Geodnet | A challenging GPS antenna install

GPS antenna installed on top of a roof
~ Andrea ~ Leave a comment

In December 2023 I installed a GPS antenna at a new site which is somewhat distant from where I live and, as I discovered in the following months, it has has some peculiarities which are negatively influencing the performance of the antenna.

At this link a quick video which allows you to understand the site situation.

This article describes all the steps that I have undertaken with the aim of improving the performance of the antenna, the results and the conclusions.

Since its first installation the antenna token reward rate was below my expectations. The green curve represented in the graph below represents the token reward rate which is directly bound to the performance of the antenna.

My expectation was to be completely flat curve showing a 100% token reward rate all the time since the antenna is located on the roof of a quite tall building.

The first attempt: go even higher

The first thoughts were related to the crane which you see in the background of the picture above. Maybe it was reflecting the GPS signal while moving. Or maybe it was a rather tall tree which is nearby. I knew that I could not overcome the presence of the crane but I could try to minimize the effect of the tree. Therefore I decided to install the antenna on a mast. Before proceeding I asked help to support and they suggested that I should position the antenna higher by a few centimeters. I went overkill and ordered a telescopic mast which would get 3 meters high.

The GPS antenna installed on the new mast

Once the installation was completed I started to monitor constantly the token reward rate curve as I was hoping to see the desired improvements. This was the first time that I realized that something in the graph was not exact: the curve token reward rate showed a deep fall in performance and this was expected, because during the works the antenna had to be moved around. What struck me was that the loss in performance in the graph had been registered rather late at night, between 21:00 and 22:00. At that time the electrician for sure was not working on the roof

After some weeks I had to realize that the antenna was performing slightly worse than before. The mystery was becoming even more mysterious. How was it possible that having installed the antenna on a much higher position I would get the same or even worse results?

The token reward rate (green curve) showed greater instability.

The wind

It was until one night during which a strong wind invested the whole region that I realized that I might have missed an aspect: I had never taken into consideration that the antenna might be moving with the wind and the fact that the token reward rate worsened during the storm was for me proof enough that all of my issues were caused by the wind. 😀

Soon enough I had some guy wires installed.

I had a lot of discussions with friends, electricians and with myself about the new setup. Were the guy wires pulling enough to avoid the mast to swing back and forth during windy days? Or did I need more weight as the ones I had the guy wires anchored to were too light (15Kg each)? I would have loved to anchor the guy wires in the floor but I had been strongly advised against it as the insulation would not be water tight anymore.

Once again by looking at the graph I could not find the answers I was looking for: the token reward rate seemed to show some improvement but after some time, the drops started to increase in depth and frequency. Moreover also the Rolling Reward Rate (RRR) decreased from 98.2% down to 94.4%.

There was also the suspicion that the antenna cable which I had left tight rolled in the box together with the miner could cause some signal loss. Since I had all those questions open it was evident that another intervention was needed, which I scheduled during one of the first possible free days. The objective was to further stabilize the installation by using a better weight distribution at the base, use a thicker mast (50 mm diameter) and distribute the antenna cable on the roof.

Here below some of the pictures I collected while doing renewing the install.

The antenna with 2 arms on the sides
The base is now much heavier
Beautiful insertion for the antenna
Antenna cable is now extended and running under the stones
Miner is now bound to the box and in general tidier

The mountains

Now it is already a few days that I have completed the last improvement and the graph looks like this:

Apparently starting at 09:00 of the 26/04/2024 the number of satellites was high enough to ensure a stable performance until 21:00. After that the signal started to bounce again for the whole night until 09:00 of the next day, time when the signal started to improve again.

So even after the third intervention I still was not able to reach the maximum performance and stability. At this point, having tried everything, only one thing was left for me to do: accept the fact that the location is not that good and that the mountains being so tall and near are covering some of the satellites.

Missing an analytical tool

By constantly watching the graph I realized that some of the events which happen on the antenna are either delayed or not tracked at all. During the 26th of April for example I was able to monitor the token reward rate and witness a drop from 30 to 27 satellites which I could not find on the graph later. The fact that the graph is rendered with a few hours of delay does not help troubleshooting, because if you change something to the installation you will get the results a few hours later. But even worse is the fact that since I could not see the drop in the performance which I had witnessed I started to wonder which data the graph is recording and/or if it is discarding some data. This is the reason why I started to wish for a detailed report which showing the number of effective satellites connected to the antenna every 15 seconds.

