Earlier this week we suffered a power failure at our Rawlins transmitter site.  The power was ultimately restored but unfortunately our transmitter failed to return to service.  Time to mount up on snow vehicles and take a trip to the site to see what is wrong…

Another engineer from the area was able to reach the site and inform me that the exciter appeared to be dead.  The only indication was an “Overload” LED.  No other indications were lit.  Great.  This sounds like a power supply issue.  The transmitter was happily running but showing “Drive” and “Power Lock” faults indicating that it (as expected in this case) was not seeing any signal from the exciter.  This exciter is a bit “unique” but fortunately we had an identical unit at the shop.  It had other issues (extremely spurious output) but hopefully we could make one working unit between the two of them.

After a long ride up to the site on snow vehicles, we finally made it.
Four of us had gone into the site with two snowmobiles and an ATV with tracks…

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After many many months I FINALLY have a tower and antenna for my new station!  If you’ve been following the story, I recently received a building for this station as well.  It’s good to finally see some tangible progress.  I can’t wait to have the station constructed and on the air after almost 3 years of hurdles!  I hadn’t expected the shipment to arrive TODAY but gladly drove up to the site to receive it.  While I was waiting for the truck to arrive, I took some photos of the site.

The site is currently covered in thermal tarps held down with tires.  Here are the three piers that the tower will attach to.  One is seen with bolts slightly sticking out from beneath the tarps.

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About a week or so ago I headed up to Jackson to deal with a remote control issue.  On that trip I uncovered another more serious issue with the uninterruptible power supply.  I decided to make another trip before the Christmas holiday so I wouldn’t have issue in case of power failure at the site…This site is rather difficult to access during the winter.  It requires either a snow cat, a long walk on snow shoes or assistance from the ski area to access the building.

Snow King mountain in Jackson Hole…Quite a formidable task to get to the towers at the summit (upper left, in front of the sunrise)…I was able to ride the ski lift to the top and then take a snowmobile up to the tower.

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OK, this is getting a bit old…

I received a call from a listener that we had been off the air in Dubois for the past four days.  That’s odd…I had not received any other calls about it…  She had tried to receive us on two different radios at her house, however, and was receiving nothing but static.  This had happened once before when one of the two transmit antennas on the tower failed.  Time to hit the road again and head up to the site with the help of the guys from Dubois Telephone Exchange.  DTE owns the site and agreed to take me up there in their snow vehicle.

Well, at least I had some pretty scenery to look at on the drive yesterday…
This is Elk Mountain just west of Laramie.  Quite the cap cloud up there…

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been in the process of having a new transmitter site built.  Site preparations are in progress but I wanted to have the building first shipped to Laramie before getting sent to the site.  This will allow me to pre-assemble and test everything in Laramie and save travel back and forth to the site.  Once the building arrives at the site it should be as simple as connecting power and antenna to get the site on the air.

Getting ready to lift the building off the flatbed…

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I had been having some issues with the remote control at our Jackson transmitter site so I decided to make a visit before the issues prevented me from accessing the site remotely in case of an equipment failure.  Unfortunately the site is snowed in so it will require a snow cat for access.  Once again our friends from Wyoming PBS and Central Wyoming College give me a ride in their snow cat to the site.

After a bit of jockeying on the icy access road we got the snow cat unloaded and the truck parked. 

Heading up to the site in the snow cat…

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I received a report that our Dubois translator was off the air…It’s not a very big signal but it has a number of listeners.  There had recently been high winds in the area so I suspect something happened to the satellite dish.  It’s going to take a snow cat to access the site this time of year…Our friends from Central Wyoming College lend a hand…

We first tried to get to the lower parking area at the base of the mountain…
Unfortunately our truck fell through the ice crossing a small stream.

This tire isn’t going anywhere…
Fortunately the snow cat had not yet reached this point and was able to come down and tug us out.

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I have been in the process of trying to get a new transmitter site built for the past few months.  After a number of roadblocks and delays beyond my control ground was finally broken and the site started to take shape.  It is supposed to be on the air by early next year and if all continues to go well we should make the target date…

One of the posts for the fence around the site…
A track hoe in the background was used to excavate the tower foundation.

Construction of the tower foundation in progress…
The tower will be a 145′ free standing tower.
Three concrete piers are wrapped in thermal blankets while they cure.
A large block of concrete is beneath the piers sitting on the bedrock.

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What happens when you try to take a rear wheel drive truck up an icy mountain summit and instinctively tap the brakes to slow down?  Probably something like this…

Ouch…Facing west against the guardrail on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes!

Looking the other direction…I had just spun on the icy road and skidded backwards against the guardrail!

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I had received a report from our Thermopolis site that our HD signal was off the air.  This signal also feeds two of our translators so it was rather important to get it fixed.  In addition, I had discovered on a previous visit that some of the clamps securing the antenna to the tower had broken due to wind.  This failure also needed to be fixed.

Reid braves the wind and the icy tower to re-secure the antenna…