TRANSMISSION PROBLEMS AND UPGRADES

April 7, 2002

The channel 12 Palmer signal strength will be increased. It is expected work will begin tomorrow. This will involve signal interruptions.
Equipment to be used to increase power of our Kenai-Soldotna channel 6 is in town. We expect delivery and to install that equipment soon, maybe by the end of April.
In other matters: The link to Susitna KYEX channel 29 has problems, it is on the ragged edge of failure, but the picture is fine, has not failed, and we have received no complaints. As it is, the microwave signal is subject to interruption due to fade. In addition, the microwave receiver is inserting a slight whistle into the audio, and a slight herringbone into the picture. So slight, however, that it is not drawing complaints. As we have had no complaints, we expect to put off maintenance and mount a major multi day trip to the mountain this summer. At that time we expect to change KYEX to channel 16, its permanent home.

October 27, 2000

Transmitter power is reduced as a result of having to move the transmission antenna to the new tower. Over the last week power has been reduced to 10% during daylight hours. Yesterday, as we prepared the antenna to move, we switched to a temporary antenna that illuminates Anchorage but does not deliver signal to MatSu. Reception is available during the change over on KYEX, Channel 29/80. Rogers Cable was advised they could switch their feed to channel 29 , but did not have equipment to do so in the form of a frequency agile modulator and VCR! You should be able to get the UHF channel with rabbit ears.

July 11, 2000 aprox 12:30 Hr.

Power and transmission restored.

April 17, 2000 14:51 Hr.

Report from the Kenai from Bill Glynn: I asked him to take measurements as before but with and without an FM filter, in order to determine where the intermod products were generated, in the station transmitter or the measurement device. He ran the check again yesterday. Addition of the filter eliminated significant intermod. Thus, prior measurements may have been an artifact of the instrument. Thus, we can assume the April 4 notice was a false alarm. The same inexpensive trap can improve channel 5 reception (not channel 6) on a television set near these FM stations. Probably an FM trap would cut out part of channel 6, as the FM band starts at 88 MHz, which is also the top of TV6.

April 4, 2000 09:14 Hr.

About two weeks ago a new FM station, KXBA, started broadcasting on 93.3 MHz from a tower on K-Beach road. A viewer called March 22, 2000 to complain of interference serious enough to prohibit reception of any kind. We sent some one to check it with a professional monitor. He returned with information suggesting widespread degradation of reception quality on both channels 5 and 6. I called the owner of the station, Dave Becker in Homer on March 23, 2000. He said it would be fixed within the week. I called him the next week. It had not been fixed. We have heard nothing from him yet. He claims the interference only affects one viewer. Measurements suggest otherwise. The offending signals are a mix of KXBA, K237CI, KWHQ, KPEN and K285EF which are located at the same site. You can see a FAX with some measurements of spurious signal observations. We await a call from Dave Becker. Besides KXBA, Dave Becker (through Peninsula Communications Inc.) owns KWVV. KPEN-FM, KGTL, and translators K292ED, K290AA, K285EG, K285EF, K285DU, K285AA, K283AB, K274AB, K272DG, K272CN, K265CK, & K257DB.

February 26, 2000 11:30 Hr.

Vandals switch off power at Eagle River main power disconnect (fuse box). Power restored at about 13:00. Battery keeps microwave feed "A" to GCI cable alive and well.

February 24, 2000 01:30 Hr.

Failure in 1.3 KW 2.6 KV filter (electrolytic series string). Replaced with new spare stack. Back up by sign on.

February 6, 2000. 16:46 hours.

Driver taken off line for cutover to driver function. All systems normal at aprox. 17:30 hours 2-5-00.
FOLLOW UP 2/18/00: Today the Federal disaster declaration was announced. After a day drying out, the final tube checked out OK. A small capacitor had exploded in the HV overload detector circuit, and was replaced. The arc trace on the fiberglass board was brushed clean, and should be OK, if not like new. The trace should probably get an epoxy fill. Aside from labor cost and lost air time, damage was very slight. We should have a back up generator, and use of a bit of that FEMA $$$ for a loan to support a generator would help. Since Feb 6, the transmission plant has operated without fault within normal parameters. Since the tube socket got wet, we cannot know if we now will have short lived components in hard to get places.

