(meteorobs) Quads and Questions

[Kim Youmans]

      For me, even small animals can cause enough distraction
to increase dead-time during a session to "recordable" levels.
My current site is a sandy ridge up on the valley wall of the floodplain 
where two rather large
creeks converge to form a 100-acre lake.  There is no shortage of
reptile, mammal, marsupial and avian company at night.
Pogo really seems to like sniffing the truck tires,
and Bambi is often caught in my flashlight, looking
bemused, or maybe it's a look of concern for my sanity.
     The point being, the radio does a good job of driving
the varmints off.  It generally does a poor job of entertaining
me and only once or twice have I been so engrossed by any
given program as to have felt I was ignoring my primary purpose.
I'd play the time signals and not fool was the commercial
wasteland at all if it didn't have such irritating tones!


Kim Youmans

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jure Atanackov" <jureatanackov at email.si>
To: <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Quads and Questions


>>I wonder what our peers out there do to keep on the ball?

>Calisthenics at 4:00 AM in the midst of a meteor session is NOT my idea
>of staying alert but *is* employed by certain Slovenians who
>generally have great success with rates. I'll turn off the radio
>and let the forest sounds (and my imagination) return me to
>reality -- I'm basically just unarmed bear-bait...

Indeed! Push-ups are a great way to get your blood circulating when you hit 
a
dead period and we've had great success in keeping more alert this way. You 
can
actually stay inside the sleeping bag with only your arms outside - much 
better
than leaving the warmth of the bag and go wander around a bit. (during the 
last
camp 30 observers and casual watchers participated in a collective push-up
session, great fun! :) I never listen to radio during observation, I think 
it
would actually *help* me wander off instead of keeping me alert.

And yes, Kim, being unarmed bear-bait helps a lot, too :) It would be
interesting to hear stories of wildlife encounters from observers on the 
list!
Javor has certainly had more than his fair share - wild boars, bears, ... 
The
worst I've encountered was *probably* a bear, some 15 to 20 meters away. 
That
event kept me well alert during many meteor observations later, especially 
those
in prime bear areas :D

CS!Jure

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