It was 48F when we got to the site.  I was responsible for morning devotions today and am on the schedule for Thursday and Friday.

Two reports were written this morning on ‘Antenna 6 Arcing’ and ‘Tuning TX 3 on higher frequencies’.

Last night, TX1 had multiple PA Tuning Capacitor inductive arc trip offs.  These only occurred during the 100kw transmissions, so it was decided to hi-pot (high voltage test) this capacitor.   Salema and a Swazi intern, who will be working with TWR for several weeks, got everything ready for testing the capacitor without having to completely remove it from the transmitter.  High voltage was applied and gradually increased to 27,000 volts — the highest the portable tester will go.  Since the highest possible voltage at this capacitor is 16,000 volts, it appears the capacitor is OK.  We then tested the transmitter on the frequencies that were problematic last night for about 30 minutes without any trip offs.

My investigation into tuning TX3 on 17.8 MHz continued after the above testing.  I discovered the RF drive could be increased some more on the RF Drive Controller.  This was increased to maximum and it was now possible to operate the transmitter at 100kw.  Even at maximum, though, more RF drive is still needed for optimum operation.   Upon adding modulation at 100kw, a tunable filter arc occurred.  Because it was nearing broadcast time, it was decided not do any more testing that might cause damage.

Since I had adjusted the RF drive, it was now necessary to recalibrate the RF Drive Controller to get the transmitter ready for broadcasting.  This involved tuning the transmitter to all the different frequencies used to verity the correct calibration.

At 4pm, Klaus wanted me to go with him to visit John, the owner of Scotts Ranch.  In 1989, TWR was granted permission to build an access road across about 5 miles of his property.  I had signed the 1989 agreement on behalf of TWR for that road!  Miss Scott, John’s aunt, had signed on behalf of Scott’s Ranch.  Mr. Scott, the original owner and John’s grandfather, who died at the age of about 95 (in ~1986), had some amazing stories to tell of his early days in Swaziland.  I had the opportunity to visit him a time or two and hear his stories.

Last week, the sale of that part of the ranch, which had been subdivided into four sections, was finalized.  I had a good time of reminiscing with John, while Klaus listened.  The conversation then turned to obtaining more information on the new owners and on the status of TWR’s access road.  It was time well spent.

On our way back to Singing Pines, Klaus commented that my presence in Swaziland at this time was God’s timing!

Jonathan and Gottfried were at our house for dinner this evening.  Gottfried is an IT expert from the Africa Regional Office and has come here to work on the TWR Swaziland’s computer networks.  We have already seen a huge improvement in our internet access, for which we are grateful.

Our house seems to be getting colder inside!  It’s amazing how cold 65F feels this evening.  We’ll have to go to bed to get warm.

This morning, the temperature was 48F outside and 63F inside.  It only warmed up to 65F inside our house by the end of the day.

I checked the transmitter logs first thing this morning to assess whether there had been any improvement from the installation of the corona rings on Antenna 6 last Tuesday.  Unfortunately, there were some arcs, but the number had been reduced by only 40%.  Will continue looking for a 100% reduction.

Klaus mentioned that he was going to visit the manager of Dinedor Ranch, which is adjacent to the transmitting site, and asked if I would like to go along.  As one of my desires has been to visit some of the ranchers that we have known since the station was started in Swaziland, I did go.  We had a good time chatting with John and his wife, Ann.  They served us tea and coffee and rusks (a hard, dry biscuit — http://www.food.com/recipe/south-african-rusks-11415 ) for morning tea.   The rusk is dunked in tea or coffee to make it soft.

Near the end of the morning broadcasts, one of the transmitters went off with an ‘auxiliary fault’.  As we were trying to figure out what was happening, the other two transmitters also went off.  It was determined the fault was with the PLC (programmable logic controller) that automatically controls the transmitters.  Since the transmitters were not the problem, we bypassed the automatic control and manually switched all the transmitters back on.  The PLC runs off of large batteries kept charged by a battery charger.  The battery voltage was extremely low and it was discovered that the circuitry used to charge the battery had failed.  The fault was rectified in short order.

In the afternoon, I returned to trying to tune TX3 on higher frequencies.  If you look back at my blog from last Monday (2013/06/10), we had aborted the attempt to install two 18″ cables.  Today, I verified these cables were not faulty, then tried again.  This time the transmitter came up and the tuning was nearly perfect with much better efficiency.  It was now possible to tune the transmitter up on all frequencies up to 16 MHz.  It could also be tuned up on 17.8 MHz, but only on low power.  It will most likely work on high power, but it was not possible to get enough RF drive from the low power stages.  This is another challenge that deserves some attention.  For some time, the transmitter was limited to frequencies under 10 MHz.  Now there are several more shortwave bands available for use on TX3.

This evening, I was able to post the last three days of blogs.  For once, our blog is current!  Hopefully we can keep it that way.

Today, being Father’s Day, was observed in a special way at the Evangelical Bible Church.  During testimony time, a young father stood up and said that he was a ‘loose cannon’ and an ’empty tin’ (made a lot of noise, but not much inside) when he first came to the church, but now he was an ‘overflowing tin’ because of the teaching at the church.  You could tell that many were moved by his candid confession and desire to serve the Lord.

