Wednesday we went to staff meeting.  The Stavs. shared about their trip to the U.S. and Larry shared a little about us and what he has been doing.  In the afternoon, Lorraine and I finished preparing for Farming God’s Way. 

We cooked a beef stew that we served over mealie pop.  Mealie pop is a a white corn meal that is cooked into a mush

This week was busy preparing for Farming God’s Way.  We did a lot of shopping and cooking.  It takes a lot to do shopping and cooking for 60 -70 people, especially in Swaziland.

On Monday evening we enjoyed supper with the Blossers.  They served spaghetti and we really enjoyed it!  The Blossers had a machine that carbonated water.  We used to have one of those when we lived in Swaziland.  It made a nice change to add a flavoring to the carbonated water.

Virginia, Dr Samuel Hynd, Larry

Tuesday, we enjoyed dinner with Dr. Hynd.  He moves a litter slower, but is just as bright and concerned about the Swazi people as he ever was.  He said that Samuel should come to Swaziland because there are no dentists here and they really need some.

This morning Steve had several errands to do in town, so I accompanied him to several firms to follow up on orders.  We went by the bank and I noticed that times have not changed much.  The lines were in excess of 20 persons in length and did not seem to be moving very quickly.  While still in town Steve received a message from his son Duane that his car had been stolen this morning in Durban.  Steve now had some additional paperwork to locate, copy and send for the police report and a call to make to his auto insurance company. 

We finally got to the transmitter site about noon where Hans was still busy programming the PLC.  While waiting for him, I took a number of photos and loaded them onto my memory stick for later use. 

The PLC programming was tediously reviewed and ready just in time to commence broadcasting about 4:15 pm.  A thunderstorm rolled in within a few minutes.  Fortunately areas west received much needed rain.  Unfortunately the site received almost none and the lightning wreaked havoc with the transmissions.  Each lightning flash triggered the THF arc detector until I noticed the external side doors to the transmitter and building were open.  Then as the storm passed the power would fail for a couple of seconds with each lightning strike, the standby engine would start and before the standby power could switch on, the power company would come back on line.  All three transmitters would then need to be restarted quickly.  This sequence of events repeated about five times in ten minutes until the power totally went off and the standby power got a chance to switch on.  The power company was off for the rest of the evening, but the engine kept on running nicely and the new transmitter performed well.  It ran at 50 kw the first night because we still did not have the pulleys to bring the cooling fans up to full speed.

Today the wiring was completed, a few PLC wiring errors were corrected and preliminary tests commenced.  The first problem encountered was from HC100-9 when the left driver blower quit.  No voltage was measured at the blower which was finally traced to a loose terminal screw on 2A4TB8-23.  Easy to solve but it took time.  The filament breaker tripped at one point, but that has not reoccurred.

The next challenge happened when the filaments dropped to quarter power as the automation switched the driver off.  This is because the automation ‘pushes’ enable for both ‘on’ an ‘off’ controls.  Enable does not need to be pushed for ‘off’ commands and has not been a problem until the most recent version of EPROMS which allows switching to 1/4 power filaments by pressing enable and driver off simultaneously.  The two older HC100s do not have the 1/4 power revision, so they ignore this command.  This is one problem that needs to be sorted out by either disabling the quarter power fils in HC100-9 or reprogramming the PLC for driver ‘off’ functions.

The automation control now seems to be functioning and plans were well underway to use HC100-9 for broadcasing this evening.  At the last minute, it was discovered that there is a problem with one of the automated antenna configurations required for broadcast.  With not enough time to verify the configurations for all antennas before broadcasts began, it was decided to give the old 100kw Continental  a reprive to remain in service for another night.

Mbusi makes opening and Aaron removes door frame

Several other projects are taking place in the transmitter hall, with a wall being knocked out and a door frame moved in preparation for installation of a ice chiller system to be installed.  This system will allow for formation of ice and cold water during offpeak hours to use for cooling the transmitter hall air during broadcasting hours.  Part of the system will incorporate the large heat exchanger used on the 100kw Continental. 

Leveling the tamped sand and ready for concrete

Another project is filling in the 12 foot X 15 foot X 24″ deep ‘pit’ that used to be under the old control room in the middle of the transmitter hall floor.  It had been used as a means to bring ‘cool’ air from the shady side of the building into the control room and for easy access for wiring to the transmitters, to the bank of 12 large reel tape machines and to the manual audio board.  As a result over one hundred wheelbarrows of sand were wheeled into the building and tamped firmly in preparation for pouring a slab for a new floor in that area.

No animal stories for today except for the usual cattle on the site road.  On the way out, one adolescent calf decided to run down the road in front of us and crossed the road three times before finally deciding to stay off to one side and let us pass.  It is usually the calves that drivers have to observe most closely.   Its too bad their mothers don’t train them to look both ways before crossing the road!

Greater Kudu

On the way to the site this morning, I spotted something huge standing in the road some distance ahead.  As we got nearer we recognized that it was a male greater kudu, one of the largest African  antelope.  I estimate it was about 13 feet high to the tip of its corkscrew horns.  We then began to notice there were other males around and counted four before we passed the area.  In sixteen years of traveling to the site, I had only seen one.  Steve had not seen any for three years and never four at once.

After we arrived at the site, everyone was buzzing about the python being visible in the loft of the big

7 foot python in big shed

shed laying on top of one of the crates.  We hurried over with our cameras only to find it was slowly on the move and eventually hid between two pieces of plywood.  Steve and Klaus bravely climbed onto the loft and carefully pried its hiding place open to get the photo shown.

Tortoise

Our animal adventures for the morning were not over yet.  When Mbusi, TWR’s builder, arrived from town, he had the next creature in the back of his bakkie (pickup).  He had found a large tortoise along the road that we ended up photographing and releasing.  It was about 18 inches in length and about 9 inches high when it was walking.

Automation Wiring by Hans Van Kampen

With animal adventures over for the morning, automation wiring began in earnest.  Since this was Hans’ design and installation, I spent much of the day trying to catch up with email correspondence and doing some of this blog.  By mid afternoon it was obvious that the wiring would not be done to allow the new transmitter to go into service today.  I looks like it will be ready tomorrow barring any unanticipated problems.

Crested Guinea Fowl

There was one more animal adventure for the day.  This one again on the site road.  On the way home we saw a group of several guinea fowl.  Initially we thought they were the helmuted variety that we had seen as mentioned in an earlier blog.  As we got closer, we noticed that they were of a different variety, possibly crested guinea fowl.