This morning was the TWR Eswatini monthly staff meeting held at the office (next month it is scheduled to be at the transmitter site). Khumalo gave a challenging devotion incorporating a couple of video clips from the movie, “The Passion of The Christ.” He reminded us of the great price that Christ paid for us. It was OUR sin that caused His terrible suffering and that trusting in Him is the only way to salvation.

After staff meeting, Tobi and I went to the transmitter site for the rest of the day. I spent most of the day locating some of the smaller parts used for the AM (medium wave) transmission line and learning to make drawings of them. A large percentage of that time was spent discovering what AutoCad shortcuts are NOT available in LibreCAD, then trying to figure alternative ways of accomplishing what needed to be done.

Contrary to my statement yesterday, the air-conditioning crew had only positioned the two units, not “installed” them. Today they hooked them up and got them operating. The remaining two units will be installed later. A couple of months remain until the beginning of the hot season, so two units are more than adequate for now.

This evening we treated the Steve and Lorraine to supper out at the Bush Pizzeria and Cafe’ [https://www.facebook.com/thebushpizzeria] located at the back entrance to The Old Stone Church (where Virginia had tea yesterday). The Bushu family from the Congo are the owners and some of the family are members of the Evanglical Bible Church. They are also caretakers of the Old Stone Church, so while we were waiting for our order, they opened the church after-hours for us to view the museum displays. We ordered their Meaty Friday Special You Crave (beef, ham, pepperoni, chicken pizza) that includes an extra cheese pizza with their special Bush sauce. Both are medium-sized pizzas and very delicious for a very reasonable price of E190 (just over $11). We had a great time there, then came back to the Stav’s house for Friday night games. This time we played Mexican Train dominoes.

Tobi’s wife, Britta, invited Virginia to go shopping and sight see this morning while her children were at school. They first went to ShopRite, the first mall in Manzini built in the early 1990s.

I spent my day at the transmitter site gathering information to send to Mike Sabin to assist in their plans to build a high-power AM (medium wave) transmission line for TWR Sri Lanka. I added dimensions to the 1982 drawing and forwarded that information. Attempts at making a CAD drawing of that drawing seem to be going at a snail’s pace because of the steep learning curve getting to know how to use LibreCAD. [AutoCAD was available for my use at SonSet Solutions for many years, but their more recent high licensing costs did not justify maintaining a multi-user license. For a few years, DraftSight offered a simple 2D version for free use that functioned like AutoCAD, but they dropped that option about a year ago.]

A crew came from a company in town to replace the four big air-conditioning units in the transmitter hall. They got two installed and worked til almost 5pm, so we were a little later getting home this evening.

On Sunday, Ruth Crowie had invited us for lunch today at 2:30 so I stayed in town. The Stavropouloses arrived back from their long weekend with their children and grandchildren yesterday afternoon, so I met with Steve at 8am to compare notes on the MW transmission line design. Steve had found a copy of the drawings that I made in 1980 and we discussed some of the details not obvious from the drawings. I was able to then pass this additional information on to Mike Sabin and others that were inquiring about it.

Ruth Crowie lives on the other side of Manzini, so our drive to her place took us through downtown.

Ruth’s son Calvin and his wife Jacquie brought some pizza, chicken, salad, cold drinks and cake for lunch. They both are looking after Ruth these days. Ruth turned 85 years old yesterday. Calvin and Jacquie live on the Crowie farm east of Manzini. Calvin runs the farm and Jacquie does freelance accounting for several companies. It is tax time now, so she is quite busy. We spent a good portion of the afternoon conversing about church, reminiscing about the past and had a great time.

Since we were in town, we stopped by Pick-N-Pay for a few items before returning home.

Today we did not leave for the transmitter site until 11am as a tour was being conducted for Bas Emons, a TWR supporter, and his family from the Netherlands. Because there are four remote controlled gates on the road to the site and they did not have a cell phone that worked in Eswatini, the only alternative was to escort their vehicle through the gates. [If they would have had a working cell phone, they could have contacted anyone with an approved cell phone and given the number of the gate that they had reached, then that person (with the approved cell phone) could have remotely opened each gate by calling the cell phone number assigned to that gate.]

