It rained heavily about the time we woke up this morning leaving puddles everywhere.  Virginia was in charge of breakfast and prepared pancakes and eggs for everyone from both sides of the duplex.

Virginia and I drove to the office for morning devotions and looked for Ralph and Mary Jane walking, so we could pick them up.  We didn’t see them, nor were they at the office, so I drove back to Eden Beach Resort and found them just starting to walk down the main road.  They were glad to avoid the mud and splashing water from passing cars.

There were around 50 at office devotions.  After devotions, there was a bus, provided by Achie Tours, to take a tour of the island.  Ralph and Mary Jane took that tour.  I drove to the transmitter site after adding air to two low tires on the car we are driving.  I also had the transformers and breaker with me that Ralph had brought.

Virginia rode to the transmitter site with Vera and helped clean the transmitter hall in preparation for the dedication tomorrow.

I assisted with some of the cleanup then installed and tested one of the 24vac transformers that Ralph brought.  The other transformer is a spare.

There was a lot of activity today with many final details of the dedication being worked out.  I was recruited as a backup tour guide in the event that four tour guides are not enough.

Marco brought me back to the duplex this evening about 4:30, but Virginia was not home yet from showing Ralph and Mary Jane around town.  I laid down and napped until they arrived about 5:30.

We then went out to eat with them at Hillside Restaurant.  Virginia ordered Kip Hawaii (Hawaiian chicken with fries) off the kinder (children’s) menu and Mary Jane ordered pasta and meat sauce also off the kinder menu.  Ralph and I ordered Kip Hawaii off the main menu.  When the plates arrived, we noted that there was almost no difference (except the price and maybe slightly fewer fries) between the kinder and adult menus.  Mary Jane could not finish here kinder size pasta.  If there is a next time, we will be ordering from the kinder menu which was very good!

There were about 10 TWR people from Latin America and the Caribbean in the other side of the duplex when we got home.  They were having pizza for their supper.  It is almost 10:20 and they are still there.  We are heading to bed ourselves.  Tomorrow is the big day–the dedication!

 

The International Bible Church was packed for the morning service due to all the people coming for the transmitter dedication on Tuesday.  Pastor Doug’s sermon was titled “On a Mission” with the text from Acts 1:1-11 and Matthew 28:18-20.  The command is to ‘make disciples’.  Our witness (testimony) is “not a burden to convince, but an opportunity to share”.  At the conclusion of the sermon, the mockingbird of about three weeks ago was back and chirping loudly.  Pastor just looked up at the bird in the high window and said it was saying ‘amen’, ‘amen, and ‘amen’ and everyone chuckled.

We visited for a long time after church and then made our way across the main road to Buddy Dive and their restaurant called Blennies.  There must have been about 60 TWR people and guests there for the buffet lunch.  The buffet included Barracuda fish and kebabs of chicken and pork with rice, corn and other side dishes (our table was the last to go through the line, so there was not much selection left), plus dessert of cheesecake.

After lunch, we had just enough time to go to the duplex to change into more comfortable clothes then head to the airport to pick up Ralph and Mary Jane VanderWerf.  We took them to Eden Beach Resort where they had reservations only to find their room would not be available until 5pm.  Since they had not eaten since leaving South Bend at 6am, we looked for a place for them to eat.  First we stopped by Captain Don’s to be told that only pizza was available before 6pm.  Since they’d had pizza last night, we ended back at Blennies where they were able to get some sandwiches.

By the time the sandwiches were eaten and we had finished visiting, their room was now available.  We dropped them off for the evening with the understanding that they would walk the short distance to the TWR office for devotions in the morning.  That’s where we would meet them tomorrow.

We made the 15 minute drive back to the duplex for the evening.  I used Virginia’s Kindle Fire to make our weekly Sunday evening call to my mother in Colorado.

About 9:30pm the young men (who all arrived on flights this afternoon) staying in the bunk bed room of our duplex arrived back from their evening meal with Steve Shantz (TWR VP of Latin America and the Caribbean).  Andre is from Brazil and Jehiel is from the Dominican Republic.  Esaban, from Uruguay is staying in the other duplex with Steve and Jason.

