HEAVY DUTY EQUIPMENT: November 2010

DirectCast Slurry-PreWet From Henderson Products

A Henderson MARKE dump body with the Task Force and Direct Cast spinner system onboard. Watch the Direct Cast work with pre-wetted granular material and slurry, equally well. Application is being done at roughly 25 mph. See more Henderson products at http://www.henderson-mfg.com/. Call Jack at 916-376-0690 for more information in Northern California for Henderson products.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

To You and Your Family!

Thank you for reading.

It is a pleasure to serve you!

Henderson Direct Cast Spinner System In Action

(No sound on this video)

This video shows the Henderson Direct Cast Spinner System in action. Witness how it's controlled on-the-go, from the safety of the cab and capable of hitting one, two or even three lanes at any given time.

For more information on all of Henderson's quality products, call Jack at 916-376-0690.

Old Photos from the 1959 "Deep Freeze" Antarctic expedition

From Huffington Post, of all places. The slideshow is a set of fifteen images from a recent book. Haven't seen the book yet...

The SpitzLift Crane Is So Lightweight And Oh So Useful

SpitzLift has a light duty aluminum portable crane for virtually every need.

Call Jack today at 916-376-0690 for more information.

Mr. Snow Plow Driver

Always nice to read it is snowing someplace where we do not need to drive today- but please be ready when you must drive in snow. Mr. Snow Plow Driver reminds us to go much slower in Ice and Snow. A humorous look at winter and big salute to the snow plow drivers.

Yep! There's snow in the Sierra's. Time to get hooked up with your snow plows, spreaders, and all manner of winter road maintanence items. Good thing Jack's available. Call Jack today at 916-376-0690.

The Boss PolyPower-V XT Snow Plow

It's a V-Plow, a straight blade and a scoop!

This is what the Pros say about the Boss Poly Power V-XT:

The snow flies further - The moldboard is built with a slick poly material and is shaped with a very aggressive angle. The snow is easily thrown over existing snow banks, off the roads and makes further passes easier.

Snow does not stick - The poly material repels sticky snow. The truck is able to push the plow blade easier.

It looks good! - The guys like the aggressive look of the V-Plow on the front of their truck!

Simple to attach - The SmartHitch System is simple to attach. In addition, other full size models of Boss plows can be attached and used on the same truck.

Back of blade

Scoop position

Boss Snowplow builds a full line of excellent snowplows. Check out their website at http://www.bossplow.com/.

Give Jack Schmidt at West Coast Truck Equipment a call at 916-376-0690. He's got a lot of experience with snowplows!

LInk to a high school teacher's blog from South Pole

Katey Shirey, a high school physics teacher, is now at the South Pole.
Here is a link to her journal:

http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/icecube-in-ice-antarctic-telescope-2010/journals

XP Series From SnowDogg Plows

XP SERIES

Hydraulically expanding wings add a full 24" to your plowing width

10 feet of plow in an 8 foot package.

• Rugged center moldboard construction spreads loads across components not connection points

• Simple hydraulics with full size SAE cartridge valves and oversized 3/8" hoses

• Forward 20° scoop provides excellent snow pushing action and still allows for flawless throwing while windrowing.

• Adjust your width on the fly for drive-thrus, driveways or narrow spots.

More on IceCube and ARA science

Let me send along the following, layperson explanations of the two experiments.

ARA and IceCube are both looking for neutrinos from high-energy systems in the universe. Neutrinos are small, nearly massless subatomic particles that pass through material with only the rarest interactions. In fact, IceCube is most interested in neutrinos which have already gone through most of the Earth and happen to interact in the ice near the detector going upwards. IceCube looks for the light emission from the neutrino interactions in the ice. ARA looks for a coherent pulse (lasting on order of a billionth of a second, a nanosecond) of radio emission. We use the ice because it is both light transparent and radio transparent. The remoteness of the site, the South Pole, reduces the anthropogenic backgrounds so the real physics signal stands out more clearly. In detail, the two experiments are optimized for different energy ranges: IceCube for lower energies, and signals associated with supernovae, and ARA for higher energies, and signals associated with the most energetic particles in the universe (the so-called GZK cosmic rays).

There is a lot more, at layperson, general scientifically trained audience, and technical levels on the IceCube website. There are a couple of less technical explanations of the ANITA experiment which is a balloon-borne experiment which is the intellectual godmother of ARA: for example, http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~anita/web/science.html.

Some Antarctic links of direct interest

I am going to Antarctica to work on different projects, the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) in which I have a large role, but it's a small startup project, and IceCube for which I am a small part of a large project.

ARA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askaryan_Radio_Array
http://ara.physics.wisc.edu/

(Not much there, more as the detector gets built.)

IceCube:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
http://icecube.wisc.edu/

My blog:
http://duvernois.blogspot.com/

Currently it's not South Pole specific, but will be once I head out. My flight out of the US is on December 15th, will be at Pole on December 21st, and will leave the ice around January 14th.

IceCube blogs from Pole:
http://blog.icecube.wisc.edu/

My info will likely be appearing there as well. Remember that the bandwidth back from the South Pole is limited, so most of the photos will have to wait until I return from the ice.