Lessons learned

Site check

In order to avoid all the trouble I went through it is very important that the choice of the location is attentively made. Go to the spot in person and check the following:

  1. Presence of mountains nearby
  2. Presence of trees nearby
  3. Use the mobile app for android GNSS view and use it to verify if there are objects/buildings which cover satellites
  4. Take pictures/videos while being right on top of the antenna position as well as from away: this way you may print the picture and measure with the help of a protractor if possible objects could interfere with the antenna sight or not
  5. Ask/check for wifi availability and/or for mobile coverage
  6. Ask/check for wind behaviour
  7. Verify possible fastening points

Analysis of previous months

Trying to understand the behavior of the antenna by looking at past performance it is not that useful as satellites keep moving as GNSS satellites are not geostationary. Furthermore the number of effective satellites is influenced by space weather as well, it makes no sense trying to understand what has happened in previous months. For this reason it is even more important that the location you choose allows you to have more than the bare minimum of 30 satellites in order to have some buffer in case the effective number of satellites drops. Having more than what is strictly required will allow you to keep a good performance 24/7.

Cranes

Cranes do not impact the satellite number. This was confirmed to me by some users on Discord as well.

Geodnet: description and requirements

~ Andrea ~ Leave a comment

Brief description

The aim of Geodnet is to make high precision GPS signal available for everyone at really competitive prices. As per today the technology to have 1 cm precise signal is already available, but it is expensive and in some cases not very convenient to deploy.

Geodnet and its community are working towards making high precision positioning available at very competitive pricing and convenient to use. In order to do that Geodnet needs to have at least one antenna every 25 km. A second antenna, at least 100 meter distant from the first one, is useful as backup in case the first one goes offline: more than two antennas are redundant.

If you would like to double check if the area you live still requires an antenna you may double check this map.

Requirements

In order to make the miner work you will need:

  1. Location with a clear view of the sky at 360°
  2. A stable 2.4 Ghz wifi connection
  3. A stable internet connection
  4. Electrical power
  5. A smart socket

Location

Geodnet has shared a few indications on how you should proceed in order to achieve an optimal installation. Please remember that everyone should try to get the best possible installation as it is of paramount importance that the quality of the data that we create and share is near to perfection. Otherwise the project is not useful for the end user.

The antenna should have a clear view of the sky in all directions around it. Please find here below some infographics which I have taken from the Geodnet Discord channel.

This picture shows that the antenna needs a clear view of the sky. It has 10 degrees of tolerance.
This pictures shows an example of a bad installation. The antenna is surrounded by tall buildings and trees which stop the signal coming from the satellites. Such an installation is to be avoided as it damages the project and its reputation.
The antenna circled in orange is a half way situation: there are tall buildings and trees around it but they are not totally covering the sight of the sky like in the previous example. The best situation is the second one highlighted by the green circle, where the antenna has no obstacles around it.

Before buying the antenna and miner I suggest to have an idea of good spot where to install it: even better would be to personally go to the site and verify the situation. Remember: you are looking for a position where the antenna will have a clear view of the sky. An application like GNSS View by NEC corporation (Android) may help you understanding the amount of satellites that your miner would be able to connect to: consider that in order to give a perfect service you miner will need to connect to at least 30 satellites at all times.

Stable networking

As stated above a stable internet connectivity is also mandatory: the miner does not require much bandwidth or speed, an ADSL with 25/2 mbits/s is more than enough to upload the data. More important is the fact that the internet connectivity should be stable.

The miner sadly does not dispose of ethernet connectivity: this is bad, because we know that wifi signal is not that reliable but at the same time it is good because you do not need to pull an dedicated ethernet cable for it to work. You just need a stable wifi network working on the 2.4 Ghz frequency. 5 Ghz is not supported.

The amount of data uploaded is estimated at 15 GB per month. But this is a scenario that I have never seen on my install which sends 5GB worth of data every month. 15GB/month is the figure which is shared by Geodnet considering a triple band miner, most probably to be considered the “worst case scenario”.

Electrical power

In order to work the miner needs electricity around 1 Kwh/month. On such topic I might suggest you buy a stable power supply. It does not need to be particularly powerful, 3A on the 5V are more than enough.

I suggest you buy also a smart socket: every now and then it might happen that the miner needs to be turned off and on again. If this is the case, having a smart socket that you can manage remotely from your phone is very convenient.

