Back last February, it was reported that FEMA/Department of Homeland Security was mysteriously constructing prepackaged AM transmitter buildings at various PEP (Primary Entry Point) transmitter sites across the country as something call “Primary Entry Point Expansion.” These buildings contain a 5 KW Nautel AM transmitter, EAS gear, satellite equipment (the exact equipment list is undisclosed) and a backup generator all in a shielded (Faraday Cage), prefabricated building placed inside of a fenced in compound at the station’s transmitter site. The buildings are being put in place, but not connected to anything in the outside world. They are planning to have about 80 (the number keeps increasing) of these structures in place when the project is completed by mid 2013.
FEMA/DHS IPAWS PEP expansion project
Why, inquiring minds want to know, would they do that?
The new buildings and equipment are, of course, not provided to the government for free. I would estimate each unit costs at least $200,000 based on the following:
A new solid state 5 KW AM transmitter costs $50-55K
A new 35 KW generator costs $23K
A new, shielded communications structure costs $70-85K
Those prices are roughly what a private company might pay, the government procurement costs would be higher. Multiply by 80 and it equals at least $16M, perhaps double that when project administration is considered. In the distant past, through something called the Broadcast Station Protection Program (BSPP), FEMA did provide generators, fuel tanks, transfer switches and occasionally a bomb shelter to key EBS stations throughout the country. In the recent past, FEMA and the government in general has been reluctant to fund even mandated changes in the EAS system, first in 1997 when EAS was first implemented and again in 2011 when the CAP modifications were mandated. Why are they now spending at least $16M to provide EMP hardened facilities forAM radio stations?
The rational for this current wave of government generosity, as reported in several industryperiodicals, is simply a matter of supplying in depth backup facilities in accordance with Executive Order 13407. The design of the structure and manner of installation seems to indicate the main concern of FEMA is some type of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). If an EMP were to happen and it took out the station’s main transmitters, these could be connected to the existing antenna system and switched on. They would provide emergency programming and interface directly with FEMA’s IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System). No mention at all of the station licensee’s ability to use these facilities, only FEMA. It would seem that the licensee would be excluded from using their own frequency if these “backup” transmitters were put into use.
The interesting thing about this is that there is a coincidence with the upswing of solar cycle 24. Back in 2008, likely when this project was likely first dreamed up, the predictions were for a great number of sun spots in this cycle. That has not happened and in fact, this cycle in now predicted to be the weakest solar cycle since 1823. Even weak sun spots cycles can create problems, but does that warrant supplying 80 backup transmitters, generators, fuel tanks and buildings to various AM broadcasting stations throughout the country? Further, solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) are fairly slow moving events, the sun is well monitored; alerts would be issued and precautions taken.
The story doesn’t add up, but it is difficult to say exactly why.
One other thing to consider: HEMP (High altitude Electromagnetic Pulse from a nuclear air burst). AM transmitters are more robust when it comes to HEMP than FM transmitters are. This is because of their modulation type and frequency of operation. A 5 KW AM transmitter can withstand RF voltages six or eight times it’s name plate carrier rating. Tube type transmitters are even more robust than solid state. The FM broadcast band falls right in the middle of the HEMP fast pulse frequency (72-225 MHz), which will likely resonate in the tuning circuits of the transmitter exposed to it and destroy all of the active devices. Not so with AM transmitters.
A HEMP event would cause catastrophic damage to the electrical grid across wide areas of the continent (see also; Starfish Prime). The voltages instantaneously induced on computer circuit boards and power supplies would be so high, they would likely burst into flames if they were close enough to the detonation. The same for almost all other electronic devices with circuit boards. It would set the country back one hundred or more years, technologically, causing massive disruptions in the food supply chain. Such an act would surely be met with massive nuclear retaliation by the US. The military has not only hardened all of it’s communications and command facilities, they have undergone rigorous EMP testing, finding and fixing design flaws. Thus, the US military’s capacity to wage war would continue undiminished after a HEMP event, a fact that all other members of the nuclear club are surely aware of.
Who, in their right mind would launch such an attack? Nobody.
The case of the blown fuse, or rather the blown up fuse:
Blown 10 amp fuse on Harris SX5 PA board
F32 is blown to small bits and had to be vacuumed out of the bottom of the transmitter. The reason why is the pair of MOSFETS connected to that circuit were shorted. Of course, the reason for the shorting MOSFETS needed to be investigated. What I found was on the under side of the PA board where the brass stand off attacked to the torroid combiner board, the nuts attaching the stand off to the combiner board was loose and there was a big arc mark.
