Vakkotaur

Around 1:40 AM Saturday morning two Arschlocher in a red Subaru (as shown in video, which sadly did not get a plate number, damnit) broke the front passenger side window of my car. They ripped out a GPS, an XM receiver, and a control head for an Icom 2820 dual band transceiver - and some of the mounting hardware for some of that.

This was all about speed, and not about knowing what was useful or how. No power cords or antennas were taken, though the radio's microphone was out in the open. They ripped the control cable for the radio head unit out (other connectors simply pulled out, this one had a snap-tab like a phone or network cable.) The XM receiver is useless without its antenna - and a subscription which no longer is going to that radio anyway. The radio control head is utterly useless without the radio itself - which was left. Only the GPS might be of any use stand-alone, but not as effective as it could be with the antenna. Also, it's been years since that GPS was updated. That was on my list of things to do, but I'm glad I hadn't spent the money for that yet now.

The Arschlocher failed to take the mounting stalk for the GPS, but did take the part that goes on the stalk. They also took part of a phone mount, but not the stalk for it. The downside, beyond the damage and loss itself, is that the GPS did have 'home' set, so it could be used as guide. I'll simply say that precautions are being taken, should the Arschlocher get the idea to try to break into the house.

I'll be calling a glass place in town when they open this morning about replacing the window. A "Christmas present" I shouldn't need to have has been ordered to replace the satellite radio receiver. I don't yet know if I can even get a replacement Icom 2820 control head or cable for it. It looks like my phone will do as a GPS, once I work out a new mounting arrangement. I didn't do that before as offline navigation, while it uses good maps, has lousy navigation algorithms. However, since ATT upped the data limit to "Unless you're streaming (lots of) video, don't worry about it." I can use an on-line app that seems to get the navigation right for the addresses I care about most - and the phone comes with me, by default.

I have my doubt these Arschlocher will be caught, but I would dearly love to hear of them spending Christmas in jail. Or in the morgue if they happen to get some meth (I suspect that's what this is about in the end) cut with stuff too nasty to use as rat poison. That would be most satisfying.

Unloading the car in Cedar Rapids for ACRF I had the unpleasant discovery of an oil spill in the trunk. A spare bottle of oil leaked and the oil seeped into the trunk liner, stained a suitcase, a wooden folding chair and generally got things unpleasantly slick. The good part was that the one suitcase did its job and protected everything inside it and that the other suitcase was on top of the wooden folding chair and thus not affected. Also good is that the trunk liner did its job and nothing under it was coated with oil.

Since then I've been cleaning things up. The suitcase is still stained, but I have to really look for the discoloration. The chair seems to be no worse off than before. And the trunk liner is now de-oiled, though if it gets soaking wet it might lather up as I probably used an excess of detergent and the rinsing never seemed to quite finish.

I also now have a couple covered plastic tubs in the trunk to hold various things. Now any spill should be confined to one tub and finding things should be just a bit easier with less of a need to dig through everything. There's a bit more to do, but the major work has been done. I expect to have everything taken care of before I pack for Nodaway.

Jay got me an XM Skyfi2 receiver for Christmas and also the mobile mounting kit. As it was Winter in Minnesota and the garage is not heated, I put off installing the mobile kit until Spring. This Spring I eventually got it all set up and it worked fairly well. It did everything it was supposed to, with one annoying glitch.

Every once in a while, it would forget its settings. I'd start the car and the XM set would not turn on. When I turned it on, it was like it had just been authorized but not yet programmed. I tried to diagnose just when this amnesia would occur, just in case it was something within my control, but no pattern emerged.

I'd had enough of this. I read the warranty and had Jay call about the problem as the warranty required the purchaser be the one to make a claim. Three phone calls later he had a ticket number and a return authorized. We packed up the Skyfi2 today and it'll be mailed off Monday. In a couple weeks the replacement should arrive and hopefully I can program it once and be done.

I've gotten very used to having XM in the car, so I know I'll miss it. But I still have the AM-FM broadcast reciever, the mp3 player, and the tape deck, so I'm not exactly hurting for audio options.

Every once in a while, when I'd been doing something with the car and had accessories on but did not have the engine running I'd have trouble getting it started. This was a minor concern but as I have a good battery charger and a good drive would get things going right again it wasn't too big a deal.

There was certainly no problem with starting on my RCFM related travels, and the car did sit unused from Thursday night to Tuesday morning. But evidently the lower speed (in town) and shorter trips when I'm home aren't enough to keep things where they should be anymore. I parked the car early Friday afternoon and it sat until this morning.

