Forward Operating Base In-a-Can

[turnkey]

Alright got the gear...Check, Got the money ...Check, Got the food and beer....Check......Lets go .......Opps forgot the wife........Check....This thing is sounding better all the time...Great build so far...

 

[srodocker]

Shoot tim the wife likes the toughbook ive bought so I may need to get her one! maybe i'll have to build a couple more!

 

[tim292stro]

...Lets go .......Opps forgot the wife........Check...

Don't misread my needing to orchestrate this with the wife delicately as "wife bashing" . I'd be a mess without her, and probably get into a bunch more trouble than I need to be. I'm just whining and I know it.

 

[tim292stro]

Tents are ready for pickup in PA, waiting on uShip bids...



Nearly there - looks like I get a few extra power harness wires and some lights in the deal. Some things are missing like the repair kits (and the floor and an end on the 305), but I've ordered a few of those parts from e-place which should be arriving today or tomorrow as well as the extra NOS side-to-end coupler kit.

 

[rustystud]

Shoot tim the wife likes the toughbook ive bought so I may need to get her one! maybe i'll have to build a couple more!

My son wants one now ! I even caught my wife checking out my Toughbook. She has her own iPad, but likes the features in the Toughbook.

 

[tim292stro]

Thought I'd post up some YouTube videos I found as an motivation for myself to keep going...

#1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpOVGP71_KE

 

[tim292stro]

#2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH7KHsQCa_U

 

[Another Ahab]

Thought I'd post up some Youtube videos I found as an inspiration to myself to keep going...

#1:

I like the Rough Terrain (RT) forklift, even sports a small derrick aft the operator; slick.

 

[tim292stro]

Shipping is booked via uShip for the two tents, scheduled for next week pickup - weirdly it was about $100 cheaper to ship these two, than it was to ship the first...

This morning I unboxed the side-to-end coupler which is in great shape. I also received the two 10.1-inch "preview" screens for the rack (1280x800 via HDMI), so I can see what's on the two projectors when I don't have line-of-sight.

Side-to-End coupler kit #2:


One repair kit for first missing kit on 303 and 305:

 

[srodocker]

I love those 4x4 forklifts. Those videos are pretty dang sweet as well... I do plan on a california trip one day and may have to swing down when your setup is in full force!

 

[rustystud]

I like the Rough Terrain (RT) forklift, even sports a small derrick aft the operator; slick.

You have to be real careful driving those forklifts. They can tip over in a heart beat ! I know ! I was in the 3rd Battalion Landing Support Unit for a few years and we used these all the time to unload equipment.

 

[tim292stro]

Just another reason I don't want to rely on material handling equipment to do this setup...

 

[Another Ahab]

You have to be real careful driving those forklifts. They can tip over in a heart beat ! I know ! I was in the 3rd Battalion Landing Support Unit for a few years and we used these all the time to unload equipment.

We had them with battalion in the Seabees, also:

- An all-purpose workhorse

I saw them used as hoists, mobile scaffolds, loaders, buckets; you name it. As inventive as the battalion was, the RT's could do it all.

Never saw one with the on-board crane though. Liking that.

 

[rustystud]

We had them with battalion in the Seabees, also:

- An all-purpose workhorse

I saw then used as hoists, mobile scaffolds, loaders, buckets; you name it. As inventive as the battalion was, the RT's could do it all.

Never saw one with the on-board crane though. Liking that.

They are great units, no doubt about it. The problem was we always got some yah-hoo who thought he knew what he was doing and would tip it over ( I believe they just enjoyed doing it ). The problem got so bad that the unit commander said who ever tipped the RT over again would "go before the mast" . That is serious !

 

[Another Ahab]

They are great units, no doubt about it. The problem was we always got some yah-hoo who thought he knew what he was doing and would tip it over ( I believe they just enjoyed doing it ). The problem got so bad that the unit commander said who ever tipped the RT over again would "go before the mast" . That is serious !

I never even heard of (much less witnessed) somebody tipping an RT. That thought is scary (it's a big piece of equipment), and I have been thinking about this and I think I got the picture:

- The active duty EO's I worked with were mostly fresh out of "A" school, and so I'm guessing played all the rules by the book (NO pushing the envelope on safety). Maybe more than they needed to, but that's never a bad way to start out.

- The EO's I worked with during my years in the Reserve were all (+/-) full-time EO's on the outside. This was actual; they were literally haulers. loader operators, etc, (some were actually straight from the West Virginia mines).