La Grande Rastrellata – Second edition

~ Andrea ~ 2 Comments

We did it! On Saturday, the second edition of the “Grande Rastrellata” took place and it was a success! Ian and Oli were the first to show up, soon followed by Emanuele, Renzo, Jacopo, Gianmarco, Alessandro and even Nicola and Paula took part to the action!

Compared to the 2019 edition this year we had a huge improvement: Renzo found a pick up to transport the leaves to the Ecocentro. With such a vehicle our productivity sky rocketed! As per our estimates we were able fill and transport 45 huge orange bags! The keeper of the Ecocentro was kind of shocked and suspicious about such a great quantity of leaves.

First load complete! In the picture almost the whole team in front of the fully loaded pickup!

The weather was spectacular: a beautiful sun and a really nice temperature were our companions for the whole day and contributed substancially to the good mood and success of the day. Have a look at the sky at 07:30 in the morning!

A really beautiful sky early in the morning. Very soft clouds moving in the blue, while the rising sun gives some pink color… Good morning and a good start in the day!

If I may add a little (worried) side note, the weather was even too nice and warm for this period of the year. Apparently the temperatures were so high that broke all the records since the beginning of measurements.

Anyhow as soon as anyone arrived they received a nice pair of working gloves, a rake and their very own piece of forest to clean up. Some worked in pairs others preferred to choose the lone wolf path. Everyone was raking and trying to optimise the collecting process, which between the two, is the most energy demanding.

  • When a rack is not enough…
  • … get a chainsaw! 🙂
  • No comment on that one! 😀

Soon enough it was time to prepare the grill: Gianmarco took control of it and grilled for all of us. With the support of Enza, Natascia and Benedetta who prepared all the rest, the lunch was great. Especially the chocolate cake left a delicious memory to all of us.

The grill and its Master had a huge success! Thank you!

While waiting for the food to be ready we even had some time to practice with some pictures from the top of the sky!

Waiting for lunch to be ready!
The city of Lugano seen from above!

The whole day was great and I loved it: there was a lot of work to be done, still everyone was highly motivated and energetic! And the more we racked the ground the more we got excited!

There were those moments were everyone was so concentrated in raking and collecting leaves, following their own path and thoughts, that you would not hear anything else beside the noise of the rakes scratching the ground. In those moments I liked to stop, catch some breath and shout out the name of anyone, just to bring everyone back to our dimension… 🙂 … jokes aside I am quite convinced that raking, similarly to many cleaning activities, brings you to think and at the same time relaxes you.

Oli was one who got mostly deep into the woods and as a consequence he disappeared for a while. He was one I called out and I do have this picture of his in my mind: Oli getting out of the woods, with his huge orange bag on his shoulders bouncing up and down, with a huge smile of satisfaction for his big cargo! A superhero! 😀 It was impossible to not to joke about him!

But it is thanks to him if I have this beautiful picture to share with all of you:

Or what about this one? Is someone hiding behind a rake?!

It was a beutiful day, I had a lot of fun and it was great to have many of our friends with us for a little longer than usual: a nice moment to catch up on each other lives!

I am really looking forward for the next Grande Rastrellata! Leaves will be waiting, for sure! 😀 Thanks to all of you and until next year!

Noise detective: episode four

Skoda Octavia GTEC engine opened
~ Andrea ~ 2 Comments

For the first time since long, today I was excited of having a one hour drive before getting to work! 🙂 Like a kid with a new toy I was looking forward to driving and having some time to listen to the new noises of the car. For the moment being there is one, which is really, really interesting. Everytime you switch the ignition on, before the engine starts, you hear a metallic “chunk” coming from the back. I believe it might be something to do with the valve of the gas bottles which activates. Aha. I like it.

But now I will stop playing with you guys and post at least one more picture. I actually have done like a ton of pictures but either the reflections or the light conditions made my pictures look bad. While selecting them I almost decided to go back to a real camera and take some decent shots. Truth is that even with phones, if you know how to take pictures, you get amazing results. I need to improve on that.

Maple brown Skoda Octavia (2019).
La Terrona

By continuing the nickname game that we started with La Celestona, its older sister, we decided to baptise the new car La Terrona, which I could translate to “The big earth”. We had laugh when we came up with it…

Driving it is really relaxing. First of all no more noisy differential as main companion. The automatic gearbox lets you forget about the existence of your left leg. Activate the automatic control of the speed and you may as well switch off your head for the next hours. Needless to say, knowing that you are not producing that life threathening particulate while driving makes you feel really light. Finally!