February 4, 2000. 11:15 hours.

18 kW unit at 50% back up yesterday 8 AM or so. Report off air 01:30 this morning. Roof leak due to snow melt after damaging winds results in a mess . New driver put in 1.3 kW box, and swept and tested to 90% power, hooked to antenna and on air at 05:30 for sign on. We must wait for final to dry out before we get full report, but we know we have some serious damage. Governor Knowles declared our region a disaster area, and FEMA considering Federal disaster declaration. Others are worse off than KYES.

February 2, 2000. 2359 hours.

Microwave STL support pipe must have been slightly bent. AT&T Wireless cell digital link has a dish on the same support and their microwave is down and their battery is dead... cell phones are not working so well in Eagle River tonight. Neither is KYES. Nor are residents of Skyline Drive in Eagle River. The MEA crew came up in the afternoon, saw the phone poles cracked and wires on the road and left to go back to Palmer and clock out. We could be annoyed at Matanuska Electric, but actually we need a 50 kW generator with several days fuel.
There have been plenty of outages due to the winds. The whole town of Girdwood (part of Anchorage no less) has no power and the only road is covered with avalanche leaving residents totally isolated.
Adjusted dish position to get reasonable pix. STL signal is just below acceptable, and any wind will cause brief outages. We got the 1 kW driver up at 300 watts output on a borrowed consumer generator, just at the start of Star Trek. We left the site with the gen set running.
Signal down again at about 22:20 for unknown reasons, and our cell phone didn't report the fault (insufficient working cell channels?). Got home, turned on TV, saw no signal, then turned on fil and plate again via remote control (the gen set was still up) at 23:20. Just in time for Jerry Springer. God, that makse me feel warm all over. The generator should run out of gas after sign off, so you poor suffering over the air viewers should get all tonights wonderful shows. Guess no signal tomorrow morning. Sorry. I refuse to wake up to pour gas into the rig at 4:30 AM.
GCI put STL-TSL link on cable channel 74, if you want to monitor that. They still have our STL on UHF channel 14 transposed onto channel 5 cable. What fun it is to be an Alaskan. Good night. Will check wx next, by clicking on "this can't be a class M planet."
By the way, 2 of 4 Alaskan Choice satellite dishes were totally trashed, torn up. WX says gusts to 40 MPH wind tomorrow, so lots of funn for us and AT&T trying to line up microwave dishes, etc. We can always count on more wind than predicted at the transmitter site.

February 2, 2000. 07:30 hours.

Microwave STL fades increased with wind speed, until we allowed KYES to go down and stay down abut 07:30. Shortly thereafter cable was out at our home, then electricity. Went to studio just before a falling power line made the road to work impassable. Told GCI cable feed resumed from channel 14 signal. I assume Keani feed is out due to loss of Hillside power, as I didn't hear 87.7 MHz aural on the way in despite loss of KZND power. Awaiting damage assessment.

February 2, 2000. 06:52 hours.

Note updated forecast for today:
Very strong winds. Southeast wind 40 mph with gusts to 100 mph east Anchorage. Gusts to 120 mph along higher elevations and through Turnagain Arm. Cloudy. Highs in the 40s. Blowing and drifting snow.

February 1, 2000. 18:53 hours.

Predicted winds of 100 MPH will cause problems. Our microwave feed to GCI Cable is now battery protected, but air will suffer interrupts with every power line hit. Usually the power utility has problems when wind speed is predicted to hit 60 MPH. Actual wind speeds at the transmitter site are usually higher than predicted for "Hillside". When wind speed doubles, wind force is multiplied by 8. Damage is expected. Here is the forecast.

