Mornin' F-buds...>>

[M3EATER - GG '00 WS6 T/A]

Have a great day !



Gordon
PPC

[Christopherrr]

morning, y'all...new day, new problem...old problems too if you haven't taken care of yesterdays.. LoL

Good day to all...

Starbucks anyone??? Naaa...I need a coke.

[4THGEN Z]

Mornin GG....a cold one 4sure today!!!

Have a great one all!!

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Coke or Pepsi???

[Joe 1320]

Eeeegads...... I'll never mix Carrot juice and Radish juice again.

[N20LT4Bird]

Snow day today yehaaw!!! -25 with the wind! Teaching is good.

[Performin Norman]

Howdy everyone.

[Mixedpuppy]

Good evening from Balad Iraq,

A lot of rain around here and mud recently. Still a lot of missions and some danger recently. Soldier was shot in the left chest and arm yesterday, he made it OK though. One Iraqi yesterday shot up trying to attack troops searching for weapons in a date orchard. They waxed a couple of his buddies courtesy of the 4th Infantry Division. Iraqi was caught by 4th ID today trying to plan an improvised explosive device, they yelled, he ran, they fired, shot in the rear and back. Pretty wild out here. No mortar attacks on my base (Knock on wood) today Otherwise just kind of wet, muddy and gloomy. I appreciate the warm thoughts from home. You guys make me feel at home.

[briantech]

does the army not have any kind of NDAs that you have to abide by?

oh, and how do they get internet out to you guys in the desert? sattelites or something?

[Jeff_in_Atl]

I built an antenna several years ago that the army put on the top of what looked like a 1975 olive drab green Chevy pick up truck with a funky metal box strapped into the bed to automatically track a satellite for internet access while mobile. They were out driving around the parking lot after we put it on surfing. It was pretty cool. That truck looked like at had a million miles on it. They made a newer one they strapped to someone's land rover and they were out driving around in it. http://www.emssatcom.com/storm/p_storm.asp

We make an uplink that can be coupled with other uplinks to increase the bandwidth that can be used for anything. Most of the pictures you saw during the recent Iraq conflict used it.

Here is some stuff we make for it. http://www.emssatcom.com/solutions/s_land_mobile.asp
I can't find the portable link with the phone on it.

[hotwhip9]

internet in iraq answer

to answer your question on how we get the internet in Iraq, it is a very bad sattelite connection. Depending on the camp you are in depends whether or not they have internet cafe's. Or phones n such, and other items to boost the moral of the soldiers. All supply warehouse's have an internet connection, as well as medical. Usually it only lets you connect to a secure server, but we have found away around that by going to a secure website that lets you access the rest of the internet. It's kind of messed up with some of the internet cafe's because they charge you for it, or when you finally get to a DSN phone and call a switch board in the states they require a calling card when they could just connect your long distance call. Usually depends on who answers the phone, but all of us here see it as we are in Iraq and you can't give me a phone call?! The connections are always very bad, so you have to make friends with the army contractors that have sattelite phones. But like i said it really depends on the camp and the unit, how much they want to spend on soldiers morale. All of the camps in kuwait, or most of them anyways are well established with burgerking, baskin robins, pizza hut, all types of means of communication. Then there is our camp with some things, but not much. Me, I am at a warehouse when i am not on convoys all the time, so i have access to the internet and a phone, i lucked out, but the phone never works.

[Mixedpuppy]

I'm lucky,

I'm an emergency room nurse assigned to A Co. of the 21st Combat Support Hospital. We see plenty of stuff everyday here. I never talk about patient's names along with their specific conditions. Never about operational issues as well. I'm not involved in that loop very often anyway. My hospital is on a large camp near the town of Balad. My hospital has been able to maintain good internet access for the most part. It's combat arms guys at the much smaller camps and the guys doing a lot of missions outside of the wire have it a bit worse. I have a lot of friends telling me there problems out there. Yeah phone connections often suck. Satellite phones aren't always very good connections either. There is something called SPAWAR that soldiers can use and charge to thier credit card or debit card account and is one of the cheapest ways to call home besides use of a DMVT phone. I'm leaving soon. Waiting for our replacements.