The first thing I have noticed is that while driving down hill, shifting to lower gears does not brake the car by much. I was told that it depends on the compression ratio of the engine, which is different from diesel (my older Octavia) to fuel engines.

You do feel the difference between the two engines: 150 HP of the previous car were definitely more satisfactory during overtakes. With the current 130 HP I have no problems driving in the city, accelerating to get on the motorway… before starting an overtake though, I believe I will now double check if I have time/room enough to perform it.

And range. Range is what keeps my breath hanging as for the moment being the statistics have not enough data to work on and are showing numbers which are not real, in this case, way lower than what it should be. But I believe it might depend also on the quality of the natural gas (now defined as 70% by the on board computer). We will see when I get high quality gas and some more km how the range changes. I am expecting of having at least 400 km range while running on natural gas and 200 km more while running on fuel. We will see if it reaches that high values in the next episodes.

Have a good week everyone, enjoy your holidays… if you have time, go hunting for some noises, ahah! 🙂 I should try to record that misterious, initial “chunk”…

Noise detective: episode three

~ Andrea ~ Leave a comment

First of all, did you miss the first two episodes? Catch up by clicking on the following two links: Episode one and Episode two. And now let’s get to it.

The new car has arrived…

I believe that if you did read the two previous episodes you will be a tad surprised to know that the new car has already arrived! In fact by reading the last episode (number two) I had not even decided if I should buy a new one or risk it all by staying with the noisy differential.

If those are your thoughts than, yes, you are right and I beg your pardon. Before buying it I did have a test drive, I even took some pictures of the display showing consumption and some other data. I even took some notes about the selling process, which in my modest opinion needs to be revisited at least in Switzerland. But I was not able to write about it: so this why you get the big news out of the blue. 🙂

… and with it a new adventure starts!

It will be a new adventure. Lasting, I hope, at least 200’000 kilometers. I call it an adventure as the car I have invested in uses natural gas as fuel: in Switzerland this kind of fuel is not distributed as diffusely as gasoline or diesel, in fact it is quite the opposite. As one friend told me I will be one of the few to buy such a car. Other friends firmly advised me to avoid such an investment. We will see. Together.

As you might remember my last car was a Skoda Octavia 4×4 2.0 liters, 150 HP: when I bought it 5 years ago I had two options. Either go for gasoline or diesel: given the fact that I cover long distances each the year I decided that diesel was the best solution, from both point of views, economical and ecological.

During the last five years some things have happened that made me regret my choice:

  1. A quick chat with a friend of ours about the size of particles
  2. The VW scandal and the brainwash
  3. “Il metanaro”

Let’s have a quick chat about those events.

Particle size

Being the car classified as Euro 6 I was convinced that the particulate issue was solved for good. This belief lasted until I discovered that the solutions which are used to decrease the amount of exhausted particles work by further decreasing the size of the particles. This tecnique allows the car to successfully pass the tests but creates particles which are capable of penetrating even deeper into the respiratory system, being even more dangerous than the original particulate.

From that day on a disturbing feeling started to grow in myself. And I believe this was one of the most important drivers which pushed me to such a radical change.

The VW scandal

Luckily my car was not directly affected by the diesel gate: I did not need to have it modified in any way. Still I was very disappointed by the company and by the people running it: apparently the most important thing to them, was to be the first car company in the world. As if, being the second one, is not enough. Of course, being the first company in the world it is huge. But at what cost?

Nevertheless I believe that I did not change my mind about the quality of the cars: even my new car is a product of the VW group.

On the other hand I am quite sure that the brainwashing which started as a result of the VW scandal had an influence on my considerations during the choice. By the way… did you ever wonder if what is now common belief (“diesel is the worst fuel ever”) is the truth? This is why I am calling it a brainwash… I am pretty sure that all us are getting manipulated/brainwashed to believe something. Could be a very nice topic for a further blog post, in the like of:

How to tell if we are getting brainwashed. How can we reach the most non biased opionion about important topics without being an expert in everything.

I believe I will need someone else to write it for me as I have no idea which could be good advices in order to achieve that.

Il metanaro

Il metanaro is an italian popular way of calling either the person filling your car with natural gas or to identify the whole filling station.

