2003 – UnderTheThunder Storm Chasing & Weather Blog

CHASE2003 EXPENSES

TRAINING (IL/IN)
DATE	DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT	TYPE
02/2003	MOTEL – estimated	$50.00	MOTEL
02/2003	HOME- ELKHART, IN (RT) – 276.2 MILES @ $0.31/mile	$85.57	AUTO
03/2003	HOME-PLAINFIELD HS (RT) – 24.2 MILES @ $0.31/mile	$7.50	AUTO
03/2003	HOME-BOLINGBROOK FS#4 – 1.8 MILES @ $0.31/mile	$0.56	AUTO
	TOTAL TRAINING COST	$143.63

TRIP #1 – TEMPEST TOURS (OK/TX/CO/KS/MO/AR)
DATE	DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT	TYPE
05/15/2003	CIRCUIT CITY SS #379	$-53.74	SOFTWARE
05/15/2003	NAPERVILLE CHAUFFEUR	$-50.00	LIMO
05/12/2003	JB`S GRILL PITTSBURG	$-94.39	MEAL
05/12/2003	ATM WITHDRAWAL	$-81.50	CASH
05/12/2003	SHORTY SMALLS – OKC	$-20.00	MEAL
05/09/2003	WM SUPERCENTER CHANU	$-62.24	VIDEOTAPES
05/09/2003	AUTOTRONICS CONOCO S	$-22.85	ELECTRONICS
05/09/2003	G WILLIKERS CHANUTE	$-18.00	MEAL
05/09/2003	GOLDEN CORRAL NEVADA	$-9.00	MEAL
05/08/2003	CRACKER BARREL # 127	$-13.00	MEAL
05/08/2003	USPS 2842230094 SPRI	$-3.49	PACKAGING
05/07/2003	ATM WITHDRAWAL	$-101.50	CASH
05/05/2003	RADIO SHACK 001842	$-149.01	ELECTRONICS
05/05/2003	ATM WITHDRAWAL	$-82.00	CASH
05/05/2003	NAPERVILLE CHAUFFEUR	$-53.00	LIMO
SUBTOTAL	CHASE 2003 ON-THE-ROAD COST	$-813.72
05/01/2003	TEMPEST TOURS DEPOSIT	$-500.00	TOUR
05/01/2003	TEMPEST TOURS BALANCE	$-2100.00	TOUR
05/01/2003	AIRFARE: CHICAGO O’HARE – OKC (rt)	$-203.50	AIR
	TOTAL COST	$3607.22

CHASE 2003 SEASON COST SUMMARY
DATE	DESCRIPTION	AMOUNT	TYPE
02/01-03/31/2003	TRAINING – Elkhart,IN; Plainfield, IL; Bolingbrook, IL	$143.63	TRAINING
05/01-05/13/2003	HOME- ELKHART, IN (RT) – 276.2 MILES @ $0.31/mile	$3607.22	TOUR
05/14-12/31/2003	CHASING – IL/IN/WI/IA/MI	$0.00	CHASING
04/30-12/31/2003	WEATHER SPOTTING – IL/IN/WI/IA/MI	$0.00	SPOTTING
01/01-12/31/2003	OTHER EXPENSES	$0.00	OTHER
	TOTAL SEASON COST	$3750.85

CHASE2003 SEASON SUMMARY

CHASE 2003

DAILY
JOURNAL

DATE

DAY

START

END

MILES

REMARKS

SEASONAL TRAINING:

To better appreciate the processes going on in storms and to stay safe, I take classroom training each year

19 Feb 2003

Wednesday

Bolingbrook

Plainfield

Basic Spotter Training

14 Mar 2003

Friday

Bolingbrook

Elkhart

(Training tomorrow)

15 Mar 2003

Saturday

Elkhart

Bolingbrook

IMO Advanced Spotter Training

15 April 2003

Tuesday

Bolingbrook

1.0

BARS/ARES Spotter Training

CHASE #1:

TEMPEST TOURS (commercial tour) 10 days – 4642(est.) chase miles, 12 people

Lead vehicle (8): LEAD: Bill Reid (Westlake Village, CA;KG6FWX),
CO-LEAD: Blake Naftel (Kalamazoo, MI;KC8VPG); “Camilo” (Netherlands/Brazil),
Kris (Netherlands), Amalia & Jaime (Peru), David (NC), Joe (Nashua, NH)
Tail vehicle (4): LEAD: Keith Brown (Crandon, NJ; KC5DOJ)
Lisa Beal (Bolingbrook, IL;KC9BST), Lisa M. (Chicago, IL), Laurie (Erie, PA).
ALSO:
Part-time lead vehicle: Martin Lisius [days 2-3,8] (Arlington,TX;KC5TQI)
Sedan: ?() [days 1-2
PT Cruiser: Kinney Adams (Milwaukee, WI;KB9QQM) and Bob Pejovich ()
Mini-van (WI/SUPRCEL): [days 4-5] Scott Weberpal (Janesville, WI:KB9CBK?), Josh (CT) (and Meso Monkey!)
Big Red Truck: Brian Morganti (Bernville,PA; KB3HOA)

26 Apr 2003

Saturday

Bolingbrook

PROLOGUE #1

30 Apr 2003

Tuesday

Bolingbrook

PROLOGUE #2: Ready to Rumble!

