November 2012 – Engineering Radio

End of the day, time to go home

I took a few shots during the boat ride back from the WICC transmitter site today. This has to be one of the more unique transmitter sites to access in the country. Most of the time, the boat ride takes about five to ten minutes, depending on other vessels in the channel. The dock at the island is in rough shape due to last month’s storm, but it is generally passable.

We are still working on repairing the damage from Sandy. Today was patching up the roof and troubleshooting the tower lights. The tower light wiring, junction boxes, and splices were all soaked by seawater, and there are several issues with malfunctioning side markers and beacon lights. We will be rewiring everything next week.

Departing Pleasure Beach Island, Bridgeport, CT

Shot over the stern looking at the two 1926 vintage Miliken towers. The square, self-supporting towers are nearly ninety years old, most of which was spent in a salt air environment, as such these towers are in excellent shape. They knew how to make things back then.

The Port Jefferson Ferry, Bridgeport Harbor, CT

The Ferry runs between Port Jefferson, NY (Long Island) and Bridgeport, CT carrying cars and pedestrians. There are no cars on this particular boat, so it must be out of service.

The pilot house on the Harbor Master boat

Looking into the pilot house of the Harbor Master boat. Looks a little crowded in there, I’ll just stay out on deck and enjoy the ride. Sometimes it is the small things.

Oh, damn: Una Parte

Guess what caught fire this time? It’s this thing, which has become the newest piece in my burned-up shit collection:

If you give up and are totally flummoxed, this is the IPA power supply regulator for a BE FM35A transmitter. Here it is in better days when it was actually working. The IPAs are in pull-out drawers on the right side of the transmitter cabinet, below the FX-30 exciter.

Said transmitter is aging not so gracefully, as it turns 26 this year. There does seem to be a finite life to transmitting equipment, something that should be kept in mind when planning out next year’s capital expense budgets. Regardless of all that, this event naturally occurred the day after Thanksgiving.

The good news, and there is always good news, we have many spare IPA regulators and PA modules in the shop ready to go. Upon investigation, there were numerous other problems with this transmitter, which have been or will be addressed.

Boredom sets in

Apparently, somebody, over the long holiday weekend had a wee bit too much time on their hands. So much so that they decided ripping the doors off of the generator shed at the WGHQ transmitter site was a good idea. And so they did:

That, and smash the light fixture.

The good news; thus satisfied with their bit of malfeasance, they left the generator and other contents of the building untouched. It could have been worse.

Perhaps the site could do with some security cameras?

The local carpenter was called and the door frame was replaced. Truth be told, the wood door frame was a bit past its prime anyway. Once the doors were remounted, I check out the generator and it starts and runs just fine.

It’s a cute little thing, 23 KW, 4 cylinder diesel engine.

HF broadcasting station maintenance

This video shows some of the maintenance required for an HF (AKA Shortwave) broadcast station. It starts with transmission line tensioning, some shots of a curtain array then goes on to show the inside of a transmitter building. Transmitters shown are Harris HF-100 (a 1980’s model tube type PDM design) and Continental 418, but I didn’t see the letter number. They are likely tube-modulated units.

These are from the international service of Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), or Radio Australia International.