One lucky day it happened that I discovered that a new “metanaro” had opened very near to my office: this had a huge impact on my choice because it makes my day by day so much easier…

Mixed feelings

Enough with the “rationalities”… since I have ordered the car almost six weeks ago I have got mixed feelings. From one side I feel a little disappointed, as I did not manage to win my 500’000 km joke/bet (see previous episodes for details). Even a little melancholic as I liked very much the car and its almost unique colour, which today is not available anymore. It was because of it that my uncle gave the car the nickname of Celestona, which I could (mis)translate in The big sky blue. And it was my and my family companion for many years and we did many trips with it, so we started to treat it a little as of a member of the family.

Picture depicts a sky blue Skoda Octavia (2014).
A very long Skoda Octavia in a beautiful colour.

On the other hand I am really happy and relieved: the new car will have an automatic transmission, will be definitely cleaner and cheaper to run. And I also do feel a little excited to try something new: as natural gas distributor are not so common to be found, longer trips need to be planned with some anticipation.

Just noticed that I did not share any details about the new car… and no pictures either. But after all the information shared, do you really need further details? Maybe in the next episode…

Once in Aegina…

This picture shows one of the narrow passages we encountered during our walk on the way to Alones.
~ Andrea ~ 1 Comment

Move Naturally

The next day of our arrival the very first thing I did was to join Tom during his 45 minutes of Move Naturally: I was really curious to understand what his “MoveNat” is all about.

The principal idea that Tom transferred to me is that human beings were not designed to sit the whole day: very much on the contrary, they were designed to move, run, jump, reach for food from trees, to climb… and of course, how could I forget about it, to crawl. During the training you are encouraged to perform such movements and more in general to find the most efficient way to perform the aforementioned actions. For example, which is the quickest and least energy consuming to get up starting from a lying position? Find out! 🙂

During the 45 minutes of natural movement we were not trying to pump our muscles up, instead we were trying to perform pretty basic movements which require coordination and balance. Trying to balance yourself is one of those activities that actually activate a lot of small muscles that we are not aware of, and that, very often, are not activated while doing repetitions of the same exercise.

Use your body… nothing else!

There is one side which I find particularly interesting and that is that no further elements beside your body are required in order to exercise. You do not need to invest in any kind of training gear. Maybe an exercise mat, should you not already have one. For the same reason I started to look into calisthenics some months ago. One disadvantage of training with your own body weight is the fact, that at the beginning you are not strong enough in order to perform the more interesting exercises of calisthenics. At least that was my case. Even now, after some months of training already, pull ups are a very difficult exercise. And pulls ups, push ups, planks, … I believe are just the basics.

If I think of me, I believe I am stuck at performing the basics exercises. The reason behind it is the fact that I am approaching some exercises that I have never done before: without someone helping to understand if you are strong enough or teaching you how to perform the correct technique I found myself giving up soon and falling back to the more common exercise.

Training by yourself needs a lot of self discipline and the aim should be absolutely clear. And both of those are lacking in my case. 😀 It still is true that, even if not the best solution, what me and some of my friends are doing is helping a lot and I am definitely very happy with it. Without our training sessions I would be so much worse in terms of physical shape (and psychological as well I believe).

How do you feel after a 45 min session?

Together with me there was Alessandro, Johanna, Sibille, Rudolf and of course Thomas who was the team leader, showing us which exercises to perform. It was a nice group, with different ages and everyone could join as the exercises were not demanding (of course they can be if you want to). Once the training was finished I was nicely warmed up, you could feel that you had been moving without being “destroyed” as it happened during the first time that I went to the fitness studio.

Of course I should try for a longer period of time and possibly with a trainer in order to have a better idea of the whole concept, still it seemed to me fun and an intelligent way of getting fit.

The “one hour” walk

After such a nice “warm up” we were ready for the “one hour walk”, as my father described it, which would take us to Alones and to our first greek meal.

The so called “one hour” walk started from Lazarides: the street, very easy to be made on foot even if not tarmacked, takes you through green meadows which are broken by clouds of yellow, white and red flowers. It is impressive how many flowers are to be seen, mostly when you know Greece mainly by the summer time, where everything is just yellow gold as in the hot season it does not rain anymore.

A cloud of yellow flowers…

After one hour of walking there was still no sign of the restaurant, nor of some kind of civilisation. If you were to stay still you would have heard only bees buzzing, birds chirping all over… which is beautiful. Still slowly, slowly we started to be hungry and Jacopo, who had slept quite a while in his stroller, was awake and started to feel annoyed.

