The trip continues…This time, Worland…
The tower site on Rattlesnake Ridge…

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Next stop, Buffalo…Nice view out the hotel room window…

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Next stop, Banner Ridge outside of Sheridan.It’s extremely foggy up here today!  Can’t see a thing!

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Final stop of the day, Gillette.At the door of the site on Antelope Butte…

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Off to my Sundance transmitter site next…Never know what you’re going to encounter on these roads…A bunch of cattle decided to occupy the road this time…

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Next stop on my network tour, Newcastle…A herd of deer crosses the road in front of me as I drive to the site…Gotta love the Wild Wild West!

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It’s the end of the summer which means it’s time to visit every single one of my transmitter sites…First up the eastern half of the state.  I started back at our Torrington site.

The building and tower with a lone FM antenna bay at the top sits on the Eastern Wyoming College campus.

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The WPM Engineering department decided to take a road trip to Denver.  We visited with Mike Pappas, engineer for KUVO-FM followed by a Society of Broadcast Engineers meeting at the DirecTV Castle Rock Broadcast Center.

KUVO is a highly respected jazz station in the Denver market and has one of the best sounding signals on the air in the area.  This is due in part to their new Nautel NV15 transmitter.  Mike took us on a tour of the transmitter plant.

KUVO shares a combined antenna with KCFR-FM on a Shively 8 bay antenna.  A Channel 6 VHF TV antenna is at the top of the tower, formerly used by KUSA-TV.  KUSA has abandoned the site since the DTV conversion.  Their old analog TV transmitter has been dismantled but the antenna remains for the time being.

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Our Torrington translator site had been plagued with issues for quite some time.  Initially the issue was a poorly mounted antenna that literally destroyed the top section of the tower by twisting the tower leg in the wind until a number of the cross members broke.  That issue was resolved and the antenna mounted securely, however, the issue with poor performance remained.  I attributed it to the fact that the antenna (while now mounted securely) was still not mounted according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.  It is supposed to be stood off from the tower by about 3 feet, not face mounted directly to the tower.  Face mounting of these antennas can cause poor performance and significant distortion of the antenna pattern.

The reflected power reading on the transmitter tells the tale…This number should be 1.2 or less.  The lower the better.  2.12 is extremely bad and means that a significant amount of power being sent to the antenna is being reflected back to the transmitter.  Essentially it is being wasted as heat rather than being radiated by the antenna as it should be.

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I was informed late on Sunday night that we were off the air again in Rock Springs…Great…What now?

The UPS at the site had been giving a failed battery indication.  I had planned to replace it but had not yet had a chance to do so.  Apparently it decided to fail entirely.  Three out of the four batteries in this “Replaceable Battery Cartridge” have cracked entirely.  One is bulging but did not crack.  This particular brand of UPS has been known for this failure mode in recent history.  It SHOULD be regulating the charge voltage on the batteries such that this does not occur but apparently the charging circuit in this UPS has failed.  Fortunately I was able to entirely bypass the UPS and bring the site back on the air.  A new UPS will be ordered and installed as soon as possible.