everydayairwaves

[everydayairwaves]

It’s only -12 degrees (f) this morning here in Missoula. The wind and all its associated advisories have moved southeast to Butte. Now the present-day residents of The Richest Hill on Earth are getting a taste of the -45-degree bursts of arctic air that has been ripping through and shutting down everything around here except the operations of Missoula County Public Schools. For the first time since Thursday, the air here has gone still.

Sunday morning brings solace as the house we bought just a year and a half ago is now largely iced over. Ice shatters and cracks into pieces as I force the sliding glass door open to let Seeley, the dog, out. On the other side of the house, ice and frost an inch thick cover the storm door leading to the front yard.

Twice now I’ve taken the time to scrape up the frost accumulating on the floor in front of the saddle threshold. The windows, both inside and out, are lined with beautifully white fluffy frost as if they’ve been prepared by a set designer for a new Disney winter wonderland movie. Condensation stands no chance. Check the box alongside ‘grateful’ to be in my small but airtight, warm, and draft-free newly-remodeled home, shielded from this violent arctic air event by sheetrock and 2x4s.

It’s a little after 7 AM now and I can’t go back to sleep. I awoke with the same pinch of slight anxiety I kicked back at throughout the full duration of my attempt at sleep. The two mezcal palomas probably helped with that. I’ve got far too many tasks to accomplish at this point, so I’ve taken up the mantra, ‘One day at a time’. This keeps the proverbial lid on the otherwise screaming flame of stress I have been somehow unintentionally maintaining despite efforts to dampen it for some time now. Maybe I’ll dive into some self-help literature on being a better me or whatever. Probably not.

For years, I’ve been the sole engineer responsible for a cluster of commercial FM transmitters and a couple of translators. The HD chain used to be my biggest enemy. I spent enough time with it to correct the time alignment and ultimately spent $70,000 to all out-replace the first-generation equipment I had been keeping alive despite its whopping efficiency factor of ~42%. At just under 7kW, that’s a lot of heat just to reach ERP.

Day by day, hour by hour I keep my phone ringer set on high and watch for automated telemetry alerts which come through to me via email and text from the transmission equipment. If things are really bad, a haunting robot voice will call me and tell me what has gone wrong. Even though I usually know what the issue could be, I like to listen to her all the way through before I hang up. Her voice is akin to the robots who would read the Harvard Sentences on the old telco test line which has sadly been decommissioned. I’ve been on call 24/7 since I was in my mid 20’s and this morning is no different. Having turned 30 in August, I’m finding more value in overseeing and modifying practices to suit the future instead of being a busy ‘worker bee’.

Priority 1 is to remotely log into the Master Control server where I can then access all of the transmitters. The big worry with weather like this is ice. With enough ice on your master antenna array, the transmission line will carry more reflected power back down the pressurized coax and into the $100,000+ Shively branch combiner. At best, this could eventually damage the filters. At worst, this could lead to a fire in the building or the melting of the coax. And if that Shively combiner was 100k in 2004/2005, is there really a difference at all between best and worst? The new transmitters all have automatic foldback in the event of high reflected power or, ‘SWR’ (standing-wave-ratio). So, the likelihood of disaster isn’t necessarily ever-present.

Even still, this stuff was, and still is in some ways, state of the art. So, if there is high reflected power coming back into the transmitters, that means Ice, which means a delicate dance of lowering forward power, FCC regulation, and yet somehow melting ice off the antennas. Essentially, a living room prayer.

Except for one older but seemingly bulletproof model, the Crown FM500, I’m fortunate to have top-notch transmitters to maintain. I’ve personally taken up replacing every transmitter at the site since I became Chief Operator in 2014, and then Chief Engineer in 2020. The Nautel VS1 transmitters, all 1kW models, have outstandingly gorgeous GUIs from which you can take in a plethora of technical data and real-time readings. I don’t know how to interpret some of the scopes.

This transmitter site was expertly designed and built in 2004 or 2005, that’s an entirely separate blog series. I have such immense pride — with a soul-protruding responsibility to maintain and carry this broadcast facility and its iconic call signs (if only to some) into the future.

The VS1s are running beautifully, forward power of 997W with 6 watts reflected on one station. This model has built-in Orban processing which, one of my great mentors, who is truly an icon in the field of broadcast, SWEARS is far superior to Omnia in delivering sonic clarity, punch, and presence on the FM dial. Some days I agree with him, most days I don’t. Who knows? Maybe my ears are the wrong shape to assess broadcast processing.

The other VS1 is running slightly more efficiently at exactly 1000 watts forward with ZERO watts reflected. This transmitter serves as the flagship call sign. The big stick. The format stands proudly somewhere between the AAA of the early 2000’s and freeform. Legend has it that the call sign reflects its creator’s initials. True? I don’t know. However, I’d be surprised if this lore weren’t true. So, of course, this transmission line is ‘perfectly matched’ as this is a technical achievement & standard every broadcast engineer strives for but is very difficult to achieve. Par for the course at this facility and on this call sign in particular.

The environment is a big thing to watch and actively maintain. I click and type into the various sensors and remote I/O boxes to see that everything is right in the sweet spot, around 72 Degrees. For temperature control, I have four WiFi-enabled GE window AC units mounted right into the wall of the building. From an app on my MacBook or iPhone, I log in every day or two and rotate the duty cycle so they don’t burn out. They’ve been running around the clock nonstop since 2020.

Moving onward, I log into the Gatesair FAX 7.5 FM+HD and hold my breath while the GUI loads up. To my absolute surprise, it’s running at full power without any errors or problems. This has not been the typical operating parameter of this device since I got it. I’m pleased. I feel the worry of this dangerously frigid Sunday morning melt away.

I have a frequency agile standby transmitter connected to a broadband antenna setup as a backup or AUX. Once a month or so during the cold winter months, I turn it on and run it for a day or two just to make sure it doesn’t ice up. Wouldn’t that be great? Lord, deliver me from the day I need my backup antenna but find my backup plan frozen over like a Stouffer’s lasagna.

The sun has come up now. I nudge the curtain and peer outside, Seeley is ready for breakfast while her dog sister, Bella, is still sleeping in the bedroom.

Radio. Is it working? I certainly am.