After more than two hours of walking we finally reached the Kostas Taverna. It was definitely worth the walk and we enjoyed the lunch so much more… 🙂

One of the beautiful things about greek tavernas is that when you arrive, whatever time of the day it is, whatever the size of the group is, you will always receive to eat quality food. Maybe you have to wait some more, and making the order is quite difficult as nobody knows what is what and who wants what, but in the end you always manage to get something fine to eat. 🙂

Once we finished our launch it was already quite late in the afternoon, most of us were tired and the weather was not promising to get any better, thus we preferred to go back home and chill. 🙂 That’s how nice it is to be on holiday!

Reaching Aegina

~ Andrea ~ Leave a comment

Closed the boot, closed the doors, started the engine. With some relief we were sitting in our Celestona, ready to travel to Greece. Relieved because, finally, we were in our car, having packed and loaded everything after having discussed for so long what to take and what no to, having planned well ahead which days to take off from work, which and how many toys take with us… we made it! We were ready to go!

Already the fact of being ready and loaded made us feel as if we already had achieved something. In the truth we had not left the house yet. Awkward. The way to Aegina, a Greek island, was still long.

We managed to reach the airport on time. Even if more expensive and not that shorter, I decided to use the motorway called Pedemontana. It is expensive and the so called free flow payment system easily induces you to forget the payment: it has the advantage that there are almost no cars, therefore the risk of missing the plane because of traffic or an accident is minimal. Just remember that once used, you have 14 days to pay the toll: link. In my opinion it is very easy to forget to pay as, while you are driving to the airport, you are worried about catching the plane; when you come back, you are worried about starting to work again and get ready for the week ahead. It is true though, that after you get the first tickets for not paying you will make everything in order to remember the payment: it is my personal experience writing here! I really wonder how tourist can manage to pay such a motorway, since indications on how it works are very scarce and not always written in English. So, tourist of the world, if you ever happen to use the Pedemontana, remember that in order to avoid expensive fines being sent home, you have to pay online.

Once at the airport I just a harsh exchange of opinions with one of the employees at the security check, as in my opinion she was not paying attention to what was happening under her watch and I could not keep my mouth shut. This cost me a second passage through the security check but nothing else. I mean… if you make me prepare for a check which involves standing patiently in queue waiting for my turn, then I also want to be checked! Not that you keep talking with your colleagues about yesterday’s game of thrones episode turning your back on me and possibly letting me go without considering me. The security employee reacted at my loud sentence Tanto qui nessuno mi controlla meaning Anyhow, here nobody checks on me, turned back on me, made some acid comments and made me have a second security check. With that I had my daily shot of adrenaline.

The plane was kind of boring for Jacopo. It took about 2.5 hours, which is a duration that with some playing (toys needed), some eating and some patience from the other passengers, can be managed.

Once in Athens we met Fox and Florin, who kindly picked us up. Together with Fox we jumped on the first ferry off to Aegina: it was really nice to see Jacopo play with Fox an experienced paediatrician. Beautiful to see how Jacopo could smile and play with a totally new person.

Weather was quite cold as we got there and being on the ferry it was even more windy. Still I could not refrain from taking Jacopo outside to show him the sea and the ships waiting outside the port of Piraeus. And for once I looked at those ships with different eyes, I looked at them thinking about their role in the whole logistic chain. Suddenly some of the topics I covered during my recent studies were real: by looking at containers with Chinese writing on them I thought… Yeah, this is where your amazon stuff comes from.

I do not like Amazon. Great service, huge inventory. I believe it has grown in something way too big and way too powerful, for us human beings. 🙂 In my opinion we are not capable of managing such huge changes without exaggerating… but I will not deepen this discussion in this post, I will just leave it here more as a note for a future post than anything else.

Finally, I could see through the windows of the ship, the column of Apollo. After a whole day of travelling we were arriving to Aegina. We were both looking forward to getting on the island as already two years had passed since last time.