We headed to bed just after 10pm this evening.

 

After two really long work weeks, it was nice not to have to set the alarm and to have a Saturday to relax.  We ate a late breakfast, then Jason came from the south part of our duplex to discuss meals for the three extra guests from Latin America that will be staying in both sides of the duplex starting tomorrow.

We went into town for the noon excursion that Virginia arranged yesterday.  We arrived at the Karel Beach Bar where we boarded the Red (semi-)Submarine.  [http://bon-sea.com — Virginia managed to get a better rate than any listed on their website!]   There were only four passengers on board–two Dutch men and us.  The captain, probably in his 20s, told us the water was too deep to see anything at first and had us stay on top for the short trip to the island, Klein(small) Bonaire.

When it started to drizzle rain a couple times, the captain asked if we wanted to shelter below, but we all declined. Once we got to shallow water near Klein Bonaire, we went down into the ‘submarine’ and viewed the marine life through the underwater windows for the next 30 minutes.

It was like snorkeling, but without getting wet and covering a whole lot more territory.  We saw all types of coral and thousands of fish, but nothing big, like turtles, stingrays, dolphins or shark.

Most of the time one side had a good view, while the other side was towards deep dark water with no bottom in sight.

We were grateful that there were lots of empty seats so we could move to whichever side had the best view.  Virginia and I stayed below for most of the return trip.

We wanted to see the marine life near the docking point.  The water is very deep until within about a couple hundred feet of shore.  There the bottom was almost all sand with hundreds of small fish swimming around the piers near shore.

We next went to Kooymans, the large hardware store, to get a 2 foot flourescent tube and some LED bulbs for the duplex.  Kooymans could be compared with a Lowe’s at home, with slightly higher prices.

We went home to eat our Doner lunch and get our suits to go for a swim at Sorobon.

 

 

Virginia and several of the ladies joined us at the transmitter site for devotions this morning, then they cleaned the entrance, hallway, kitchen, lunchroom and restrooms.

Virginia and I worked at cleaning the tall narrow window next to the new transmitter.  It had to be the dirtiest window in the building with large blobs of concrete stuck to the glass.  (I never realized how well concrete can adhere to glass!)  It also had paint over-spray on both sides.  This window is not perfectly clean now, but looks a whole lot better than it was!

I decided to check the voltage on the air handler contactor coil.  The initial voltage was 21 volts with no discernible drop as it was energized and pulled in.  Although the output of the 24vac transformer is lower (due to 105vac input instead of 120vac), there was minimal voltage drop in the output winding, compared to the 8vac drop in the smaller transformer removed yesterday.

The transmitter was operated this morning at 440 kw with normal program on the north and south patterns with no problem.  Later, Dave and I again took field strength measurements at the airport (about 2.5 miles northeast of the transmitter site), while Jonas and Daryl operated the transmitter.  We have been informed that the self (TWR)-imposed maximum should be 1 volt/meter.  We determined that 225 kw would need to be the limit on power in the Caribbean (omni) pattern to meet this requirement.  No governmental limits are known, although when 500kw into a 5/8 wavelength tower was being used, during the first years of operation by TWR Bonaire, the field must have been close to 2 volts/meter at this same airport.  As mentioned earlier, the north (Cuba) pattern and the south pattern, even at 440 kw have much lower field strengths towards the airport.  The main beam of the north pattern, which passes to the west of the airport, is directed toward Cuba.

There was one arc (as detected by an arc detector) in tower 3’s tuning unit last night while using the Caribbean pattern.  This afternoon, Daryl and I went to that tuning unit to observe where the arc might be occurring.  By operating the transmitter at 250kw with heavy modulation, we were able to see the exact location of the arc.  The arc originated from the grounded end of an insulator to a wide ground strap on the floor.   How can you get an arc over an inch long from one grounded point to another ground that are already tied together with a short ground strap?  I cannot explain it (yet), but some unexplainable, strange things do happen with transmitter powers of this magnitude.  We tried to improve the ground connection and will see whether an arc is detected tonight.  [When an arc is detected, the detector shuts down the transmitter for a fraction of a second which extinguishes the arc.  This only happened once last night.]