01 May 2003

Wednesday

Bolingbrook

Oklahoma City

(fly)

TRAVEL: Getting there is half the fun

02 May 2003

Friday

Oklahoma City

Garden City

540

DAY #1: A positioning day

03 May 2003

Saturday

Garden City

Altus

320

DAY #2: To cap, or not

04 May 2003

Sunday

Altus

Denton

350

DAY #3: Hoping for a Texas twister
Kansas City and Girard, KS clobbered!

05 May 2003

Monday

Denton

Little Rock

320

DAY #4: Can you say ArkLaTex?
Outbreak moves to Missouri and east

06 May 2003

Tuesday

Little Rock

Springfield

667

DAY #5: To the Land of Aahs (Kansas)

07 May 2003

Wednesday

Springfield

Chanute

177

DAY #6: Bungle in the Jungle

08 May 2003

Thursday

Chanute

Pittsburg

398

DAY #7: Two for the Price of One

09 May 2003

Friday

Pittsburg

Oklahoma City

470

DAY #8: Another Promising Day

10 May 2003

Saturday

Oklahoma City

Macon

700 est

DAY #9: Up Close and Personal

11 May 2003

Sunday

Macon

Oklahoma City

700 est

DAY #10:The Long Drive Back

12 May 2003

Monday

Oklahoma City

Bolingbrook

(fly)

Travel Day

13 May 2003

Tuesday

Bolingbrook

Epilogue

SPECIAL THANKS to Laurie for help with tracking our daily mileage.

IL/IN CHASES/SPOTTING:

30 May 2003

Friday

Bolingbrook

–

What a day! Too bad I was still AT WORK during these local tornadic storms. Read the Chicago NWS offices’ summary to see what happened!

COLOR CODE


Plan was to not chase	GRAY
Planned Chase Day (future)	YELLOW
Available to chase; no weather (“blue-skied”)	BLUE
Chase Day (have partner and stormy weather)	GREEN
No-Partner Day (Weather stormy, no partner)	RED
Weather Stormy, but not available for chasing	PURPLE
BUST DAY – tornadoes where we looked!	ORANGE
Training Day	WHITE

Accommodations

Restaurants

Tools

Web Links

12 July 2003 – Comms/Navigation/WX Systems Cleanup

DESCRIPTION	This cleanup involved getting rid of unnecessary wires, rerouting the existing wires and adding cable ties and/or Velcro to tidy things up. Everything was torn out and set on the passenger’s seat or the dashboard. The end result looks like the picture at thr right: Magellan Meridian Gold GPS unit Panasonic PV-DV402 digital camcorder Kenwood TH-D7 2 m/440MHz ham radio Sylvania SSC090 13 in. television Davis Weather Monitor II three-outlet, 15 amp multiplug adapter (a second one is not shown in the photo) RadioShack 500 channel scanner RadioShack citizens band/weather band radio (8A: radio, 8B: microphone) (not shown) Nokia 6162i cell phone What a difference! Prior to the cleanup their wires everywhere.now everything is in neat bundles, and I could move the console as a whole given about 10 minutes.the two main things are: I can turn everything on it once now. I am not tripping over a bunch of wires and neither is anyone else. Now I just have to clean the rest of the van!
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS	The key technical challenge in redoing the electrical system was to properly balanced the load between the left-hand power outlet (20 amps) and the right hand power outlet (15 amps) in the front of a van.on several occasions , the onboard television was turned on and the fuse on the 15 amp circuit was blown after about the third time this happened . I took a closer look at the circuit diagram for the van and realized I had a 20 amp circuit right next door. Now the 20 amp circuit has on its the following: the onboard television, the camcorder, and a two outlet. adapter that powers , both the GPS unit and the ham radio.the 15 amp circuit runs everything that is mounted in the lower console: the Davis Weather Monitor to display, the CB radio, and the 500 channel scanner. As a matter of documenting the electrical demand in the van and also establishing a good load balance . I diagrammed out , where everything needs to go in a separate document.
COST	I spent $22 on an assortment of fuses,though I only replaced a single 3 amp fuse, since I managed to lose one when one of the adapters broke open. That little glass fuse may be somewhere under the seats, but I’ll be darned if I can find it. This is a good general maintenance investment, as I have no spare fuses for the van at all. The $22 also included four single use tubes of superglue.
TIME SPENT	I spent pretty much every moment from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. (when I lost the light of day) cleaning things up. About six hours total, including a brief dinner break.
OTHER REMARKS	The next challenge is figuring out how to get the laptop computer into comfortable spot in the van and integrate the APRS software and the output of the Weather Monitor. The idea is to be able to take moving weather measurements and relay those out to the Internet using the ham radio.I have not decided whether to use the modified hospital tray(that I picked up at a garage sale) or improvise some sort of pedestal to let the laptop . swing over the passenger seat or over the existing center console that holds the radios and the weather Monitor.