I tightened everything up and replaced the MOSFETS, marking them with a pen in case they short again, in which case the drive section needs to be closely examined.
With Hurricane Irene taking aim at the northeast, now is the time to make preparations for bad weather. This is the five day forcast:
Hurricane Irene five day forecast
Now, five day forecasts are notoriously inaccurate. There are too many variables to make it accurate and even the most seasoned meteorologist will admit, it is an educated guess. However, the large semi-transparent disk is almost always accurate. Therefore, it seems we may be in for a bit of a storm this weekend, with the eastern end of Long Island and the Newport/Providence RI in the landfall area. The Bridgeport, CT stations will likely see the worst of it, if the storm follows the predicted course.
Having a good disaster recovery program in place reduces much of the pre-storm work. This includes backup equipment and personnel allocations to keep the stations on the air and providing valuable information during the event. Wherever and whenever our clients allow us, we make sure that these systems are properly designed, installed and working. When trouble is milling about off shore in the form of a Hurricane, then we make a few final preparations, both personally and for the clients:
Top off all generator fuel tanks and test them. This includes my home generator.
Make sure all loose items are secured.
Make sure other redundant systems; backup transmitters, back up STLs, backup transmitter sites are in order and ready to be deployed.
Check the personal safety items; first aid kit, rain gear, flashlight batteries, work gloves, eye protection, hard hat, some type of energy food and extra water are in the truck.
Get out a clean sleeping bag and a set of clean dry clothes and put them in the truck.
Gas up the chain saw and put it in the truck with extra gas, bar oil and blade sharpener.
During the event, it is important to recognize when a situation is too dangerous to proceed and wait for the danger to subside. Examples of this are local flooding of roadways, downed power lines, high winds, and or electrical storm while working at transmitter sites.
Radio may have lost much of it’s relevance as an entertainment medium, however, there is still one thing it does very well; broadcast emergency communications and information to the public.
Update: As of 5 am 8/25 it looks as if the hurricane is making a b-line toward Bridgeport, CT. Most of the computer models are now in agreement which means the forecast is getting a better handle on the variables and is becoming more accurate. Strength is still somewhat debatable, but even a category 1 storm could do significant damage. We shall see.
Update 2: As of 5 pm 8/26, Irene is still on course for the greater NYC/Long Island sound area. As much as possible, preparations are complete. There are some things which cannot be helped, like the height above mean sea level of the WICC and WEBE transmitter sites (10 feet) or the lack of a generator at WXPK studios, etc. Estimates are for Hurricane force winds by this time tomorrow, so the only thing left to do now is get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow may be one of those long days.
Here is an interesting thing; several people have suggested that IBOC signals on both AM and FM NYC stations be turned off so that smaller local stations will be listenable to local residents in NJ and Long Island. A secondary consideration would be the amount of power IBOC uses and possibility of backup generators running out of fuel to run something that has little or no audience. If that isn’t telling….
Damaged in last year’s F1 tornado, this thirty foot Rohn 25-G tower needed to be removed from the roof. It actually went faster than I though it would, the worst part being moving the 4 foot tower sections down to the salvage truck via elevator. Naturally, the day we choose to do this is the same day that one of the two elevators servicing the seventh floor is out of order.
Damaged Rohn 25G STL tower on roof of studio
This was the same tornado that picked up a twenty ton roof top air conditioner and deposited it in the parking lot. Luck would have it that no one was killed or injured.
Rohn 25G buckled tower section
Using a circular saw with a metal blade, a sawsall and a hand grinder, the tower was cut up into four foot sections. The sections, brackets and tower base were taken to the scrap yard and disposed of.
Tower and transmission lines ready to be removed from roof
There were several lengths of unused 7/8 inch foam coax, broken antennas, RG-59- RG-58, RG-6, rotor cable, etc that we cleaned off of the roof and tower.
The after picture
A good little project to have completed.
The studio build out for WEBE is also nearly done. August will mark one year of our company’s involvement at WICC/WEBE. I was looking around today and comparing the difference between when we started to now. Many things have been done.
