The same weekend I had issues with ice in Rock Springs, we also had issues with ice at our Pilot Hill transmitter site in Laramie.  I certainly had never encountered ice this severe, and apparently neither had our General Manager. 

Our main transmitter had folded back to approximately 18%.  The other transmitters were all folding back as well.

 Check out the white outline of ice caked towers against the blue sky…

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This weekend I received reports of high temperatures at our Rock Springs site. I found this extremely strange since it was actually quite cold outside and snowing…The 100+ degree temperatures were actually causing equipment to shut down.

Since UW88 was in the shop, I loaded my truck and headed for the site.

Made it to the site…Look at the snow!

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About a year ago we installed a dish at our Rawlins translator to replace an unreliable over-the-air feed from Laramie.  The mounting pole for the old dish was not quite as stable as it should have been.  In addition the dish was damaged over the winter and needed to be replaced.  We decided to install a bit more rugged dish on a large concrete pad.

Reid levels the nuts and washers on the mounting bolts on the concrete pad.
Note the large ‘kingpost’ mount to be installed.

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Shouldn’t have said it was too quiet…

I received a report around 12:30 on Friday afternoon that our station in Sundance was repeating the same snippet of audio over and over again. Great…

I could not really do anything about this remotely so I just shut the transmitter off and hit the road for Sundance. Andrea and I had just returned from a trip to Denver so I was not looking forward to going all the way back to Sundance again. At least I had some idea of what the problem was…

Once I got to the site I found that the HD Radio exporter had locked up (exactly as I had suspected). I had brought a replacement with me and just swapped out the offending unit. A reboot would probably have temporarily cured the issue but I did not want to take any chances with having the problem return.

I made it to Sundance around 1 AM and had the station back on the air around 2:30 AM. I caught a few hours of sleep in Sundance. The next morning I turned around and headed back to Laramie. All told it was a 10 hour round trip.

Reid and I spent this weekend installing a heater on our new uplink dish.  We suffered several outages last winter when the dish filled with snow…

The process involves measuring and applying heat tape, gluing insulation pads on top of the heat tape, caulking around the insulation pads and then installing the electrical wiring.  It was not a terribly difficult process, just extremely tedious.

There are eight sections to the dish.  We didn’t quite get the heat tape pattern right on the first two sections but it went pretty smoothly after that.

Once we had the heat tape applied we glued the insulation pads to the dish and started the process of electrical wiring.

Now we need to finish sealing and wiring…Once that process is complete we should be all set for the wonderful Wyoming winter weather!

As I was driving back to Laramie from Jackson, I noticed that our Rock Springs station was silent.  I went to the site and was greeted by a HUGE herd of elk on the site of the hill.  One of them had antlers larger than I had ever seen on a wild animal. 

Once I arrived at the building I found a failed UPS.  This UPS was powering the satellite receiver.  Fortunately I had a spare unit on hand and was able to restore service fairly quickly.

I saw a sight recently that every engineer DREADS seeing…

We had received a report that our signal in Riverton was off the air and had been for quite some time.  Since this is just a translator we do not have any direct monitoring of it and rely on listener reports to tell us if it is off.  Reid and I drove to the site to check it out.  I had never actually been to this site.  Fortunately the area is also served by our signal from Thermopolis but I don’t like having our signals off the air for any reason.

When we found the site I was greeted with a VERY unpleasant surprise…

Doesn’t look too bad from the outside…

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Now that the tower in Douglas is back up, it is time to get our antenna put back on the tower. Since hanging an antenna is a fairly difficult process, Reid and I invited our Program Director, Roger Adams to accompany us.

Reid climbs to the top of the tower to make some initial preparations

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Wyoming Public Radio recently brought journalist and author Susan Stamberg to Jackson Hole.  Susan is heard frequently on National Public Radio and was one of the original hosts for the afternoon news show ‘All Things Considered’.  I was on hand to provide technical support and sound reinforcement for the event.

The event went well and I had the chance to meet a number of WPR’s listeners and supporters.

Tech central…I’m definitely in my element here!

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At the end of April (while I was on vacation) we suffered a tower collapse in Douglas. Several days ago I was informed that the tower had been rebuilt.  Finally we can re-hang the antenna where it belongs and get back up to full power.

I decided to go to the site with Reid to check it out and see what it was going to take to get things back to normal.

New tower! About 60 feet shorter than the old one but sufficient for our needs…

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