The tour lasted over two hours. Bas has been involved in radio in Holland since he was 11 years old with a small station at home until today owning three large FM stations. It is my understanding that two of the stations broadcast Christian content. He met and married a young lady that had grown up in Swaziland. Her Dutch father surnamed Root was an architect in Swaziland and married a Swazi lady that ran the A-1 shop during the time we lived here. Her family moved to Holland in 1989 where she later met Bas. It is my understand that her parents later moved back to Swaziland. She and Bas come back every year to visit them in Siteki.

After the tour we again escorted them back through the gates and returned to Singing Pines. I worked from home this morning and afternoon answering followup questions about the medium wave AM transmission line design mentioned in previous blogs.

Remembered to capture a photo of this evening’s sunset.

It was warm enough this morning that I did not take my jacket to work with me.

Virginia washed sheets and rugs today. The sheets dried quickly, so she took them off the line and made the bed. Going back outside, she noticed some dark clouds moving in from the east and felt a few drops of rain, so she brought the rest of the items inside. A short time later the sun was shining again, so back outside with the laundry to finish drying.

First thing this morning, Salema brought me a transformer that we had shipped from Elkhart last year, He hadn’t been able to identify where it belonged, so I showed him what computer files (already stored in TWR Eswatini’s system) to use to determine the exact location(s) where that part (or any part for that matter) is used in the transmitter.

TWR headquarters has asked TWR Eswatini to determine the cost of installing solar power at the transmitter site and the anticipated savings in electricity. Tobi is concerned about the radio frequency ‘noise’ generated by the inverters used in a solar systems, so we talked about some of the problems and solutions. I also discussed with him the rate of return on investments for solar systems. TWR Benin uses diesel engines for power generation, so with the cost of fuel their return on investment is relatively quick. TWR Guam and TWR Bonaire buy power from their islands’ power companies, which is fairly expensive (also generated by diesel engines), so they have a similar time line for return on investment. TWR Guam is in the best position, because the power company is willing to buy back excess solar power (during daytime hours when the transmitters are off) at the same rate as they sell it. The Eswatini Electric Company has a hydro-electric power plant and buys electricity from South Africa’s coal-fired and nuclear power plants. The cost of electricity here is less than half the rate of the other TWR locations. It will be interesting to see the results of Tobi’s solar power study.

In the early 1980s, I designed a transmission line to carry the output of the 50,000-watt AM transmitter to its radiating tower. Knowing that our license allowed for up to a 250,000-watt AM transmitter, I designed it to be capable of handling the higher power level. When TWR West Africa installed their 100,000-watt AM transmitter, they used the same design and used it again for their second AM transmitter (capable of 200,000 watts). BTW, the Eswatini AM transmitter is now operating at 100,000 watts. On Friday, Mike Sabin, TWR Asia’s Director of Broadcast Operations, asked me about using the design in his region for a 200,000-watt AM transmitter. I assumed that my original drawings are located here at the TWR Eswatini transmitter site, but we (Tobi and I) were unsuccessful in our search for them today. Will need to ask Steve about them when he gets back from his vacation on Wednesday. In the meantime, I was able to provide Mike with a close up photo of the line and a written description of the materials used. If necessary, I can recreate the drawings to send to Mike.

One of the primary components of the transmission line is the line post insulator. In fact, the line was designed based on the dimensions of that particular insulator manufactured in South Africa. Therefore, I began a search to see if that insulator is still available. I eventually found the company, Cullin Africa Porcelain Division, but their website was down for maintenance. So the search went on until I found one of their catalogs on another website. From there, I determined the part number to be EP303. Using that information for a search, it appears that there may be another company, Yueqing Sarah Electric, in China making the exact same insulator. Their spec page looks exactly like Cullin’s catalog page!

Finally got around to photographing one of the amazing sunsets we see almost every evening around 6pm.