Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - Aug 29 - Sky

Friday, August 29, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 77 degrees humid (100 %) wind 7 MPH and mostly cloudy (rain = 23 - DPSF = Drops Per square Foot) to 97 degrees and mostly cloudy 53% humidity with winds of 8 MPH.

Sunrise (before rain drops)

Vehicle coming and goings is still low here at the gate. Well Bonnie is off for a nap then when she gets up I will trip into Pleasanton for groceries.

Cell phone & air card signals are coming and going from 4 G to 1 X across Verizon and AT&T. We never know which will be stronger from hour to hour and sometimes I need to reboot the air card to obtain the signal again. We are in closer to the Tilden Verizon tower that came on line some time this year. We have had three gates within a fifteen mile radius of Tilden and this is the closest (in a straight line).

clouds in the east late afternoon

Southern Sunset

Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - Aug 28

Thursday, August 28, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 78 degrees humid (89%) wind 7 MPH and mostly sunny to 99 degrees and hazy sun 45 % humidity with winds of 14 MPH.

The weather “talkers” have been talking about a low with rain moving west in the Gulf of Mexico affecting our weather pattern, maybe even this area has a chance of getting some rain. So far today the wind gusts have been more than the past few days, enough so I felt it was best to close our table side awning while the eastern sky clouded up.

Tank Battery

Well that turned into nothing but our high temperature was lower and did not stay at the high for a long time today. A very slow day for vehicles, mostly tankers in and out, oil tankers hauling out crude oil ($) and water tankers hauling out water (expense).

Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - sensor

Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 75 degrees humid (91%) wind 5 MPH and hazy sun to 98 degrees and hazy sun 31% humidity with winds of 10 MPH.

Sensor opened up

Still getting some false alerts but the number and frequency is manageable for me. When the sun goes down I will change the range switch seeing if that will also lower the false alert number. All of these false alerts are from only one of two units. The red bock in the picture is where the white switches are located.

Sensor in place

I am getting a few more vehicles coming to this gate in error, another company some where here in the area is ramping up operations at a gate with drivers trolling for the correct location. None of these drivers ever return and give me the information for the location that was being hunted.

Taking this picture i hear the flame 

Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - Aug 26 - silence

Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 75 degrees humid (95%) and mostly sunny to 102 degrees and hazy sun 34% humidity with winds of 9 MPH.

The generator rental company came and replaced the generator today, they were supposed to come and replace the fuel hose and a ground fault receptacle yesterday. I called the generator company about five last night, listening to a small song and dance routine before he said they will be here in the morning to replace the generator.

Bonnie was up early for a trip exploring Tilden, TX getting her own look of the town.

I think I have finally found the key to the false alarms, the entry gate sensor was set to a sensitive setting. The are two switches inside for range and sensitivity. I was having trouble finding the manual on line, got it this afternoon and having a better life with almost no false alarms. There are still some false alarms but nothing like before. The false alarms seemed to happen as the heat of the day came on to high between eleven
and five was when the number of false alarms were unbelievable. This afternoon life was good, silence.

Tilden

I ventured out to Tilden. Got rid of  garbage. Stopped at the local market, grossly over priced spent under $5. That's a one time stop. Then the Big Mercantile store Prices more reasonable plus they have hot food to take out so brought home something for dinner/supper.
Hoping to go to Three Rivers, they at least have a Dollar General store.
Bonnie

Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - Aug 25 alarm

Monday, August 25, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 74 degrees humid (99%) and partly cloudy to 100 degrees and hazy sun with 12 MPH breeze. Yesterdays and today afternoon wind was lower than the previous couple of days and feeling the temperature more because of that.

Taken from behind Buster

Slow average day, with minimal amount of vehicle traffic coming to and leaving the gate today. I am still trying to position the incoming gate alarm to reduce the false alarms. I am stumped as there is no way the “pucker brush” is setting off the alarm. More work to do on this setup. There are no false alarms coming from the out going alarm. Each alarm sends a different signal to the base unit to alert us to vehicles approaching Buster.

Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - Aug 24 leak

Sunday, August 24, 2014
Buster’s Gate - Calliham, Texas - 76 degrees humid (100%), 4 mph breeze and mostly cloudy to 100 degrees and hazy sunny.

While it was quiet I moved the sensors further out from Buster, to give us more time to react to the vehicles coming or going. I mounted them down lower so they do not pick up the swaying of the "pucker brush" in the higher wind speeds. But the incoming sensor still sending out false signals in the late afternoon. I have racked my pea brain thinking of ways to prevent these false signals. It was a slow traffic day with just a few vehicles coming in and leaving the gate.

Sensor attached to end of the gate

During the late afternoon there was a petroleum smell in the air outside Buster’s door when I was going out. First impression was wrong, that the wells down the road was causing the smell. I knew that it was not H 2 S gas, but latter coming back from the entrance alarm position I noticed a wet spot under the generator, aha diesel fuel leak, that smell was diesel fuel. I called for service and they were here in less than two hours. Troubleshooting revealed a fuel hose creaked spraying diesel fuel over the engine compartment .

Looking in from the gate area

He was able to cut a piece off and reattach the hose. They will be back this morning with replacement hose as the remaining hose is brittle. We are loving this unit the best one we have had at any gate. Quite we really do not know it is operating out side our bedroom. Second is the fact it has a pure sine wave inverter so our clocks maintain correct time. A modified sine wave does not maintain the sixty cycles and your clock will gain or lose time during a day.  That is why we also have a good battery clock. We keep our GPS on also for the clock function, twelve volt DC.

Generator white, left (front) is where the engine is located