We left the site just after 5pm this evening and, unless something unanticipated happens, we don’t plan to return until Monday morning.  Hopefully tomorrow (Saturday) will be a relaxing day.  Virginia purchased tickets for us to take an unusual excursion tomorrow at noon.  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog!

On Sunday, lots of people start arriving for the dedication.  Planned activities start with a lunch buffet at noon Sunday and continue until a ‘BBQ at the beach’ on Thursday evening.  Pray for unity and stamina as the small TWR Bonaire staff (including us) are involved in so many ways and that God’s grace might shine through us.

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, Virginia made a pan of brownies to take to the transmitter site as treats for those that worked there today.  The brownies were all gone by the time to go home!

Work today was a little more relaxed for me than normal because Jonas spent nearly the whole day programming and rewiring the automation system so that the new transmitter will be able to take over the broadcasts of the older, less powerful transmitter.

On Tuesday, it was mentioned that our camera battery was close to ‘dead’ and that we forgot to pack its charger.  Yesterday, Kevin brought in about 5 different camera battery chargers.  None of them came close to being usable for our battery!  Therefore, I made a slot in a small block of wood for the contact side of the battery to fit into.  Then two holes were aligned, drilled and tapped so that the ends of two small brass screws would make contact with the + and – battery terminals.  A tie wrap (a rubber band would have worked too) was used to insure that the screws securely contacted the battery terminals.  An adjustable bench power supply was used to charge the battery.  The voltage was adjusted until the  charge rate was 0.1 amp, then the current limit was adjusted to prevent the current from going any higher.  The battery charged for four hours this afternoon and was put it back in the camera to take home for the evening.  The camera indicated it was about 2/3 charged.  This morning, the battery was again charged but was obviously nearing full charge as the charge rate kept dropping.  This afternoon, the battery had reached full charge.  I need to remember to take a photo of my ‘wooden block’ charger!

This morning, the investigation of the low voltage to the air handler contactor coil at startup continued.  The control contacts of the automation were measured with no indication of any voltage drop there at startup.  The voltage output of the 24vac transformer was then measured and found to drop to 16 volts at startup–way too low and obviously the source of our problem.    This transformer, that was mounted in the automation rack, looked way too small for supplying the control voltage for such a large air handler and this transformer is wired to supply two such air handlers.  The search began for a larger 24vac transformer, but none were found.  Then a transformer wired for stepping 127vac down to 105vac was found.  By wiring its two 12vac windings in series and its two 120vac windings in parallel we now had a 250va transformer for 24vac.  It was too big to mount where the smaller (~30va) transformer had been, so it was set on the floor of the automation cabinet. It was wired into circuit and the contactors now pulled in with a sharp ‘clunk’, like they’re supposed to.

At noon, an email request was sent to Ralph VanderWerf to see if he could bring two (one for a spare) larger transformers on Sunday.  Within minutes his son, Jim, supplied two 75va transformers to Ralph and they were already packed at 5pm!

In the afternoon, I helped with some rerouting of wires in the automation rack and rearranging equipment in their racks.

By the time broadcasts were to begin, the new transmitter was ready to begin broadcast under automation control.  Just seconds before the start of the 5:30pm broadcast, the automation turned on the air conditioners for cooling and then turned on the transmitter.  The new transmitter was now broadcasting TWR programming for the first time!  Praise the Lord with us!!   www.facebook.com/twr.bonaire/videos/1844991108845988/

The new transmitter has purposely been  limited to operating at 225kw maximum for tonight’s broadcasts.  That’s still more than double the power of the old transmitter!  Pray with us that any ‘bugs’ in the automation program, transmitter, or antenna system will be found quickly as we progress to a full 440,000 watts for Tuesday’s dedication.