13 Feb, Saturday:  Main arrival day for teams in La Ceiba.Many people delayed or re-routed because 
of weather delays back in US.  Dave Houser (WA9OTP, Ken Wood (NN4KW) and I arrived yesterday 
PM (12th) after narrowly avoiding snowstorm flying out of Atlanta. We drove down to Atlanta on Thursday 
and stayedovernight in a park-and-ride hotel;  will pick up the car there when we fly back on the 28th.
Going through TSA security was not as stressful this year. They did not force me to empty out my case full of 
radio gear after it passed through the x-ray machine, but they did perform an explosives check on the case; 
nothing found.  Had a comfortable bus ride from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba, which was again a big 
improvement over taking the local commuter plane shuttle as we did last year. Hotel was much as we left it
 last year, EXCEPT the elevator was out of order so we had to drag our heavy bags up the steps to our room.
So we all got a good workout from moving those bags around from one place to another. Learned the radio
operator for La Ceiba was delayed until a Monday arrival, so a couple of us were tasked to put up his
antenna for him. We had last year's 80 meter loop so several of us went up to the roof to try to put it up:
Steve (me - KI4ZUI), Larry Foster (KC0JON), Ken Wood (WN4KW), Mike Ward (KS6Q), and Bill Roussel
(K5TAS).  They are still working on the hotel's expansion but have the roof over it completed. We initially
thought we might have to cut down the 80m loop to 40m size to get it installed but we finally decided to
take a chance walking out on the corrugated metal roof on the expansion to anchor the longer loop. 
Roof was wet from last night's rain and it was sprinkling on us as we worked. Bill Roussel
carefully walked out on the roof to anchor one corner on the adjacent building and I climbed a ladder 
up to the top of the new elevator tower to anchor another corner. After that, we were able to see-saw 
the wire into an approximate square well above the hotel swimming pool area. Attached the new 1/4 
wavelength matching 75 ohm coax section with a choke balun added, added 50 ohm coax lead-in and 
ran that into the room. Hooked up my radio to it and it seems to work OK.  Tuner is able to tune 80-12 
meters. But the bands are still very noisy, S-5 to S-7 level noise, just as they were last year here at 
the hotel. Not able to make a SSB voice connection with anyone.  Did not hook up digital WinLink 
email to test that. But if the loop tunes OK, hopefully it will work  for the operator arriving Monday. 
IHS still needs to get some permanent anchor points up on the roof to facilitate putting up the annual
loop antenna. This jury-rigged antenna we put up is not optimal.  I do not think a G5RV or dipole antenna
is worth fooling with here, given the noisy signal environment. Tonight we will hopefully have majority of
team members here and will hold a group meeting/supper. Several people flew out of here early this AM
to prepare gear in Puerto Limpeira so that village teams can go out to the various sites on Monday.
All of my gear seems to have survived the trip down - so far.  I will know for sure late Monday PM when
I should have my antennas up in the village and can test everything. I should not have as much of a
problem with band noise out there.   Carrying gear down in the Pelican hard case this year worked great.
Was able to stack radio, modem, tuner, power supply, battery charger, voltage booster, handi-talkie, and 
all of my cables into the single case. Weighed about 32-33 lbs. Handled the banging around without a
problem. Wheels on the case let you pull the case behind you as you walk. And it is "legal size" for
a carry-on so you can stow it in the aircraft overhead bins.  Steve, KI4ZUI.