I got in. I turned the key. The dash lights came on and the fan started. But the lights were dim and the fan was slow. Trying to start, nothing happened. Silence. The battery charger got put to use yet again. Despite being a bit late, I took the longer (and higher speed for longer time) route to work. At worst, I have jumper cables in the trunk. I think tonight will be a longer trip on I-90 to get things nicely charged up. And then I get to go battery shopping. I can probably get by on the current battery for a while, but I'll be better off taking care of it more on my terms than risk waiting for complete failure which is apt to occur at a far more inconvenient time and place.

Now that the weather has warmed up some, I went to install the XM set in the car Tuesday evening. I ran into a problem: there's no good place to put the XM radio in a Corolla, even with the various mounting options that came with the radio. After some frustration, I did the Googling that I probably should have done earlier. It looks like the best way to mount the radio is with a bracket made for cell phones. I ordered one yesterday and hopefully it will arrive no later than Saturday so I can install it this weekend. Watch it arrive Monday.

Last night I decided I could at least get things started and deal with antenna placement and some cable routing. That went rather well. Setting things up in a temporary manner, I was able to use the XM set (placed awkwardly in a cup holder, but at least it wasn't sliding around) and go for a drive to see how things were. Things were very well. The XM set had good reception and the re-transmission to an FM channel worked well.

Other than the mounting bracket, I still need to deal with how everything is powered (I had to disconnect my mp3 player to power the XM) but that shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Ideally, this will all get done before the Easter weekend when I'll be on the road for several hours. It will certainly get done before RCFM.

As jmaynard had to stop in at the License Bureau today I went along to ask about my license plates once again. Jay's issue was readily taken care of, or at least started off. Then I asked about my plates again. I got to explain what happened yet again as the Wednesday crew and the Tuesday crew seem to have zero overlap.

That might have been for the best. After I explained the situation, they checked their system and found that I had indeed applied for the renewal plates in September, but there wasn't a record of anything after that. That triggered a call to St. Paul to find out what was going on. From the sound of things, the paperwork had arrived in St. Paul but was still unprocessed. I was told that the person who took the call would be "walking it across the hall" to be taken care of as this delay has gone on quite long enough. Hopefully I get a new plate (or plates) in a week or two.

I can only wonder how W9SIO has fared. I hope he has had better luck than I have had so far.

The temperature dipped below 0 F last night and was still around 0 F when I left the house. The car started just fine, a bit to my surprise as the battery is still the original, manufactured sometime in 1996.

Another battery is a bit of a problem. The one in the remote control for the garage door opener was too cold to be effective, so I had to get out and push the button in the garage to deal with that. I had the same problem last year, and carried an extra remote control in a coat pocket so it'd stay fairly warm. I'm not sure a fresh battery would be any better than what's there now, but it might be time to find out. I think the range has been decreasing some, even when warm, but I'm not really sure of that, either.

This noon I stopped in at the local license bureau office to see about getting the license plate situation sorted out. When I showed the plates, the initial reaction was sort of disbelief, wondering how such a thing could happen. This was quickly followed by a concerned bewilderment of what to do. I explained that the while the stickers matched (each has a small number on it) the one plate had the callsign of a fellow in Moorhead. "Oh, you ran the plate already?" I explained that I could check a public database of amateur radio callsigns.

I was asked what sort of vehicle I drove as someone looked up the two plates. Both plates were photocopied. There was more puzzlement about what exactly to do. When another worker came into the office, I got the peculiar question, "Do you want to keep this one?" I explained it wasn't really mine and the callsign was issued to someone else.

Eventually:

* I wound up filling out some of the form for a new set of plates. They weren't sure how to fill all of it out, but would be taking car of that as they figured it out. I hope it works out right and that someone doesn't try to charge me the plate fee again for this.

* I was issued a new piece of paper to display in the rear window, allowing (another) sixty days of running without the exact right new plates.

* I was told to put the one valid plate, which was returned to me, on the rear of the car.

* I was told to remove the front plate, so there'd be no mismatch. (The paper supposedly will cover the absence of the front plate. Minnesota is not a rear plate only state.)

I fully expect to be answering questions from folks about the absence of a front plate. I also expect that among those folks will be a policeman or two. For that reason, I will be keeping the old plates in the car, just in case someone has an idea different from what I was told at the license bureau.

The '98 Corolla I bought in November of 1997 is now, of course, about eight years old and has over 100,000 miles on the odometer. In that first 100,000 miles I had the usual expenses: gasoline, oil changes, wipers, tires, brake work. All things that are routine or expected wear. In that time I also never even needed a jump start, though I had used the jumper cables several times to help others get their cars going. Besides the wipers, tires, brake pads/rotors, and filters everything solid was original.

( That has changed. )

Today on the drive back from lunch, the car's odometer turned 100,000 miles.