Quickly enough, after having left the ship as a huge herd of sheep finding our way among cars and mopeds, we were on the pier meeting my father and ready for the last piece of the trip: getting home and start unpacking. 🙂

During this holiday I have been really poor at taking pictures, so I believe this time, you will have to deal with lots of words… and imagine a bit more! Enjoy! 😀

Being pushed while sitting on the trolley is definitely fun! 🙂

La Grande Rastrellata

~ Andrea ~ Leave a comment

The idea came to my mind for the first time a few years ago. Although not difficult to realise it took me some courage to make it happen, but then… I decided to do it and soon enough I was getting in touch with Oli, Marco, Ema, Ian, Silvio, Gianmarco as I wanted to know if they where “in” for some work together!

This time, the invite was somewhat different from the standard lunch invitation: although the aim of the event was to spend some time together I asked my friends to take working gloves and a rack as the plan was to clean the near woodland by removing some of the leaves that had fallen during fall.

And this we did! On the 09th of March at 09:00 o’clock Marco was at my door with all the tools, gloves, huge orange plastic bags and with professional gardening clothes ready to start La Grande Rastrellata!

Soon the rest of the group showed up and the rhythmic sound of the racks hitting the ground made good company to the birds announcing the first days of spring. Everyone besides Giammarco, who had an accident the day before and could not stand properly.

We decided that it would be best to start from the most deep part of the woodland and then slowly come back to the entry point while the we removed the leaves.

Marco was ultra determined and soon he was so deep into the forest that we could not see him anymore, even with his orange and yellow professional clothes. We would know that he was around only because of the noise of his furious rack. 🙂

The other working unit was made by Oli and Ema: less aggressive than Marco they preferred to chit chat while working…

Meanwhile I was struggling to keep the pace of Ian who, to my great joy, was leaving all over the place small piles of leaves which I was putting into one of the numerous orange bags. Once finished of transferring one of the piles which Ian had energetically prepared I would look around looking for some satisfaction: every time I would stop I realised that there was still so much more to do that I stopped looking around searching for satisfaction. 😀 Instead I would shout to Ian to help me picking up the leaves, instead of concentrating on the “easy” work of racking them together! 😀

I even tried to develop a personal technique to avoid flexing so much, here some pictures:

Even if all of us try to do some sport during the week, after 01:30 hours we were ready for a coffee break. The first signs of fatigue were there, but in general ,the happiness of being outdoor doing a physical job was prevailing.

Everyone was really thankful to my wife for the coffee, water and biscuits which disappeared, really, really quickly! I guess Ian was the culprit there…

After the short break we started working again. I even involved my father, who luckily was there, by asking him to prepare the grill and start grilling. I knew that everyone was concentrated in getting its own piece of woodland cleared, but I also was aware that as soon as everyone would have finished, they would discover of being hungry as wolves.

Around 13:00 we decided to stop. There still were a lot of leaves on the ground, but we already had filled all the bags we had. This also considering that Renzo had already taken and emptied some of the bags at the ecocenter.

Since we did not have any empty bag to use, we joined the rest of the family for lunch: we started with some grilled bread covered with tomato, oil and oregano (bruschette) which was amazing.

The picture represent multiple orange plastic bags filled with leaves at the end of our gardening work.
Some of the bags we filled with leaves.

After the grilling and the lunch some of us had to leave while Oli had some more time to help me transport the big orange bags to the ecocenter. The Skoda Octavia proved itself once more: by keeping down the back seats we managed to fit four of those bags. Actually there was even more room left, most probably two more bags could have fit. I did not want to soil or scratch the interiors, therefore we decided to stay conservative: a good choice for the car, less for the whole logistic process: the ecocenter closed its doors on our nose when we were ready to drop the last two bags. Damn. Oli will never forget the frustration of not managing to 100% complete the job. 😀

Even with that small hiccup we were all happy about the day. A good change from the daily office routine. It is incredible how such an easy job as collecting leaves can have such a great impact on your mood. Of course with a group of good friends everything makes more fun!

A huge thank you for the effort and for the good mood you brought which made the whole day rock!… and as it was such a success… til next year! 🙂

Noise detective: episode two

The image displays the speedometer of a Skoda Octavia, showing the yellow icon of the engine, indicating the presence of some issues.
~ Andrea ~ 1 Comment

Finally I found some time to write down the second episode! For those who wish to read the first one, here the link

How much to repair?

I have been waiting some news from my usual retailer regarding the cost of repairing the differential. During the second half of January I finally received the “official” answer: the price of the differential is of about 5’000 CHF. To the already high cost of the mechanical part I should add the work needed to make the repair: the total amount goes up to 6’300 CHF.

