Ivan and Donna taking the virtual TWR tour. Virginia had her turn next. This was one of the ‘tours’ offered on dedication day, but most staff were too busy to see it.

Devotions were held at the office/studio this morning.  Afterwards we stopped by a couple of hardware stores before both of us went to the transmitter site.  Virginia helped pack up some of the things left from the dedication to bring back to the office.

TWR Bonaire studio and office building

The mural on the studio building was repainted a few months ago. The old mural had faded badly after several years from the tropical sun.

Jim Mosher at Kintronic suggested swapping the capacitor that tested good only to 20,000 volt with one of two others (that do not require as high voltage rating) used in the phasor.  These two were both hipotted and neither one tested to the rated 35,000 volts.  One did test to 31,000 volts so the swap us made using this one.  After the swap was completed we tested the transmitter on the Caribbean pattern.  Yesterday we were getting Fast SWR shutbacks at 110,000 watts with 125% modulation.  Today we were able to increase the power to 275,000 watts with 130% modulation and experienced no shutbacks at all.  We are limited from going any higher in power on the Caribbean pattern because of signal strength limits at the airport.  It looks like the capacitor was the problem.  Tom King will be sending a replacement capacitor.  Meanwhile, we can continue operating at full power.

Jonas and I went to the antenna tuning hut for tower 1 to observe whether the insulator change and additional grounding straps installed yesterday had any effect.  The transmitter was operated up to 420,000 watts with 130% modulation into the north pattern with no sign of the arcing seen yesterday.  Again improvement has been observed.

TWR Bonaire staff, including us, were invited by Tom King to a luncheon at Captain Don’s Habitat.  The restaurant is called Rum Runner!  Again, we had a great time with TWR staff, but with NO rum!!

TWR Bonaire staff lunch at Caption Don’s courtesy of Tom King.

Since Tom King was not going to the site this afternoon, but would be going at 8:30 am  tomorrow (Saturday morning) to do some final adjustments, we decided to take the rest of the afternoon off.   I took Virginia to a fabric store and to another store in town.  There was a huge traffic jam in town caused by an accident involving a pickup and motor scooter.  There appeared to be little damage to humans or vehicles.

I got home and took a nap for about an hour.

Virginia has had some braised beef tips on rice ready for several days and invited all the people in the duplex for supper, including Alberto who has moved in to the other side of the duplex.  It seems like everyone had other plans except for Jeheil, who will be leaving at 6 am in the morning to head back to his home in the Dominican Republic.

We are praying that the transmitter will operate tonight with a great reduction in the amount of shutbacks!