Thursday morning, May 5, 2022
Dear Listeners:
I am back in Petaluma closing out my 40 years of California Living in exchange for the Nevada desert. I'm on track for leaving on the 10th with Pepper and arriving at our new home by early afternoon on the 11th. Boxes are everywhere but Pepper's new space is ready and I will be with her until she gets used to the new lifestyle. I plan to walk her to some nearby "mountains" as the scenery is fantastic and just out my front door. If I can make a short video of the walk, I will do so and post it to the website in time for the next OL program.
Space Show engineer Tom and I got all the show problems and challenges taken care of (except Zoom capability) so we should be ready to go May 13. A note about the audio is worth mentioning. There are no land line phones in the LV area and ATT does not service that market. Besides that ATT is phasing out the true land line service so we will be using Cox digital lines. In testing them, the audio is much harsher than what I have been used to with analog lines but our test calls were sharp and clear. We will have to see how they work with listener and caller phone lines. By design there is no carpeting in this house so sound is harsher just because of that. Eventually I will dampen the sound in the studio room but getting out of boxes and organized will be the priority. Tom and I do have a backup plan if the Cox lines prove challenging or don't work out but for now I suspect they will be fine. As for Cox, so far I am not impressed but we can talk about that later on if anyone is interested in my opinion of them so far.
I am working to get MCI to redirect the toll free number to one of our new lines. This is always challenging because MCI does not make it clear which dept. deals with toll free and the number on their statement goes to residential which is not the toll free department. They shut down at 5 PM Eastern so for me it’s a narrow window to get in touch with them. I will try early each morning this week and next until I get the transfer done. I am optimistic that it will be resolved by the 13th.
I have been scheduling guests during this down time so check the upcoming show menu and website newsletter future events to see the list of who will be with what topic between now and early July. In fact there are now very few open dates between now and early July. While I have not talked with John Batchelor about the startup date due to my move, I suspect Hotel Mars will start again on Wednesday, May 18. I will update the Hotel Mars start date on the next regular newsletter.
A word about Zoom. To bring Zoom audio into our mix with the toll free line and such, it requires a different computer than the one running the show. While I have a laptop for that purpose, the newer laptops use a combined audio in and out plug. That simply does not work as we need separate audio in and audio out. There are adapter plugs to split these new input-output jacks but we ran out of time given the Cox challenges and both Tom's and my departure date. I will work on bringing Tom back out in the near future to set up Zoom but because we need to put Zoom into our mix, it’s a little different than just using Zoom on its own for the show. For me this is a high priority goal. I will keep you posted.
Once again I want to thank you for your patience during this Space Show downtime. I am anxious to get back on the air with all of you and to continue talking about space and our related space tech world. We have an Open Lines program scheduled for shortly after we resume broadcasting and I am looking forward to hearing from as many of you as possible on that program. Based upon the speed at which events are moving in our world, I suspect we will have lots to talk about.
My best to each and everyone of you and I do look forward to your participating in the Nevada Space Show program.
All the best and do keep looking up,
David (Dr.Space)
The Space Show
