[BC] Maintaining older transmitters

[Rod Zeigler]

I would like to offer another perspective on maintaining old 
transmitters. We just pulled a Harris FM20K from a "mountain top" site, 
or at least as close as you can come to one in Nebraska. This old box 
was approaching 30 years and had plenty of aches and pains and was 
becoming a maintenance hassle. One of the things I had to take into 
consideration was the technical people that would be around in 10-20 
years to take care of a new box. First, getting someone interested in 
even looking at a tube box in the panhandle of Nebraska is getting more 
difficult every year. The guys that know how seem to keep getting older, 
and there are no young guys coming into the field for many different 
reasons, which would be a good article to write someday. The only real 
"techs" are going to be those brought up IT centric, so it made sense to 
buy a computer that just happened to be controlling RF amplifiers. 
Needing a company that has a track record of providing excellent 
customer support, the choices narrowed quickly. The box was purchased 
and final installation was performed by a great local contract engineer 
who keeps just as busy as he wants to be. He too is over half way to a 
hundred, and may decide that retirement looks quite good in the future. 
The box went on the air and played well for a couple of weeks when it 
blew a power supply module. The stations IT guy called the support 
number, was given excellent service with an over-nighted module, and got 
them back up to full power the next day.
Had this been a tube box and a power supply failure, having him work on 
it would have been criminally negligent on my part. Yes, I could have 
driven the 4 hours to get there, done the work, and blown 2-3 days and 
had everything pile up back at the office, or tried to get a contract 
engineer on the job, which was more money. Meanwhile, they would have 
been on a 1KW back-up at a low elevation site that cuts their coverage 
area by 75% or so. This would have resulted in make-goods, and we all 
know that those cut the price of spots in half. (Played twice for the 
same money)
So, we paid a bit more for the computer with the RF amp, but we have a 
much larger range of technical talent to choose from for the foreseeable 
future. God bless you if you are one of the lucky ones that have the 
time and place to work on older boxes, as well as the patience and 
fortitude. You are in the minority. Most engineers have multiple sites 
that everyone that can swing a screwdriver has worked on over the years 
and being a fireman is your only option.
I am very grateful that I am no longer in that situation and have a 
company willing to keep the equipment up because they realize that all 
of the income comes through the RF plant, and without it working 
reliably things will go to heck in a handbasket real quick!

-- 
R. V. Zeigler, Dir. of Eng.
Nebraska Rural Radio Assn.
KRVN-KTIC-KNEB
Newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/RRNnews