The current layout of the KEØVH Hamshack November 2015 till now!
Greetings all, and Happy May to you! Can’t wait for summer this year! All kinds of good things are going on, projects, and by golly just plain living! Mostly just work stuff to report on this month, been too busy for a lot of hamming! Getting back into the swing of things!
Our Argo had a drive Chain Break in April going up Mt. Chief in Denver. Barry Thomas and Mark Smith of KXKL Denver, after yet another snowstorm in Denver the weekend of April 15th left lots of snow by Tuesday after snowing all weekend. And we needed to access the site for KLDV and KXKL thru 14 to 20 inches on Mt. Chief SW of Denver. So we hiked up the rest of the way and took the Argo back down with no left turn! That WAS TRICKY. But we made it and got the stations back on at full power, all I had to do was replace a filament fuse in the Continental 816-R 5C main K-LOVE transmitter. Barry had quite a few more issues, such as a dead rectifier stack in the power supply, but we got them done all in one day. Then had to hike down. I then took the Argo to the repair shop in Fort Collins to replace and repair the damage. Now she is as good as new, or almost ☺!
The broken right side The way it should be on the left side
As it turns out but not quite visible in the pictures above was the broken sprocket that had been damaged. If you drive an Argo with the “homebrew” “aftermarket” 24 inch snow tracks the manufacturer advises only make turns in low gear. That will reduce the stress on the chains and sprockets during a turn. Many in Colorado have these modified chains and evidently this is a common (and expensive) repair to be made. So I will be quite careful with this in the future.
See the Video of the trip at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh5q3Dh7i64
Our friend Cris Alexander, W5WCA, has been working on a lot of translator setups here in Denver and around the Crawford Broadcasting Company around the country. Here’s a peek at the KBRT Los Angeles translator installation. Wow is it pretty! Thanks Cris for sharing!
The above is the weatherproof, temperature-controlled cabinet, bolted to the concrete block wall at the base of tower #1. Note the Cisco switch at the bottom. The two rightmost ports are the fiberports
– the one on the far right goes up the tower and the one to the left of that goes back to the transmitter building some 400 feet away.
Here’s a peek at the isocoupler. We couldn’t find our supply of strap at the site so I used a piece of AWG4 ground wire to ground the bottom to the strap. (Strap is on the way to replace this)
Finally the day has come, and thankfully gone…….SUCCESSFULY now! The new GV-40 Nautel HD transmitter has moved into the Mt. Chief facility for K-LOVE! Much and many thanks to Alex Arpin’s MOST EXCELLENT crew from Colorado’s Galvanized Endeavours. These guys moved the old transmitter out and the new one in during one beautiful picture postcard Colorado day as seen in these pictures!
Loading up at the Denver storage garage On the trailer ready for transport
Getting the old Rockwell Collins 831-G 2a moved out of the building. Kinda tight past the Continental main and the KRMT Channel 41 TV transmitter. Note the side panel is off on the Continental on the right.
Squeezing thru! The new home of the GV-40!
At this point I was starting the doubt my measurements and really started to sweat out a bit on whether the Nautel would fit in between the Continental and the KRMT TV Transmitter. So while the guys were moving the old transmitter further out the door, I got out the tape measure again and sure enough, the measurements were still what the calculations showed they should be.
The old transmitter on the “porch”. And here comes the new one up the hill!
Coming around the last switchback, and you can see 14240 ft Mt. Evans in the background!
Almost there! WHEW!
Lifting the old one out over the generator fuel tank from the “porch” and on out
The “purdy” new Nautel GV-40 uncrated and ready to be loaded into the building!
As you will see in the next series of pictures, the process is reversed handling the new transmitter up and over the generator fuel tank. Boy this forklift machine was sure worth it for this trip. Daniel from Galvanized Endeavours did a masterfull job of handling the rig and RJ, Rafael, and the other guys with the crew were just outstanding! The old transmitter we figured weighed in at about 12 – 1600 pounds, the new one around 1900. The forklift had a 4000 pound capacity.
Here she comes! A little to the right!
Ready to go in the door. See the space between the TV transmitter and the Continental? 31 inches. With the Continental side panel removed. The Nautel manual says to remove the front doors and the rear air filters and it will fit.!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? This is where I started to sweat!
I WAS SO HAPPY! Man it worked, my measurements were all right, there was NO ROOM to spare either side, and we still had to take the door hinges off the GV-40! No, we didn’t have to use a shoe horn, but it was CLOSE!
The view from the top, the Continental on the right, the GV-40 being maneuvered down the space, and the TV station racks on the left.
And as of this writing, next week to be plumbed in and wired up!
Next month, more on the setup, and I am also working on a homebrew FT Meter (look that one up) for my Yaesu FT-897 and 857 rigs. Have a great month!
Don’t forget the Monday Night Broadcast Engineering
IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, every MONDAY EVENING
At 7pm Mountain time (9pm Eastern) for radio discussions, both Broadcast engineering and amateur radio. The first and
3rd Mondays are also SBE NET nights. Details on how to Join are at http://www.ke0vh.com/net/net.html. I hope You will be able to join us and share your engineering and Ham exploits!
73’ & God be with you. See you next time! de KEØVH