Working in the field

KAPE has been implementing a program that has provided life skills (chicken, fish and mushrooms raising) to poor villagers in a specific district in the Kampong Cham province. Today was the culmination of that project and there was a meeting/party planned for the participants and several local officials.

I was along for two reasons, first, I was technical support, secondly to record the event for KAPE, I am acting as the Communication Officer until we hire one.

Marry the project manager wanted to use a projector connected to a PC to show the handouts that everyone would have so she could explain the contents. That may sound funny, but in Cambodia when you give people something to read, you read it to them in a meeting.

This all sounds simple until you realize that there are no electric lines in this part of the province or most of the province. Ok a generator will do. A generator in Cambodia is a little different than what you may be thinking of. It is a little larger than a portable generator in the USA.



I am going to use this to power a laptop and projector connected to the laptop. What are the chances that the current will burn up the projector? I thought of this and brought along a small UPS.


When we arrived the generator was humming along on powering a wall of speakers.



I set up the computer, projector and screen under the tent. Now to check the power. I plugged into the antique extension cord from the generator and we did have power. The UPS came on and my computer power supply was working. I turned on the projector and just after the lamp came on, the UPS started beeping signaling that it did not have sufficient power. I listened to the generator. It was not running as fast as it had been when we arrived. Let's see if a little more speed on the generator will increase the power.

A colleagues and I asked for a few more revs on the generator. The man in charge of the generator took the crank, used to start the generator, and tapped the wing nut regulating the speed. I heard a little more hum. Let's try that.



Back at the PC, the projector came on and the lamp light. The show will go on.



My colleague started the presentation. Then the UPS started to grumble again! It wanted more power. I walked back to the generator operator and asked for a few more revs. He tapped on the wing nut again and I could hear the generator speed up. Hopefully that will do it. The UPS was happy for about five minutes but then it wanted a still more power. Back to the generator for one more tap. This time, we had enough power.

About five minutes later, the presentation was over.

Remember, the next time you are working off of an antique diesel powered generator, listen to the generator's speed.