Tom Finds Defect on Flying Doctor Radio

Bad Weather-Camp — 2000-06-10

On Saturday, the weather is worse yet. It rains nearly without interruption. Tanja works at the camp fire at first, then she sits near the sizzling flames and waits for the rain to stop. Not before the cold is getting to her bones and the water permeates her rainwear does she withdraw into the tent. I sit under our mushroom roof and write, also freezing, about the incidents. Besides I try, without any success, to get the radio going. Although I have charged the battery overnight, the pointer of the measuring unit shows no more than 10 Volt. The battery is probably defective, I think, and give up trying to set up a connection to Jo and Tom.

Around noontime, Jo, the farmer, and his endearing wife drop by. They invite us for a meal and to warm up our bodies with a hot shower. Regretfully, we have to decline their kind offer, because we cannot leave the camp with all our equipment behind unguarded. Certainly, the likelihood of somebody coming by out here to steal something is quite low, but we simply cannot run the risk. We have put too much energy and money into the purchase of all our equipment and just wouldn’t feel well to leave it unattended. The friendly farmer couple understand our reasoning, and a short while later they say goodbye.

Tom comes to visit in the afternoon. He has made the trip from Goomalling just to see what is wrong with our radio connection. „Let me see, I might be able to find the trouble,“ he says in his usual kind manner and sets to work. Indeed, after only a few minutes he has spotted a defective fuse which prevents the battery from charging. In addition to some other minor discrepancies, we notice that the grounding cable lies on top of the antenna cable, thus disturbing the connection. After the faults are eliminated, we cheerfully ring up Jo to see if the communication works. „I can hear you clearly“, her voice sounds from the speaker.

At seven in the evening, Jo and Tom sit with us by the campfire. Tom went home to pick up Jo after repairing the radio. They are going to spend the night here in their car, and Jo will go on with us tomorrow. Before we go to sleep we relish the delicious chicken breast Jo has prepared in a wonderful marinade and brought as a surprise dinner for us. In high spirits in spite of the cold wind, we tell each other stories that we never seem to run out of.