- Others were farmers from out of the Valley (Shenandoah), or Southern Maryland, and had long hard experience with equipment (can't tell you how many guys would be missing at least one knuckle, or a finger, or a part of a finger).

- I'm exaggerating some, but not much. We had a mix of guys in our Reserve unit from all over the MD/ VA/ WVA region. Lot of them also were in (to be kind), what you'd call "mature" stages of their careers.

These guys all had hard-earned long time respect for the machinery they operated. I wouldn't have called any of them that I knew a yah-hoo (one or two might have been close to by-god hillbillies; but not yah-hoos!).

But a lot of young(er) bucks, especially if all their training and experience is all restricted to relatively brief military tours, won't have that "seasoned" respect that only comes with time.

It's a sobering thought to me, but take my word for it: you don't want to be anywhere near a piece of heavy equipment operated by anyone even remotely describable as a yah-hoo. That is not a good picture.

 

[rustystud]

Most of the guys who where tipping over the RT's where young kids straight out of boot camp. Also I'm sure none of them had ever driven any kind of large equipment in the civilian world. At one point we had to up-right the RT 3 times in one day ! Granted the terrain was kind of rough, but if they had used their brains for thinking instead of a hat rack the tip-overs could have been prevented. Thankfully they where only unloading MRE's and nothing and nobody got hurt.

 

[aczlan]

Most of the guys who where tipping over the RT's where young kids straight out of boot camp. Also I'm sure none of them had ever driven any kind of large equipment in the civilian world. At one point we had to up-right the RT 3 times in one day ! Granted the terrain was kind of rough, but if they had used their brains for thinking instead of a hat rack the tip-overs could have been prevented. Thankfully they where only unloading MRE's and nothing and nobody got hurt.

So, they were equipment drivers rather than equipment operators...

Aaron Z

 

[tim292stro]

Phones came last night, figured I'd wait until I could power one on to take a picture:


These are VoIP six-line phones, 4-soft buttons (below the screen), 7-programmable function buttons, and customizable XML screens and applications. One thing I've been playing with is making one of the 4-soft keys PTT when I dial a radio (connected to a ROIP-102, using the call-presence light for the extension as a TX/RX indicator). I'm playing right now with PC sound cards to emulate radios, but I should in theory be able to plug in any radio (base-station, mobile, or handheld), and pull it's band(s) into the "net". This will make it possible to but just send/receive calls (assuming I have a phone line provisioned), but also talk on a 2-way radio from the same phone/station.

I have 8 of these phones just for FOBIC, to go with 8 CF-30 computer workstations, so I'll have enough seats now for an 8-person call-center or command/control suite. When I'm done with the CF-30 integration, I should even be able to stream a workstation's screen view to the "Operator/Server" CF-30 in the rack and output it to a projection screen.


This should end up more or less as what you see on the HDT C2 product page (just ad another row of tables, for four more seats).

Now that I have all the workstation IT gear for the tables, I need to do the padding foam to space and protect them in the Hardigg case - to that end, I'm building a wire-harness for inside the case to be able to charge the ToughBooks while being stored. Just need an external power source of at least 18Volts and less than 60Volts, so something like a NATO slave port will be able to charge them easily.

 

[Another Ahab]

I have 8 of these phones just for FOBIC, to go with 8 CF-30 computer workstations, so I'll have enough seats now for an 8-person call-center or command/control suite. When I'm done with the CF-30 integration, I should even be able to stream a workstation's screen view to the "Operator/Server" CF-30 in the rack and output it to a projection screen.
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Tim292, can't remember if you mentioned this already, and if you had a commercial plan behind all this:

- I'll bet there might be people wanting to make use of this set-up for all kinds of various situations

Are you planning to make your rig available for charter?

 

[tim292stro]

There is a possibility of that yes. Early thought was CERT/SAR, I'd be trying to focus on local agencies (Police/Fire) rather than state/federal since they would have bigger budgets. I'll also be talking to the people who run the clan booth at the Scottish Games about loaning the tent and an air-conditioner for the games - the Alameda County Fairgrounds (Plesanton, CA) can be unbearably hot without shade in the open fields mid/late-summer (dry heat in the 100's).

I'm not sure I'm going to have enough free time on my hands to rent out the tent (which would likely include setup/tear-down time too), probably not in the cards.