June 2012 – Page 2 – Engineering Radio

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Class Charlie fire in the transmitter room electrical panel. Away fire party from repair locker forward. Set condition ZEBRA throughout the ship, this is not a drill.

Or something like that. If you were driving around Albany, NY this afternoon and noticed WDCD-FM was off the air, this is the reason why.

WDCD AM/FM main distribution panel — WDCD AM/FM 480 volt 3 phase AC main distribution panel

A little after noon time, the 480-volt main distribution panel at WDCD AM/FM caught fire, taking the FM station off the air.

WDCD conference room clock, time of power outage noted

According to this clock, it happened at 12:19 pm, when there was a loud bang and the lights in the studio flickered several times, followed by the building fire alarm going off. Thankfully, a quick response by the station staff and the Town of Colonie fire department limited the damage to the interior of the distribution panel. Other than the dry chemical fire extinguisher residue all over the place, the building is none the worse for wear.

The 480 Volt three-phase electrical distribution panel was installed in 1947 when the original building was constructed. The power company cut the power to the building and an electrician was able to re-route the distribution for the dry step-down transformers that power the studios and equipment racks. The original 480 volt service was installed due to the 50 KW AM transmitter for WPTR (WDCD-AM). Currently, WDCD-AM is silent, pending programming decisions by the owner, Crawford Broadcasting.

WDCD burned electrical distribution panel parts

So, we spent the late afternoon vacuuming the NextGen computers and UPS out, wiping down the equipment, and making sure to clean out the power supplies and other nooks and crannies. Then, we powered everything back up, one at a time, and to our pleasant surprise, all came back up without error. The total off-air time for the FM station was about 6 hours.

Goodbye, RCI 1945-2012

RCI logo

In yet another example of government-sponsored international broadcasting ending, Radio Canada International calls it quits after 67 years. Effective June 24, all broadcasts from RCI’s Sackville shortwave relay site will cease. All satellite distribution will end and seventy-five percent of the RCI workforce will be laid off. This means the end of almost all RCI original content. The good news, according to the press release, is that RCI will continue on webcasting.

This is due to budget cuts to the CBC, which administers RCI. The Canadian Parliament cut the RCI budget from $12.3 million CAD to $2.3 million CAD for 2012. This cut in expenditures is saving each Canadian resident approximately $0.35 CAD per year.

Thus, this weekend is the last chance to hear RCI or CBCNord Quebec on any HF frequency.

I listened to RCI for many years, until they drastically reduced their English language shortwave broadcasts to North America in 2006. Simply put, HF broadcasters are folding up shop and moving toward web-based distribution networks. Those HF transmitters are expensive and they do not maintain themselves.

One drawback of this scheme is government censorship. It is very easy to the government to block access to sites via internet firewalls. It is very difficult to completely jam a radio station.

And perhaps those considerations are not important.

RCI transmitter site, Sackville, NB, courtesy of Wikipedia

I wonder what will happen to their transmitters after sign-off? According to the wikipedia article there are nine HF transmitters in use, with power levels ranging from 100-300 KW. They are likely to be hauled away and scrapped, the building torn down.

Dog Days of Summer

That saying originates from Greek and Roman times, when Sirius, the Dog Star, aligned with the Sun during July and August and was thought to bring extra heat to the earth. The Dog Days are evil times; seas boil, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.

Bad news, indeed. Add to that; air conditioners fail, general managers become cranky, and transmitters overheat causing damage to sensitive control circuits, which is even worse.

We shall be busy dealing with things like this:

Air conditioning condenser with low refrigerant. This unit either has a leak or was not charged properly. I would hazard the former.

Fan blade on condenser coil failed due to metal fatigue. I have seen this in more than one place.

These wall-mount Bard AC units are pretty reliable, however, even they fail from time to time. The best course of action is to have a maintenance plan, a backup plan, and the number of the best HVAC contractor that can be found.

Water and transmitters do not mix

This incident happened a few years ago. I thought I had lost the pictures of the disaster, but I found them this morning on my thumb drive. Hooray! This occurred one morning just before Christmas after the area received a snow/ice/rain storm. The gutters on the old ATT long lines building were clogged with ice and the water on the roof built up. Unfortunately, the transmitter was installed directly below a disused exhaust stack for the former backup generators.

I received the off-air call from the morning show while I was driving to the office. I diverted and went to the transmitter site and found water pouring into the top of the main transmitter.

Thus, water ran down directly into the top of the QEI FMQ-3500 transmitter (transmitter was upgraded to 6 KW). Unfortunately, high voltage and dirty stack water do not mix. The combination of sooty, iron-laden water, and the B+ damaged much of the transmitter circuits beyond repair. The main transmitter is on the right, the backup transmitter is on the left.

I inspected the backup transmitter, also a QEI FMQ-3500, and it seemed to me that no water made it into the unit. I rigged the tarp to ensure that none did, which was a very pleasing bit of work, what with the cold, smelly, dirty diesel water dripping on my head and running down my neck and back.

The 1 5/8 coax switch was also damaged:

As was the remote control in the equipment rack:

Fortunately, the backup transmitter ran, although I pressed the plate-on button with a dry wooden stick while standing on a dry, non-conducting ladder. Even so, I still felt a little trepidation holding that stick.

WBPM Saugerties, NY Nautel V-7.5 transmitter

It took almost a year, but finally, the insurance company for the building owner came through, and a new Nautel V-7.5 transmitter was installed. I believe this is the last V transmitter Nautel made. We moved the transmitter location across the room, not under the old generator stacks. We also removed the generator stacks and patched up the roof with hydraulic cement and roofing tar. By the way, that yellow color should look familiar to anyone who ever worked inside a Bell Telephone System building.