The generator at our Laramie transmitter site ran out of fuel after 9 hours of continuous operation.  We needed to get fuel to the site but heavy rains and snow had made things quite slick…

Reid went up first in his truck to see if we could even get up the road to the site.

Apparently not…He got stuck in a pretty deep rut after sliding off the muddy road.  This picture was taken long after the snow had started to melt but it gives a pretty good idea of what things looked like…

Once I found out that Reid was stuck, I headed up in one of UW’s Suburbans to get him.  This vehicle was not much fun to handle on the slick roads but it managed to survive.

Meanwhile, our Program Director went to the local propane dealer to purchase a full tank of fuel.  We met him in town and he followed us up in his truck.  When we got back to the spot where Reid had become stuck we had to make some decisions about how to proceed so as not to get stuck AGAIN!

Reid and I discuss how to best navigate the Suburban around the ruts…
Fortunately once we made it past this the worst was behind us.

Once we made it up to the site, it was time to replace the empty cylinders of propane on the generator.

Time for a bit of fun after successfully making it up the hill

Reid unloads the propane tank from the truck and fires up the generator again

A quick check inside the shack to ensure that we’re back on the air…

Special thanks to our Program Director, Roger Adams, for joining us
on yet another Engineering Adventure!

All told we were without power at the transmitter site for nearly 36 hours.  It came back at about 8 PM, 12 hours after we refueled the generator.  We learned a few lessons from all of this but overall things went fairly smoothly.