Received a call last night, after a particularly bad thunderstorm, that WGHQ in Kingston, NY was off the air. Earlier in the day, the transmitter had tripped the main breaker after a thunderstorm. I arrived at the transmitter site and found the breaker tripped again. Once the breaker was reset, the transmitter came back on and ran without any overload indications. The transmitter is a 10 year old Nautel ND-5.
WGHQ Nautel ND-5 transmitter
I was thinking breaker fatigue as the breaker is the original 1960 breaker installed when the building was built. I reset the breaker and turned the power output down to 3 KW, thinking the reduced load might not trip the breaker until we could get a replacement. The transmitter was on the air running as I was about to lock up and go home when I heard, but more felt through the floor, a THUMP! There I stood and watched the transmitter go dark.
At least it happened when I was there looking at it. Because of the lightning, I was thinking something in the output network. I reset the breaker and once again, no faults and the transmitter came back on. Strange. Obviously some sort of power supply issue. Here are the clues:
The B- voltage was right where it should be at 72 volts.
All other readings, reflected power, forward power, power supply current are normal before and after the breaker trip
No fault lights
The service panel breaker, which was tripping, is rated for 70 amps, the transmitter front panel breaker which did not trip, is 50 amps.
The Nautel factory rep was thinking either breaker fatigue or the big transformer in the base of the transmitter had gone bad. According to him, no one had ever heard of a transformer going bad in these transmitters, which makes a certain amount of sense. Unlike a tube transmitter, which steps the B+ voltage up several times, these transmitters reduce the B- voltage by about 2/3rds or so. With a step up situation, a surge would be multiplied many times and could very easily punch a hole in the transformer’s secondary winding insulation. I have, in fact, experienced this on at least two occasions.
That leaves the wiring between the transmitter and the service panel. I double checked the panel breaker with my volt meter to ensure that the voltage was indeed off. Then I removed each phase from the connection lugs in the transmitter and tested the wire to ground with my Fluke 77 DVM. Sure enough, two of the phases showed resistance of 1.2 and 1.7 MΩ to ground were it should have been infinite. Further, when I took the cover off of the service panel, I found a dead mouse. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any #4 THHN and all the home improvement stores were closed by that time, so it had to wait until morning.
The thunderstorm seems to be a coincidence.
After we pulled the wire out of the conduit, we found this:
Mouse chewed feces encrusted electrical cable
It is a little hard to see, but that shiny spot is copper. The cable jacket is chewed back quite a ways and the entire thing is encrusted in mouse feces and urine. I love to work on stuff like this. LOVE IT! Hantavirus, here we come! That reminds me, I need to get some of those blue latex exam gloves and throw them in the truck… Anyway, far back in the conduit running through the concrete floor where it bends to go up to the service panel, the mice apparently had a nest. They got into the conduit under the transmitter, where it transitioned from 3 inch rigid to 1 1/4 inch flexible metal without benefit of a junction box or proper fitting.
We pulled new copper conductors in and installed a proper junction/transition between the 3 inch and 1 1/4 inch conduit. The service panel was also missing several knockouts of various sizes, which were sealed with knockout seals. The transmitter was back on the air at full power about 16 hours after it went off. Unfortunately, the station has no back up transmitter, so they were off for that period of time. Perhaps now they will look into a backup transmitter or at least an exterminator, but probably not.
If one considers paradise an FM35A. Going through another iteration of blown transmitter fuses for WEBE, Bridgeport, CT. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon examining the transmitter and found several interesting things:
Fresh arc tracks on the PA cavity and PA loading capacitor
The shoes and bars in the high voltage contactor were severely pitted
One of the mains phases (middle) in the high voltage supply appears to be heating up, likely due to a loose connection.
Discolored wire on buss bar
I checked and re-tightened all of the mains connections. Apparently, this is an old problem, as the Allen screw was tight. Interestingly, the fuse that was blown was on the red phase, which is different from what it was last time.
I spent the afternoon filing and sanding off the arc track marks in the PA cavity. It is very important to file flat all sharp points that where the result of arcing. Any sharp points will induce corona. I also filed down all of the contacts in high voltage contactor, which took a fair amount of time. These are soft copper shoes and bars which had so much pitting and carbon I wonder how they didn’t catch on fire. I filed them flat. We were back on the 35A transmitter at full power by 4:30pm.
If this happens again, I will bring my megger out and check the insulation on the wire between the disconnect switch and the HV power supply.
When I left the site at 5:30, I felt like we did some good work.
