It was a rather grueling day today. The major project of the day was to get the STL link up and running. Unfortunately, we had discovered some additional issues yesterday with the signal path from the hospital downtown up to the tower.

We first went down to the hospital to investigate whether or not there was power getting to the STL antenna on the roof. We discovered that there was no power getting to the dish due to a bad cable! To get around this for test purposes, we temporarily moved the STL transmitter to the roof where the antenna was located and connected the transmitter directly to the antenna. Once we had done this we went back up the hill to finish pulling new cable up the tower.

About halfway through the process of pulling new cable up the tower the wind really started to kick up. Why is it that any time we need to do work on a tower the wind seems to get worse just as we climb the tower?

Reid braved the wind and we managed to get new cable run to the existing STL antenna location on the tower. We suspected that there were issues with this antenna location but wanted to see if there was any improvement after troubleshooting the issues at the hospital side of the link and replacing the cable. There was a marginal improvement in the signal level but it was still not enough to make the link 100% reliable.

By this time it was getting fairly late in the day and the sun was starting to set. In addition, the wind was starting to make it fairly cold up on the mountain! By the time Reid climbed back down the tower he was exhausted! I was pretty exhausted as well due to both the work and the fact that I have been sick over the past few days.

It looks like we may have to go back to the drawing board on this STL link. Unfortunately we did not have the time or materials to fix the newly discovered issues on this particular trip. At least we were able to get the new filter installed!

We drove back down the mountain and enjoyed a nice dinner in town after a hard day’s work.

Reid and I traveled to beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming yesterday. Our mission was to install a filter to alleviate some interference issues and to activate a new STL link from the hospital downtown up to the transmitter site. This link will allow us to move our satellite dish from the mountain down into town where it will be less succeptible to snow. These projects had been waiting for a number of months and it was time to get them done before winter set in.

This morning we hopped in the truck and headed for the KUWJ transmitter site on top of Snow King mountain. Fortunately there was no snow yet but the morning did start out rather cloudy and foggy. As we neared the top of the mountain we started to climb above the clouds that were blanketing town. It was a marvelous sight. I had never actually seen anything quite like it before (except perhaps from an airplane).

Up above the clouds

Reid and I started to unload the truck and did some prep work for installing the new filter. Once we had all of the prep work done we headed back down the mountain for some lunch and a visit to the hospital where our new satellite receiver and STL were located. The equipment is actually installed in an office. We hope to move it to a mechanical room closer to the antennas where it will be out of everyone’s way.

Satellite receiver and STL transmitter with stuffed animal standing guard

After we had finished inspecting the antennas at the hospital we went back up the mountain. Reid started to look at what it was going to take to get the STL link running properly. New cable was the first item on the list…

Reid starts to pull new cable up the tower for the STL antenna

Unfortunately, we discovered that the STL antenna does not have a good line of sight to the hospital from its current location on the tower. It will need to be moved higher on this tower or to an adjacent tower.

Our STL antenna…

…looking straight at these trees. D’OH!

Despite the issues with the STL, the day was not a total loss…We did get the filter installed after taking the station off the air briefly to complete the plumbing we had prepared earlier in the day. This should prevent our transmitter from accepting or generating any signals that are not on our frequency.

Reid stands in front of the transmitter and newly installed filter

At the end of the day after all was said and done I enjoyed an absolutely gorgeous sunset. These moments are by far the best part of my job.

Sunset from Snow King

The lights of Jackson Hole at night

Reid went back to Pilot Hill today to finish hanging the antenna for KUWL. This is the second antenna for WPR’s two new Laramie stations that will soon be going on the air. The installation looks nice. Now that the antennas are hung we will need to connect the feedlines to them. Once that is complete we will need to do some re-wiring inside the transmitter shack and down at the studios to get audio and control to the new transmitters.

We hope to have the new stations on the air by mid-October.

Two new antennas on the KUWR tower for KUWY and KUWL

Reid and I were able to get the KUWY antenna mounted on the tower today. This was the first relatively nice day we have had in over a week in terms of wind and clouds so we decided to give it a shot.

The wind was relatively calm when we started but by the time we were finished it was gusting pretty good. The biggest challenge was keeping the ropes used to rig the antenna and tower under control!

In any event, we managed to keep things under control and got the antenna hung.

Reid braves the wind to hang the new KUWY antenna
One more to go…

We will try to hang the second antenna and connect the cables tomorrow. What fun!

Today Reid and I wrangled some cables and put the new WPR uplink dish online. The signal looks marvelous. This dish should make for a much more reliable signal to the WPR network.

New dish beaming WPR to the state of Wyoming

The amplifier for the new dish is currently on a temporary power feed and the cabling in the equipment rack needs some cleanup but it works like a champ!

Perhaps tomorrow if the wind dies down we can get back to the KUWL and KUWY antenna installation project…

Ever have one of those days? Around 8 AM my phone rings as I am having coffee with some friends. Apparently we have lost the feed from National Public Radio and are off the air.

We had just completed the process of completely switching satellite delivery systems from NPR’s old “SOSS” system to the new “Content Depot” system. The new system is an entirely different model for audio delivery.

