I was recently informed by our power company in Rock Springs that they would need to disconnect power to our site for most of a day to switch from the overhead power feed to a newly installed underground feed. This will ultimately result in more reliable power service to the site. The overhead service was subject to the high winds, ice and snowy conditions on the mountain. To keep the station on the air we decided to temporarily install a portable generator and low power transmitter.

UW88 at the transmitter site on Aspen Mountain…

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A couple of years ago we installed a (used) transmitter that we had rebuilt at a new station in Rawlins. Well, that transmitter finally gave up the ghost and needed to be replaced. Of course this failure occurred while I was away at the National Association of Broadcasters convention–Fortunately this is the PERFECT place to find a replacement transmitter. 🙂 I asked my other two engineers to remove the old transmitter and “prep” the site. Meanwhile, I asked one of my vendors if they could have a replacement transmitter on my doorstep by the weekend. They said “sure”. The installation came out quite nice and the new transmitter is performing well.

The equipment rack with satellite receiver, remote control, modulation monitor, transmitter, audio processor and uninterruptible power supply.

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Once again, I’m back in Sundance…Time time I’m riding in style!

My trusty Ford F250 SuperDuty (UW88) and a 2012 Polaris Ranger Crew Cab with tracks and full cab.

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I knew it wouldn’t be very long before I was back in Jackson…This time I received a report that our backup audio feed had failed.  Most likely another satellite receiver failure..

Our backup audio link is located in an attic…The satellite dish is on the roof.  Up I go!

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On one of my last trips to this site I noticed a failure with one of the power amplifier modules in the newly installed transmitter.  The manufacturer has sent a replacement part and now I need to install it before snow completely shuts me out of the site…

This time I needed the chains on UW88 to access the site…It really is getting tough and I won’t be able to do this much longer without a snow vehicle… 

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Well, speaking of equipment failures…I had another piece of equipment at the site suffer a failure.  This time it was a piece of monitoring equipment that is at least as much computer as anything else…Very common with modern broadcast equipment.  A number of these pieces of equipment contain common PC components such as hard drives, motherboards and power supplies usually along with some specialized components for the broadcast functions.

Again, absolutely gorgeous scenery on Snow King.  So far the weather is holding for these trips…The sun is going down though so I should probably hurry…

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As with any new technology, there is always the chance of premature failure for a variety of reasons.  At one point you could purchase a piece of equipment and count on it to work pretty much trouble free for 10-20 years without needing much attention but as equipment has become increasingly more complex and compact this is no longer the case.  Well designed equipment has enough redundancy that it can still operate relatively normally with a certain level of failure but these failures need to be addressed before they develop into a more serious situation.

Once again, I’m back on Snow King with some absolutely GORGEOUS scenery.  The town of Jackson (also known as Jackson Hole) is down in a valley shadowed by the Grand Teton Mountain Range.

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As I continue the process of upgrading and re-wiring our sites, the Jackson transmitter site was next on the list.  It was well overdue for a pretty major wiring cleanup.

UW88 on Snow King…Probably one of the last times I will be able to access the site via truck.

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Our site in Rock Springs had suffered a number of outages due to a pretty badly damaged satellite dish.  I was able to purchase a replacement dish that would fit in the existing location without modifying the mounting structure.

UW88 outside of the transmitter building at the tower site…I have just finished unloading the dish from the truck.

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One heck of a snowy morning here in Rock Springs!  Not unusual for this time of year…Brrr!!!

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