The Beenong Tango

It's easy to do the Beenong Tango: Two steps forward, One step back.

I visited the house on Friday morning ready to try out the "router" and discovered that the phone was not working with the same syndrome as before: no dial tone, no voltage on the line.  I telephoned Bruce, the technician who had gotten the system working again two days earlier, and he advised me to put in another service call.

So I telephoned Exetel, explained the situation, and they reopened the call.  A technician will attend to the problem before close of business on Monday the 18th.  I made it clear that the NBP which defines the limit of responsibility of Telstra is inside of the house at the first telephone jack.  The technician noted that but nevertheless told me that I would not have to be at the house when the technician made his visit.

A second setback came when Stephen fiddled around with my ADSL "router" on Friday night and discovered that is only a modem and not a wireless router.  I got fooled because the modem had been shipped to me in a 624W 4-port router box and I distinctly remember having wireless routing capability before I departed on my circumnavigation.  We figure that somewhere in the garage is a wireless router that I attached to the modem.

However, that is a moot point because I've agreed with Stephen's opinion that technology has changed so much in the last 5 years that it would be best for me to get a new mode/router.  After doing some snooping on the internet we've set our sight on an Asus DSL-N55U, with dual CPU's (one dedicated to the modem, one to the router), a choice of two wireless frequencies, IPV6 ready, three separate antennas yielding excellent range, and other good features.

Stephen has prepared my 621 modem for use when the telephone line is ready, and I'll use that to exercise and evaluate the system before ordering new equipment.

On the landscaping front, I was told on Saturday that no more burning permits will be issued this year, presumably because conditions have become too hot, dry, and dangerous.  It didn't matter because after driving hard with the burning during the past few weeks there were only a few bits of vegetation remaining, and I'll dispose of them by other means.

So I focused on lawn mowing.  The Masport mower with the Briggs & Stratton 4-stroke engine quit running so I had to fall back on the 2-stroke Victa which did a fine job until the rubber spark plug lead fell apart.  Fortunately I made it to the shop just before closing time and I was able to pick up a new lead and a new spark plug for the Masport.  The Masport would not start up even with the new plug and thoroughly cleaned out air filter, but the Victa ran OK and I have completed about 2/3 of the mowing work on the property.  It hasn't been easy because there are new rocks everywhere from the work done both on my new septic system and the driveway of the school next door.  During the summer I will go over the property, gathering up all loose rocks and pieces of concrete in order to make future mowing work more easy.

Tomorrow (Mon the 18th) work begins on my new roof.  I used my Visa card to pay for the roofing material and large skip (dumpster) over the telephone.