After correcting a couple of water leaks and several wiring errors from the transmitter reassembly, the transmitter was first switched on at about 12:15 (6:15am EDT) today.  It came right up on 9600, 9800 kHz, and the two 11 MHz frequencies and operated at 100KW.  It was at this point we realized the driver plate was not autotuning and that the driver plate current metering circuit was not functioning.  Currently we are trying to sort out these problems and suspect some more wiring errors.

ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER

We found the wiring error for the driver plate current metering.  One of the wires was not labeled correctly and when we connected it according to the schematic the driver plate current gave correct readings.  In addition the driver plate autotuning started working and we were able to autotune on all the frequencies from 9600 kHz through 17 MHz.  The presets done in Elkhart were ‘spot on’ and immediately tuned up.  The staff here were quite impressed, especially to see it tune the 17 MHz frequency without incident, even at 100kw.

We were not been able to tune frequencies below 9 MHz due to not being able to access antennas for frequencies as low as 3200 kHz.  Hopefully that can be done tomorrow.  We still need an audio line to test with audio, but everything looks promising.

There is still one more metering problem to sort out.  The driver screen current metering does not seem to be working properly.