In the meantime the noise did not change. Sometimes, mostly when I leave the car rolling, it changes tonality and seems to be louder. Funny enough, if I drive faster than 100 Km/h, maybe around 130 Km/h, the noise fades almost completely.

TCS: a neutral point of view

Given the high cost of the repair I thought it would be a good idea to have the Swiss Touring Club (TCS) double check if the noise was really coming from the differential. Past Saturday I took the car to their workshop and after some routine checks we put the car on the auto lift: I stayed in the car and once it was high enough for the mechanic to stand below it, I started accelerating as agreed with him. It was quite strange to be “in the air” giving gas and changing gears. Around 100 Km/h the noise is the loudest and once I reached that speed I told the mechanic to start listening: he went below the car and with help of the stethoscope he was able to recognise the noise and to define that the noise was coming from the right end of the differential.

It was really helpful having a neutral point of view. And of course, although I would have preferred that the answer was something different, possibly less expensive, I am now happy to have the source of the noise confirmed. The whole operation, being member of the TCS, cost me 50 CHF.

Worth speculating?

Every mechanic I speak to tells me that it is very unusual for a differential to brake down. This led me to play with the thought, that maybe it was just a dose of bad luck and that actually, although an expensive repair I might have luck for the next years to come. Spending 6’300 CHF is still way less than 40’000 CHF for a new car. And as the car itself is still looking absolutely good I am kind of recalcitrant to change it. Also, as I use the car to go to work, reaching almost 35’000 Km per year, I do not want to invest in a new one. Ideally today’s car would be awesome.

But… a few days later, I got proof that my thinking was too optimistic: the emission control light turned on. Of course this happened the day before leaving for a business trip of about 4 hours drive. I decided to swap car and use one which the company has at disposal for such events.

This is the symbol of the emission control.

Once back from the trip I took the car to the mechanic: in 30 min time he was able to tell me that the issue is most probably related to a fan not working properly in the exhaust vent. Nothing to worry about. Still, in case it would turn on again I should consider changing the exhaust vent, with and estimated cost of about 1’300 CHF. I drove to work hoping not to see the light anymore.

But there it was! In the evening, as I started the car to drive back home the yellow warning light was staring at me, with a rather static expression! Oh well… between the noise in the back and the yellow light in the front, for sure I was not feeling alone!

Now what?

Given the value of the car which is around 10’000 CHF everyone is suggesting to leave the car as it is and to buy a new one and I am seriously taking into consideration that option. I believe that all in all I am going to stay with the same model of car as love the roomy interiors and the big trunk, but I am seriously considering to change from diesel to the natural gas engine. 2019 version is a 1.5 L with 130 HP which should be enough for my driving style. In a few weeks I should have the possibility for a test drive: I guess it will be the topic for our next episode?! 😉

Wintery pictures of Comano

~ Andrea ~ 1 Comment

I have been waiting for it for almost the whole winter and finally, after being long anticipated, the snow arrived. And in large quantities, too! That day and that night were beautiful. I took the chance to have a little walk and take some pictures.

Please have a look at the gallery below. If you click on the images you can have them bigger and read some descriptions I have added.

Modern house covered with snow
Snow covered trees
The picture shows the street which was recently cleaned by the snowplough.
The picture shows green trees and surrounding terrain covered with snow.
Houses, trees and street covered with snow.
A street into the woods, everything covered with snow.
Trees covered by snow. The picture was taken during night time.
Dramatic view of the garden
Garden with pool and umbrella: everything covered by snow. Night time picture.
Pines, olive trees and palms covered by heavy snow. Picture taken during night time.

Fortunately the snow stopped later at night: that way we all had our moment of happiness without getting into troubles. I had to invest some hours to move the snow from our parking lot and I was really happy of having two snow shovels ready to use.

How to remove snow?

A more practical note: I have been applying salt on those ways which I wanted to stay clean from the snow but it did not help. Salt should be used only to avoid the snow, water from getting ice. From this year experience I have learned that applying salt, before the snow arrives, does not avoids it from sticking on to the ground. Next time I should:

  • Wait for the snowing to stop
  • Remove the snow
  • Spread salt

In my opinion it makes sense to remove the snow even if it has not stopped yet from snowing: this because if you remove a little every now and then it is easier on your body. Also if you move the snow immediately it is much easier to remove as it is not iced yet.

I really enjoyed my walk through the woods and I am sure that I will love looking at this pictures once in while. 🙂