Some second- (or third-) hand notes from Airshow China 2010

Aviation Week has the best coverage, as usual, see the left sidebar. My personal favorites are the very weird diorama showing a 1970s US carrier, plus F-22s, sailing up river into China. These sorts of exhibits are often very revealing as to the (hopefully irrational) fears of the builders and perhaps their military bosses and funding sources. Also of note is the stealth geo-engineering/cloud-seeding unmanned aircraft. You know, those clouds can be dangerous, better avoid their radar emissions, and the range, does that get the drone over Taiwan? I think it does...

West Coast Truck Equipment Is Now A Knapheide Distributor

Jack Schmidt of West Coast Truck Equipment of West Sacramento, CA, has become one of Knapheide Manufacturing's newest distributors! Here's one that just came out of the shop and is getting ready for delivery and this one is a 9' Knapheide with the Plus 50 Transverse Compartment with 3 Drawers on the streetside where the drawers are long because they go all the way to the other side of the body. Sweet! Check out the optional hooks and tie downs in the bed area. All that mounted on a nice Ford Super Cab Chassis. So, Jack doesn't waste any time. There's another Knapheide body right behind this one.

Call Jack at 916.376.0690. He's always moving, so if you need to leave a message, make sure and say you want to buy 6 Knapheide bodies and I'm sure he will return your call. Check out Jack's website at www.westcoasttruckequipment.com

Antarctic web cameras

See the bottom of the linked page. Palmer Station is out on the Antarctic Peninsula, mild weather, lots of animals, and some ocean traffic including cruise ships. McMurdo Station is the logistics hub for Antarctic operations, looks like a cross between a run-down college campus and a run-down mining town. Balloon flight operations are out of "McTown." The South Pole webcam is currently pretty dull...but there will be more activity there soon.

TeleSwivel - Exciting New Hitch Assembly Does The Work Of Many!

Here is an exciting new product called the Teleswivel by Williams Innovations. See more about this product at http://www.teleswivel.com/.

BOSS Snowplow: World's Greatest TV Show

BOSS Snowplow was just named the World's Greatest Snowplow by H2 Media, Producers of the "World's Greatest" TV Series. Here is the episode.

Materials for students to learn about Antarctic science

The US Antarctic Program homepages:
http://www.usap.gov/

The University of Delaware (Bartol Research) site talking about IceTop/IceCube construction:
http://www.expeditions.udel.edu/antarctica/building-icecube-icetop.html

Dispatches from Polar Scientists (Exploratorium):
http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/index.php

Teachers & researchers on the ice:
http://www.polartrec.com/

Some IceCube videos (three of them, available in different formats):
http://www.icecube.wisc.edu/~malkus/Video/MMSDVideo/

IceCube Project Homepage:
http://icecube.wisc.edu/

ARA Project Homepage, but there's not much here yet:
http://ara.physics.wisc.edu/

The Boss Power-V Blade Snow Plow

West Coast Truck Equipment is a distributor for The Boss Snow Management products. Give Jack a call at 916-376-0690 to find the right solution for your needs.

Snow Plowing-Chevy 2500HD 8ft SnowDogg

Some parking lot action with the SnowDogg Snow Plow. Call Jack at West Coast Truck Equipment for all of your SnowDogg snow management product needs at 916-376-0690.

SmartLight 2 by The Boss Snow Plows

West Coast Truck Equipment can help you with all your The Boss Snow Equipment needs. Call Jack at 916-376-0690.

Henderson Integral Stand for Quick Install and Removal of V-box Spreaders

Single axle dump truck loading and unloading a v-box spreader using low mount bolt-on stand. Henderson HSS-IS stands for V box spreaders. Call Jack of West Coast Truck Equipment at 916-376-0690 for all your snow management needs.

Caltrans Snow Blower Loading Dump Truck In South Lake Tahoe

Coming soon! Get your snow plows ready. Call Jack at 916-376-0690

Rental car reviews: Kia Soul

I have been considering doing this for quite some time, and now that I'm traveling on business again at a decent rate I will finally begin this project.

Car reviews of cars you won't buy but do rent

How was that for a title? Well, in Hawaii last week I rented a Kia Soul, sort of a boxy little wagon/hatchback/micro-SUV-looking thing. I parked it at one point next to a VW Golf four door and the two are the same size, though the front interior of the Kia felt smaller as did the truck/hatch area. I assume the backseat of the Kia is larger than the VW, but at 6' 6" I spend VERY little time in the backseat of any smaller car.

So, how did it drive? Relatively well actually. On Oahu it's hard to get up to much speed (okay, excepting late night runs up or down the Pali, but that's wrong, man, wrong!) but the Kia felt stable and secure at the speeds that were available. There was an odd hesitation, and a bit of a dead zone around 30mph, maybe a bit too much space between gears? I wouldn't buy one, but it was an excellent rental car for the confined parking spots and streets of Hawaii. Oh yeah, except for one annoyance, the rental didn't have a cargo cover, so you couldn't leave items in the back of the car (at least not in tourist areas with the attendant thefts). Should have caught that back at the National Rental Car Emerald Aisle and picked a different one.

HEAVY DUTY EQUIPMENT