We have received somewhere between 5-6 inches of rain in the last four days. That, coupled with the deep snow pack and the still frozen ground has lead to some flooding. The WLNA antenna array is located along the Peekskill Hollow Creek in northern Westchester County, NY. Back in 1980, it might have seemed like a good idea to locate an AM station in a tidal swamp along the Hudson river. I am sure the land was not that expensive and from an engineering standpoint, having a continually wet, partially brackish ground system may have seemed like a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, the idea never really panned out in application. First of all, the neighbors had other ideas, fighting the radio station owners all the way to the NY State Supreme court. Secondly, technically, it never lived up to expectations. The original non-directional antenna on 1430 was a 1/2 wave tower which by all accounts, worked very well. It did not, however, allow for night time service, which is why the new sight and array was sought. By the time the system was built, AM was already in steep decline and I doubt the owners ever recouped their investment.
Fast forward to today. All five base insulators are under water and the transmitter is off the air. These are pictures from last Wednesday after the first flood waters receded from the Monday/Tuesday storm. I imagine it looks worse this morning, although I don’t own a boat and won’t be wading out there to look.
Base insulator, tower 2 WLNA array, Peekskill, NY
This is tower two of the daytime antenna array. Clearly, it spent some time underwater. We cleaned off all the debris from all the tower bases. A far worse prospect are the ATU’s:
WLNA tower 1 ATU, Peekskill, NY
This is the Antenna Tuning Unit for tower 1, which is the reference tower for both the day and night arrays. The E.F. Johnson contactor in the bottom of the cabinet was fully submerged for an undetermined amount of time. The bottom of the unit is covered in fine silt. The high water mark is visible on the right side of the aluminum cabinet.
The contactor is going to need to be replaced, or at least rebuilt. The ATU cabinet will need to be washed out. There are two other ATUs that suffered the same fate.
WLNA antenna array, towers 3 and 5
This is the end of the catwalk next to the Peekskill Hollow Creek looking west towards the Hudson River. The water level reached the bottom of the catwalks and had receded about 4 feet when this picture was taken.
WLNA antenna array, tower 5, Peekskill, NY
Lookup east, upstream at tower 5.
WLNA antenna array looking north, Peekskill, NY
This is the antenna array looking north, with my back facing the creek. Tower one is the center tower, tower two is on the right and tower four is on the left. The daytime array consists of towers 1, 2, and 3 bearing 300 degrees. The night time array consists of towers 1, 4, and 5 bearing 335 degrees, so the array makes a big X in the swamp. More from the FCC database.
It is going to take a lot of work to clean out all these ATUs and repair the damage. Clean water is at least 1000 feet away. My question is; why bother? Once upon a time, this station was viable, well thought of in the community, etc. Now, I doubt anyone knows it is off the air. The current ownership over the last thirteen years did, what I’d like to call, a controlled flight into the ground. Axing staff, cutting maintenance and generally neglecting the station. Why not take it dark for a while and figure out what to do with it. Likely somebody would buy it, even if for the land it sits on. Anyway, the grind continues…
Back many, many years ago, in a city far away, I was driving down the road and I flipped one of “my” stations on the air. The end of this song was playing:
The ending sounds an awful lot like a Moseley MRC-16 transmitter remote control’s return telemetry. When I heard that on the air, my first response was “HOLY SH*T! The telemetry is on the main channel!” A little voice in the back of my head said “That is not possible. How is that possible?” I grabbed the gigantic, then state of the art Motorola bag phone and dialed the studio hot line, just before I hit the ”send” button, the song faded out and the announcer came on back selling “Karma Police by Radiohead”
Wow. Radiohead? Karma Police? WTF?
I almost had a coronary. When I got home, I tried explaining this all to my then girl friend, who didn’t get it. Few do. At the time, making such an error would be very bad form indeed and likely open the unfortunate party to all sorts of snickering and finger pointing at the next SBE meeting.
The WICC transmitter site, Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport, has been cut off from normal access since the bridge to the island burned in 1996. Since that time, access has been by boat with a 0.93 mile walk from the dock to the transmitter building.
Last summer, LVI Construction, under contract from the Town of Stratford, put in a temporary road and began removing the burned out cottages. While that road is in place, the radio station has been able to access the site and get many important things accomplished. These include:
Removing several decades worth of stored crap, garbage, obsolete and unused equipment
Repair the electrical service to the building
Replace the generator transfer switch
Repair the Sonitrol building alarm
Replace the old Onan Generator
Have the power company replace the 3 phase circuit from the point where the under water cables come ashore to the transmitter building.