New satellite receivers for Content Depot

Instead of tuning to individual satellite carriers, the new system selects multicast IP audio streams from a single large satellite carrier. In addition, the system has the ability to deliver audio files directly to us over the satellite instead of the old method of recording everything from the satellite as it is fed to us in real time. The system shows some real promise in terms of increased productivity once it is fully working.

I had been testing the system over a number of months and for the most part the transition has gone smoothly. For some reason this morning, however, the system killed our subscription to the 8 AM hour of Morning Edition. Not good.

My assistant was quickly able to restore audio from a backup source but it still was not a good situation and caused about a 10 minute loss of the national feed. Our news director covered the situation gracefully while Reid worked to restore audio.

The problem turned out to be an error in programming at NPR. Many stations are quickly losing confidence in the new system due to these faults but I guess I have a bit more patience due to the fact that I just went through a very similar transition in our regional network (albeit on a much smaller scale) using equipment from the same manufacturer.

NPR deployed this system to HUNDREDS of stations and developed a lot of custom software on the head end. By comparison, I only had 14 stations to upgrade in our regional network and no custom software…That project was far simpler and still not without its own set of problems.

The second problem of the day was a series of reports that our Rawlins translator was off the air and had been for a couple of days. This was the translator where we had just installed a satellite dish to replace a poor over the air pickup from Laramie.

Rawlins translator

Larry and Reid went to the translator and found that the dish had blown approximately 10 degress off point. They were able to successfully re-point the dish but the high winds were still affecting the signal level. We will likely need to reinforce the pole that the dish is mounted on in order to keep it from moving so much in the wind.

Problem #3 of the day was when the KUWR transmitter decided to drop off the air for no apparent reason. I suspect it may have been a momentary power glitch.

Around 3:40 PM, our administrative assistant forwarded a listener call to me saying that the station was off the air. A moment later, the operator on duty came to tell me that we had no meter readings. Shortly after that my monitoring equipment alerted me to the problem. I was able to quickly call the transmitter and restore it to air. Eventually I will have an automatic process that will try to bring up the auxiliary transmitter in the event that the main transmitter goes down.

The main KUWR transmitter

Just another day in WPR Engineering…Despite all of the issues I have to deal with I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Reid and I made an attempt today to complete the KUWL and KUWY antenna installations but after several hours determined that it was far too windy to complete the project today.  We are going to try to complete the project this weekend or early next week depending on the wind conditions.

Today, Reid and I began the process of hanging new antennas on the KUWR tower for two new Laramie stations, KUWL and KUWY. These stations will serve Laramie with 24/7 Jazz and classical music respectively. The stations will be relatively low in power (about 100 watts) compared to KUWR’s 100,000 watts.

I had originally hoped to have these stations on the air long before now but for a number of reasons the project timeline slipped more than it should have. I am still hoping to have them on the air by mid-October. There are a number of things that still need to happen before these stations can go on the air but the most critical and weather sensitive is getting the antennas hung on the tower. Reid worked on preparations for hanging the antennas while I worked on some additional equipment preparations in the building.

Two new antennas…Still on the ground for now…

When we arrived at the site we found that it was already pretty busy…Our neighbors from KCWC Public Television were having new antennas hung on their tower as well!

KCWC and KUWR towers

KCWC’s tower crew

One thing that made the antenna installation more difficult was the wind…The wind in Wyoming is strong enough when standing on the ground…It is magnified while up on the tower!

Reid braving a relatively calm day on KUWR’s tower while mounting 1 of 4 brackets for the new antennas

We managed to get two of the four brackets installed for one of the two antennas. We will continue with the project tomorrow.

More fun at the office today…I was sitting at my bench and suddenly noticed that my satellite receiver was no longer locked to our signal. I looked over at my spectrum analyzer and saw that ALL of the signals normally present from our satellite dish were gone! Apparently we had lost both our uplink AND our downlink. Very strange…

I called several of our stations and verified that there was no audio anywhere in the network and that we were in fact off the air around the entire state. Here we go again…

I immediately started troubleshooting the problem. I measured the voltages at the upconverter mounted on the dish. The receive cable showed voltage coming from the indoor unit located in the shop but there was nothing present on the transmit cable.

The uplink is down!

Checking the transmit and receive cables with an ohmmeter revealed a partial short on the transmit cable. For some reason swapping the two cables allowed signal and voltage to pass across both cables. I suspect this is because of the different voltages and frequencies carried on the two cables. The transmit cable carries a 70 MHZ IF signal and a 10 MHZ reference for the upconverter. It normally measures about 5 volts DC at the upconverter. The receive cable carries 14 volts DC to power the upconverter and LNB. It also carries the 1 GHZ L-Band receive signal from the LNB.

Although I had the appropriate voltages at the upconverter after swapping the cables there was still no receive signal down in the shop. Initially I thought the upconverter was faulty but swapping the upconverter did not fix the problem. Apparently there was no voltage getting to the LNB from the upconverter. Finally, I swapped out the cable between the upconverter and the LNB and suddenly everything was working again.

Working again…For now…

After 3 hours worth of troubleshooting the network was finally back on the air. Nothing like MULTIPLE problems occuring simultaneously to cause some serious head scratching…

It was an interesting day today…I received some news about changes in the WPR engineering department.  I can’t say too much at this point but more to come.

–Shane