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Radio Broadcast Technical Consulting and Sales |
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Customer of M. W. Persons |
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Fairmont, Minnesota |
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March 9, 2007: It
all started with an early-spring thunderstorm in Fairmont, MN. Before
long, we got a call from Lee Bramer, Chief Engineer of KFMC and KSUM Radio.
The FM transmitter had gone down and it showed extremely high reflected power
when it was brought back up. Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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A crew
from Tim's Tower Service, now
Tower 2000,
showed up to assess the situation. They are a well-established
tower company from Sauk Rapids, MN.
Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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This sure
looked like trouble. Soot was everywhere in the FM antenna.
Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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The antenna bays (photo on left)
were brought down to the ground.
Mark Persons and his assistant Jim Barry put two antenna bays together and tuned them to 106.5 MHz. Jim drove this temporary antenna to Fairmont and the tower crew put it up (photo on the right). The coverage was somewhat less, but KFMC Radio was on the air while parts were ordered and shipped from Electronic Research to repair the original antenna. Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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Some of
the damaged antenna parts including the center-feed T section are on the
ground for inspection.
Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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More
damage from arcing on this one. Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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Nylon
insulators did not fare well either. Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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Here are
the repaired antenna bays just before they were reinstalled on the
tower.
Click on any photo to see a larger image |
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To top off the work,
a Nott, Ltd
Eagle's Nest static dissipater was added to the tower to help drain
static charges off the tower when electrical storms are near.
The repair project went well. All in all, it took a week to get everything working again. Click on any photo to see a larger image |
The stories go on and on. Stop in again
sometime. I'll leave the soldering iron on for you.
Mark W. Persons
Ham WØMH
page last edited 05/07/2009
