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I'm happy to report
that KB4YXT-TV is back on the air!
During
Hurricane Wilma, the vent blew off the box and the contents were soaked
and crusty by the time Rick retrieved them. But believe it or not, the
insides of the PA and IPA were ok. So with a scrubbrush and a hose and
some fresh paint, it all came back up fine. The Astron Power Supply was
a total loss, however. Anyway, Phil provided us with new
cable modulators, sat receivers and cable demods and I put a 100w PEP
transmitter together using the old final assembly, rebuilt.
The best news is that WFUN, a LPTV station that had a side-mounted
antenna at 500' bailed out of there. I got the call from my former boss
and he told me to call the tower manager. He agreed to allow us to put
our rack in place of theirs and use the old 2 1/4" feedline, which the
riggers chooped off at 400, near our antenna. I found some expensive 2
1/4' to "N" silver plated transitions and Jim and Steven J did the
tower work to connect to our 16 element array. They used 1/2" heliax
and lots of rubber tape!
They even straightened out the bent antenna from the storm. Good Guys!
Next is getting 220v piped into our rack this week for my dual 4CX 250
amp. We will have about 400w TPO so with 3 db line loss and a 10 db
gain ant, thats our 2K ERP.
So we have a perfect SWR on the ground and 3dB line loss. We went
on-air last sunday with 90w pep to do some pattern measurements using
GPS and setting up our receive rigs. I'm getting it with P3 w/snow at
roof level with a yagi into some dense palms.
Anyway, this is the situation I have dreamed of, where we can maintain
it and not climb that damn tower. It is already a much better picture
from being able to adjust on the ground, and with free electricty, the
3 db line loss is easily overcome. We will get the receivers down the
tower next. Thats a little tricky as their are no dedicated coax's. We
will use some form of link. Anyway, tune it in on Cable channel 57
(421.25 Mhz.) Let me know what you pick up.
Cheers,
Larry Janus, KB4YXT |
