private function call($url)
        {
        $handle = curl_init();

        // set the options
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 10);
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1);
        curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "GET");

        // make the call
        $output = curl_exec($handle);
        if ($output == false)
            {
            $this->error["code"]    = "BadConnection";
            $this->error["message"] = curl_error($handle);
            }

        curl_close($handle);

        // return the json
        return $output;
        }