Tonight:
Cloudy with flurries. Temperatures warming into the upper 20s..warmer along the Hillside. Southeast wind 20 to 30 mph developing in town by morning. Southeast wind gusting 55 to 70 mph along Turnagain Arm and the upper Hillside increasing to 90 mph by midnight. Areas of blowing snow.

Wednesday:
South wind 20 to 30 mph in town. Southeast wind 60 mph to 80 mph over east Anchorage and Turnagain Arm with gusts near 100 mph along the Hillside. Cloudy. A few flurries or sprinkles. High 40 to 45.

KYES - CH5 ER TX: January 24.

Near total disassembly and re-assembly of the 18 kW final found burned finger stock on a tuned co-ax line deep within the innards. Replacement parts were found in spare units 2 & 3 that were in storage. At about 2:30 yesterday we were waiting for the movie to end so that we could shut down and re-attach the final. Wind speed was probably gusting to 80 MPH. MEA power went off right about then. I had to wait for power to be restored. MEA found a wire broke off a feeder about 2,000 feet down the 7,200 volt line. High wind made it impossible to get up the pole to re-attach the wire, so a bucket truck had to be located setting up back another hour. Power was restored at about 6:30 PM. Much thanks to MEA and IBEW members. Fixing power distribution networks is almost always gotta be done in bad weather. With power on, the partly rebuilt final came right up to 98% nominal power, about 12.5 kW.

We were waiting for a room to clear out so's we could install the 2nd transmitter, final and all. We will no longer wait. We will install a 2nd channel 5 TX ASAP, even if it has to be temporary. Long term battery backup for GCI Cable microwave feed already paid for itself. No cable viewer saw a glitch in spite of 4 1/2 hours of no electricity. Diesel generator backup is, in part, a zoning problem. That will take longer to resolve, but is important.

KYES - CH5 ER TX: January 18.

I noticed reduced power and video ringing in pix. late afternoon. Inspection of the Eagle River transmitter at Noon, 19th. Jan. indicates signal getting into final 18 kW power amplifier, and not leaving. This 1970's final has run for 7 years with no problems 'till today. Diagnostics: Nominal refl. power at driver, normal IP, Eg1, E and IG2, ZERO IG1 instead of 10-20 mA. Cooling air output temp higher than normal.) Just to be sure, I took transmitter off line, switched to a new final tube; no change noted. Final tuning and coupling assembly are suspect & very hard to get to, parts large and not available in stores. Switched transmit antenna to driver amp, which is capable of approximately 600 Watts output instead of usual 12,500 Watts. Must disassemble and check parts. This could take a few days.

Jeremy @ 14:27 hr.

KYES KYES - CH5 ER Microwave and Utility Power:December 26 to 28th 1999.

Hillside winds estimated at as high as 120 MPH from December 26 to 28th 1999 caused serious service interruptions. First the wind ripped waveguide from the studio to transmitter receiving dish, cutting off Star Trek Voyager at 19:25 hours. Transmission was restored about 23:00 when we clambered onto the roof during a slight lull in the storm and taped the loose waveguide back with packing tape. Then, at 02:00 the next morning, channel 5 over the air transmission ceased, and we lost command and telemetry contact when the power line fell into the telephone cable. Feed to GCI Cable Anchorage was lost about an hour later when the UPS battery ran out of steam. Kenai service was not interrupted via channel 14 and other microwave, but we were virtually off the air.

A few more interruptions may have been noticed when, in response, we fixed the old and installed a second microwave link from transmitter to studio and to GCI-Anchorage cable, along with a separate battery able to keep cable service going for more than 30 hours after power failure.

We plan to never have this problem happen again. Service reliability improvements soon to be installed will include an automated microwave cutover for GCI-Anchorage cable and KYES main transmitter feed, a second KYES transmitter, and new control and telemetry able to communicate meter readings via HTML. We'll put the readings on line!

Jeremy