I got up about 9.30am, had a shower, while I was in the shower someone tried to call.

I didn't hear the phone however, not until after I was dressed and eating breakfast, my phone rang again, my message service.

I answered it, it was a message from the daughter of the woman who's phone line I fixed a couple of days ago. Apparently she was having issues with her account/password.

I had noticed the same thing when I was there, and had used my internet account to test the phone, since I assumed their isp was having an issue.

I tried to call her back a couple of times, to let her know, but the phone was busy. I thought maybe she had worked it out.

I got my tools together, and most of the parts I bought yesterday, loaded them up, and took off.

I rode up to my mate's place.

I unloaded all the tools, and parts. Put the drill on charge (that I got for Christmas, and have never used).

I got up, started adjusting the dish again, I moved the arm on the stand, so that I could move the dish where it had to go.

It didn't really help, the arm was still in the way, and now the whole stand was a bit wobbly. (I wasn't waiting an hour for the drill to charge, so I ended up using my mate's drill anyway).

I tried to get a stream of PAS8, with free to air Chinese channels, but the signal just kept flashing up and going away, didn't make sense.

I fiddled around for ages, make slight adjustments, both azimuth and elevation. I could get the signal a bit better, but it was still flashing up and down, and couldn't lock on to anything.

My mate called another of the guys we go to dinner with, he usually has lots of bits of stuff hanging around, and might have a bit of pipe that would fit into the stand, and allow the dish to go up higher, so I could set the correct elevation, he said he would be around near 1pm.

I tried moving the dish back where it started from, but that wouldn't work either. Uh oh.

I left it at this point, and we had lunch. Tomato and cheese on toast. Some of the Chinese relatives didn't want it, so I ended up eating about 6 bits, not too bad :-)

I fiddled with the dish again, still not getting anywhere.

I got on the internet, and checked the page.. ah.. the signals I'm trying to get are not broadcast into Australia, I was trying to get streams for SE and NE Asia. That probably explains the weird signal strength, flashing up and down.

I put in an Australian stream of PAS8, moved the dish around to where I was sure it was, and it locked on, first go. Gee, it works when you put streams in that are broadcast where you are.

It was an encrypted stream however, so we couldn't get anything.

I went back and looked on the net again. All the Chinese channels are on C band, rather than Ku, which requires a bigger/different dish, and a different LNB. Couldn't really find anything free to air Ku band that was any good.

My mate's mate turned up, with a bunch of different bits of pipe, and hacksaw. I grabbed a short small bit,it fit straight in, and allowed the dish to go higher, but unfortunately I'd already found the issue (being outside the footprint of the streams I was trying to get) so it wasn't going to help.

I found C1 again, set the box back to Aurora, and left it.

It was getting close to 2pm, my mate and all the relatives were going out to see someone. Because the car is not big enough for all of them, one of them had to get the train, so my mate took his wife, dropped her at the station, came back, and all the relatives got in the car.

I got all my stuff together while he was at the station, and I left when he got back.

He told me the guy that gave me the sat decoders recently wanted me to contact him.

I rode up there, got lost, not remembering the directions properly, and found the place.

I went towards the house, when I got near the door, I noticed a bit of a smell.

The guy answered the door, I went in.

He apologised for the smell, apparently he didn't know where it was coming from, had got someone out to clean the drains, but the smell was still there.

I sat down, the guy was there with his wife. We chatted for a while, about the sat service, my isp, bikes, all sorts of things.

He asked me to have a look in the celing for him, to see if I could work out where the smell was coming from, (he's not fit enough to go climbing up ladders). As I wandered through the kitchen to the laundry where the manhole is, it was really strong, with a deep whiff, it was almost causing me to gag.

I got up the ladder, opened the man hole, expecting the smell to be unbearable, but it wasn't in the roof, there was no smell up there, even with my head right up there (it was actually better than inside the house).

The guy didn't know where it was coming from. I had a look around in the kitchen, under the sink etc, but couldn't find anything. I t was weird, it smelled the worse right in the middle of the kitchen, up near the ceiling. It didn't make sense.

Apparently the guy was getting his son to come up later to see if he could find it. They'd had the drains cleaned yesterday, but the smell was still there. It wasn't the drains, because there was no smell in the bathroom.

While looking around, I managed to bump my head on a plant pot hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, a lot of water poured out of it on my head, and all down my back.

I managed to dry myself off, the guy gave me a towel (that's why I was in the bathroom), luckily the plant/water wasn't the source of the smell, or I probably would have been sick.

I left just after 3pm, and came home with the intention of trying to get freeside working (still need to get the account management module working).

I got home, and ended up wasting a lot of time with emails, trying to help people on the oztivo list with IR codes, and other stuff.