 

Another older man and his wife were there this morning that we had not seen in 24 years.  They immediately greeted us by name.  Although we recognized them, we had to ask to find out their names.  The last testimony was given by this same elderly man, but it was not what you normally hear.  He pulled out his harmonica and began to play an old hymn.  Shortly, you could hear the older members begin to sign softly as he played.  The tune seemed familiar, but we could not recall the words.  You could tell that the congregation was touched by his simple tune.  We did remember that he used to frequently play his harmonica during the time we lived in Swaziland.  It was then a special treat to hear him play his harmonica while accompanied by one of his peers on a guitar.

Just before the sermon, the four young people paid tribute to their fathers.  The first three were teenagers, but the fourth was a younger boy who said, “I love my father, because he reads the Bible to me.”  What a simple, touching tribute to his father!  When he finished you could feel the emotion among the congregation, and they then applauded — a response which is uncommon in this conservative church.

Pastor Deon spoke on God’s Model for Men and his text was from Philippians 2:19-30.  The five points were that godly men should be compassionate, consistent, cooperative, committed and courageous.

At the end of the sermon all the fathers were called to the front to sing a hymn, titled “I am a man..”  [see lyrics below].  Although I do not recall ever singing it before, it was in the hymn book and had the same tune as “Be still, mysoul” (Finlandia).  Each father then received a ‘torch’ (flashlight) as a reminder that we are to be a light to our families and to others.

The service this morning was well attended.  The number on the attendance board was 110.

After church we were invited to Ruth’s house for dinner.  Her son, Calvin, and his wife were there.  As usual, Ruth put out a big spread — samoosas, boerewors, and curry and rice along with salad and dessert.  For many years, Calvin had been involved in accounting and IT for companies in Swaziland, but quite recently has taken over management of the family’s farm.  He admits that it has been quite a change for him.  After dinner, Calvin’s son and his girlfriend dropped by.

We didn’t get back home until 4pm.  We both took short naps then checked our email.  I started to work on our blog, but the internet completely shut down.  I decided to type this text and save it in the computer while the events of today are clear in my mind.  Hopefully, we can post it tomorrow.

I also tried to make some phone calls using Skype this evening, but with no success.  The internet connection has to be really bad to keep Skype from working!

I Am A Man

I am a man created in God’s image
Of Adam’s race, now marred by pride and sin.
But through God’s Son, Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour,
I am a man who’s now restored to Him!
The Mighty God who made me has redeemed me,
Now I’m His man, for Jesus reigns within.

I am a man appointed by my Saviour
To show His love in all I do and say!
His Holy Spirit is my source of power,
To live in light and point to Christ–the Way!
Lord, fill me now, and help me seize this moment,
As as Your man, I’ll serve your cause today.

I’ll be a man who walks with God in worship,
I’ll be a man who walks with men as friend.
I’ll be a man who loves and serves God’s family
I’ll be a man on whom God can depend!
Lord Jesus Christ, my King and my Commander,
I’ll be Your man until my life shall end.

written by Jack Hayford

Jabulani Africa (Rejoice Africa)

Sing for joy O Africa
The Lord your God is
Risen upon you
Sing for joy O Africa
The Lord your God is
Risen upon you now

Jabulani Jabulani Africa
Jabulani Jabulani Africa

Jesus river of life
To our thirsty land
Savior meeting our needs
From Your mighty hand

After two long, hard days of tower work, I shut off the alarm before going to bed last night and we slept in until 8am.

After breakfast, we checked our email and discovered that the internet connection was the best that we have had in a long time.  I decided to try to get our blog caught up to date.  Amazingly, the connection remained good for most of the day and updated the blog through yesterday.

In the afternoon, we took a break and checked on what could be harvested from the garden.  We still have about a dozen small bananas left from last week, so decided to leave the remaining bananas for now.  They seem to ripen slower on the ‘tree’, probably due to the cool nights.  We picked about a third as many nartjies (mandarins) as last week.  There are only about a dozen nartjies with green patches on left on the tree.  They should be ready to pick next week.  We found only one grenadilla (passion fruit) that was ready.

Virginia made some peanut butter cookies while I completed the blog entries and added photos.  We then took some of the cookies to Steve and Lorraine to take on their vacation.  We also gave some to the TWR intern, Jonathan.

 

While nearly everyone in the U.S. was sleeping, we were busy here in Swaziland topping out the FM tower on the 4,550 foot mountain top about 5 miles (8 miles by road) west of Mankayane.  The job was finished by about 11 am. Thanks for praying!

From the top of the tower it is possible to see long distances in every direction, which is what is needed for ideal FM radio coverage.  This project is being done to assist VOC (Voice of the Church) to expand their ministry.  Electricity is ‘supposed’ to be connected next week and VOC hopes to have the transmitter on the air by the end of June.

This FM network in Swaziland was initially set up by TWR in the mid-1990s and consists of five FM stations located throughout Swaziland.  The FM network has been turned over to national Christians to operate.  They raise the funds to cover their own expenses.  TWR still assists occasionally, in cases where special equipment, such as for erecting towers (called ‘masts’ here), is needed.

We arrived back in Manzini about 1pm and were given the rest of the afternoon off.  Virginia was in town helping sort through the hostessing items that are stored at the office.  She also had a couple of other appointments.  I caught a ride home to Singing Pines with Graham and his wife.  I was able to get into ‘our’ house, but realized that Virginia had the keys to all the inside

security gates.  I had access to only the kitchen, dining and living rooms, so I ate my lunch, then reclined on the couch, promptly falling asleep.  Its been a busy two days full of physical and mental exercise!