After lunch, I began preparing for the big job of rerouting the 127/220 volt 200-amp 3 phase cable on Monday.

Tonight is our last night for staying at the Rienstra guest room.  Tomorrow we are scheduled to move to the north duplex, which is a lot closer to the transmitter site..

 

This morning Jonas, Frank and I completed the final run of cables from the transformer to the last transmitter cabinet.  Jonas helped bundle the last cables and install the tie wraps.  After all cables were in their final position, Frank clipped off all the ends of the tie wraps.

I spent a couple hours color coding all the cables in preparation for the inspection required before the power company turns on their 380 volt transformer.  That inspection was anticipated for today, but has now been shifted back to the original time of Tuesday 16 January.

Jonas informed us that on Monday he would like us to move the 220 volt 200 amp 3-phase cable that supplies the old part of the transmitter building.  Currently it originates at the power company’s old transformer, which is to be decommissioned soon.  This cable is to be disconnected from the old transformer and rerouted to the new breakers (installed during our March/April  2017 trip), which are connected to a newer, and bigger transformer located on the other side of the building.  I spent the last hour today checking what still needs to be done to make that possible.  There is a lot to be done tomorrow in preparation for moving that 200 foot long cable.  This cable runs in a trench which still needs to be opened/unearthed in places.  This job must be completed before the broadcast starts on the afternoon of the move.  Vital equipment for cooling the old 100,000-watt transmitter (currently being used) is connected to this supply.

Virginia and I walked to the shore this evening to watch the sunset and took a couple of photos (below):

 

Frank and I finished installing the rods for the cable tray in the ceiling, while Daryl, Dave and Lionel installed the cable tray that makes the transition from the transformer to the ceiling tray.  Lionel fabricated and painted this section of the cable tray.

After the heavy real of cable was hoisted onto stands, Frank and I began installing the 500 amp cables from the transmitter’s input transformer to each of the four transmitter cabinets.  There are three 500 amp cables for each cabinet.  Each of these cables is about 1-1/2″ (35mm) in diameter and weighs about 2 pounds per foot.  In addition there are also two 1/0 neutral cables and one 1/0 ground cable.

Every time we wanted to unreel another length of the large cable, we recruited five or six extra helpers to pull the cable through the tray.  We would then terminate both ends before pulling in the next run.  After doing this for the three large cables allocated to one cabinet, we would bundle this group of cables and secure them to each other and the cable tray.  The four bundled groups of cables for the four cabinets need to be spaced equally across the width of the cable tray.  We managed to get the cables ran and terminated to three cabinets and bundled for two of the cabinets.

Daryl, Jonas and Dave worked on running the large coax line from the output of the transmitter to the input of the antenna switcher.  This involved a  lot of measuring and cutting of large diameter copper tubing and installing two elbows.

I mentioned previously that a large group of students arrived on Saturday to help TWR.  About half of this group from Waynesburg University are involved in preparing the large old transmitter hall for the dedication celebrations on January 30.  What a transformation is taking place!!

Virginia went grocery shopping with Vera this afternoon for ourselves and for a pizza/salad luncheon that will take place on Friday at noon to ‘thank’ all the visiting workers that have helped this week.  When I arrived ‘home’ after work no one was here, so had to wait for Virginia and Vera to arrive with the key.

They had stopped for Chinese takeout on their way home, so we ate together this evening. We also enjoyed the sunset from their west-facing porch and had coffee and tea together before retiring earlier to our room this evening, than last night.

Good progress was made today.  The transmitter assembly was completed as Dave, Marco and I made all the interconnections between the four cabinets.  This included the two large diameter copper tubes that extend the full 12 foot length of the transmitter.  These copper tubes combine the power from all the solid state modules to produce the 400,000 watts of AM power to the antenna.

Jonas and Frank connected the output of the disconnect switch to the input of the transmitter transformer.  Once the twelve 500 amp cables are run from this transformer to the four cabinets and the coax line is connected to the antenna switch, the transmitter should be ready to be switched on.

Frank and I began attaching support rods to the ceiling of the transmitter hall to serve as the cable tray for the 500 amp cables.  There will be a lot of weight suspended from the ceiling! mentioned above.

The actual switch-on will have to wait for the power company to turn on the 380 volt power to the new transmitter.  We received encouraging news today that the inspection of the 380 volt wiring for the transmitter will be done on Thursday, and not next Tuesday as had been scheduled.  After passing inspection the power company can switch on this power.

After a quick supper this evening Virginia and I walked to the beach to watch the sunset.  We then headed home right away as it gets dark quickly after sunset.

Marco and Vera invited us to coffee and tea this evening, so we had a good time visiting with them for a couple of hours.

This morning we met in the TWR Studios at 8am for staff devotions.  I am guessing there were around 30 in attendance when there are normally about 10.  One lady was there with her daughter to visit the grave of Virgil Stanley, a TWR missionary that died in a diving accident in the mid 1960s. She is Virgil’s sister and today was the first time a member of the family had been on Bonaire since then.

After devotions we went to the transmitter site.  Other teams installed the 1600 amp disconnect switch box, continued transmitter assembly and began sprucing up the old transmitter hall for the dedication ceremony scheduled for January 30.  I finished leveling the remaining transmitter cabinets and bolted them together.

Now the heavy work began–wiring the incoming cables to the 1600 amp disconnect switch, which took the remainder of the day with occasional interruptions to give advice to the team doing transmitter assembly.

We did discover that the transmitter manufacturer did not include the cable terminals to attach the cables to the transformer from the output of the disconnect switch.  There were extra connectors on the disconnect switch so these were removed to put on the transformer to terminate the cables.  Daryl and Jonas had to make some modifications to bolt these extra connectors to the copper bus bars on the input side of the transformer.

Good progress was made today, but it did seem a little warmer.  We’ll still see if we can make do without the air conditioner to sleep tonight.