All of these projects should greatly improve the reliability of the station. This should make Bill, happy, who appears to have a WICC chip implanted in his brain because every time the carrier is interrupted he posts about it on the radio-info.com website.
The biggest issue with the site was the utility feed from the shore to the transmitter building. The original circuit was installed in 1936 when the station moved to the island. It was old and the poles were all rotting and had horizontal cross arms. Ospreys especially like the horizontal cross arms as they made good nesting spots. That is, until the nest shorts out one of the phases catches on fire and burns the top of the pole off. This has happened several times over the years causing many hours of off air time.
WICC new utility service
United Illuminating, the local utility company, was very cooperative and installed new utility poles, wires, breakers and transformers, this time with a vertical phase arrangement, which should keep the Ospreys off of them. Additionally, the cottage removal project included installing Osprey nesting poles.
Pleasure beach cottages removed
With almost all of the cottages now removed, the area looks much better than before. Actually, it should be a nice nature preserve and hopefully, the absence of the buildings might reduce the number of vandals in the area. The work is almost done, so the road is about to be taken up. This means we need to wrap up the work out there, so the final push is on.
WICC transmitter building
In the last three weeks, 10 truck loads of junk have been hauled out of the transmitter building and generator shack. Over 1,500 pounds of scrap steel, 640 pounds of insulated wire, 2,000 pounds of particle board furniture, old t-shirts and hats (something called “Taste of Bridgeport” which, if anyone knows what that was let me know), old propane tanks, batteries, etc. We also managed to fix the fence and gate in front of the building, cut down the over grown yew bushes and bittersweet vines.
Transfer Switch
The old Kolher transfer switch was also an issue. There was no place to mount a new switch inside and mounting one outside is out of the question, so the guts from the Kohler switch were removed and replace with an ASCO unit. This was done in the summer of 2009. The breaker on the right side is the main service disconnect for the building, which was installed in September.
Onan 12 KW 12JC 4R air cooled generator, removed from service
Today, it was time to replace the Onan propane generator. The old generator is an Onan 12JC-4R air cooled propane unit which was installed on April 4, 1969 at a cost of $1,545.00 new. For many years, this unit gave reliable service, but it has many, many hours on it and it lacks the fault/self control circuits needed for remote (read desolate) operation. Several times over the last few years, the generator would run out of gas or the propane tank would freeze up and the starter would crank until it burned out.
It was cold out on the island, with temperatures in the twenties and a bitter west wind blowing right into the generator shack. All of this conspired to make working conditions difficult. Wind chill readings were in the single digits all day long, and in spite of long johns and extra layers, by 3 pm I was shivering and even several hours after coming inside, I still feel cold.
Using tractor to move new generator
The new generator is an Cummins/Onan 20GGMA which is rated for 20 KW. We used a John Deere bucket tractor to move the generator from the flat bed truck to the generator building, then push it inside. The old generator wiring to the transfer switch was reused, but a piece of flex was used to connect to the generator instead of the solid conduit. The building fan was also wired up so that it will run whenever the generator is running.
The generator load with all possible things switched on and the transmitter running at full power is about 12,000 watts, but this would mean the air conditioner and tower lights were on during the daytime. More likely, the transmitter will be at low power when the tower lights are on and the AC will be intermittent on/off at night. At full load, this generator uses slightly less than 2 gallons of propane per hour. At half load, I’d estimate that to be 1.4 or so gallons.
Cummins Onan generator in new home
100 pound propane gas tanks
HOCON gas came out and connected six 100 pound propane tanks in series, which should prevent tank icing. Propane weights about 4.11 pounds per gallon, therefore the fuel supply should last about 100 hours, or 4.5 days, give or take. Why 100 pound tanks? Because we will have to shuffle them back and forth between the dock and the generator shed, a journey of about one mile, in a cart. Anything larger would be impossible to deal with. Even so, refilling the propane will be a 2 person job and will likely take all day.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~1st amendment to the United States Constitution
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
~Benjamin Franklin
...radio was discovered, and not invented, and that these frequencies and principles were always in existence long before man was aware of them. Therefore, no one owns them. They are there as free as sunlight, which is a higher frequency form of the same energy.
~Alan Weiner
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
~Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 19
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