a new version. Sadly, the new version does not play well with the old one so the biggest expense was buying enough copies for all the other computers. Also, we have been running Windows 2000 Pro since 2001 on the studio computers and the new software requires WindowsXP. The AM computer is running in test mode now. We recently got the hard drives and audio cards we needed, so this weekend I can replace the used data drives we had temporarily placed in the AM computer and it will be ready to go. Now we need to put all the new software and WindowsXP on our current on-air computer, which will become the FM computer and do the same to the production computers.

I just finished rebuilding a slightly used computer for one of the production studios and Peter swapped it out with the old one the other day. I’m now rebuilding that computer to replace the second production computer. The rebuilding involves replacing the main drive and the data drive, installing the operating system, the broadcast software, the audio editing software, and various other utilities and getting it set up on the network and getting the files all synchronizing from one machine to the other automatically as well as configuring all the programs so they behave like the old ones. It’s pretty time consuming.

July 18 is the 20th anniversary of Radio HRGS‘ first test broadcast. In honor of that occasion, our target is to go on line with all day English and all day Spanish on Monday, July 19. It’s going to be close, but I think we can make it.

OK, on to the fun stuff. Well, mostly fun. About a week ago I posted a video that was the first part of our trip to La Ceiba. Here is the conclusion. Now you can see La Ceiba without getting seasick or sunburned. Enjoy. ;-) And don’t forget, if you want to see it in its original size, right click it and you can see it on the hosting site, Vimeo.

Trip to La Ceiba – Pt. 2 from Jerry Petersen on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Daily Life, Video

Double-Triple Trouble

June 25, 2010 By

I guess that’s what you call it when you both get two intestinal viruses and an intestinal bacterial infection, all at the same time. When Dr. Raymond brought our medicines here to the house, he asked, “Where did you get all this stuff?!” referring, of course, to the bugs, not the meds he’d just brought us. We’d kind of like to know that too. Dr. Raymond did assure us that it wasn’t the really bad stuff. Whatever you call it, the triple whammy laid us both low from last Saturday night up through this morning and we’re not over it yet. So I’m really glad we didn’t get the bad stuff. And, praise God, we’re doing a whole lot better today. Mildred still stayed at home, mostly resting. I put in a nearly full day doing studio work and even managed a live program with no disaster, although it was pretty miserable.

I hope that tomorrow I will be close to full functionality. We have a ton of stuff going on here with getting ready for the dual language operations before July 19 and a work team coming down next week for painting.

While at the station today, one of the listeners, an older lady, called to request a song for Request and Dedication. Then she spent several minutes telling me how much she loves the HRGS Update. She said she just enjoys hearing us chat among ourselves about what the Lord is doing and what we’re up to here at the station. She also told me she loves Sunrise Serenade. I really should be able to figure out her name from her voice by now, but you know how voices can often sound alike on the phone, especially when it’s a scratchy connection. When she asks if I know who it is and I ponder it a while before giving up, she laughs and says, “Mr. Jerry, I’d think you’d know it by now.” If I ever do get it squared away in my head, I may just pretend that I still don’t know for a while, just to pull her chain a little bit because she seems to enjoy the game.

So, while I rest some more, I’ll let you listen to this week’s audio update. I finally got it today and it has some news that, for us at least, is pretty significant. Please pray for Mildred’s and my complete recovery and for a safe journey tomorrow for the Mitten family. You’ll have to listen to the Update to learn more about that last part.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:43 — 14.7MB)

Filed Under: Audio, Blog, Daily Life, podcasts
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