Fallas Electricas

Hi Folks,

"Fallas" [pronounced "fayas"] means like "faults" or "failures", and we're having the same problems we had about 2 years ago: Without warning, seemingly at random, the lights go out in the whole Utopia building [and the transmitter, which runs on 240 volts, shuts down.] What's the cure?...Turn on the shower!!...As soon as the shower water runs, the lights come back on!!

This may seem a bit strange...in fact it baffled me for weeks the first time. What's happening is that there's a bad contact in the electric meter base out on the pole by the front gate. When it doesn't make good contact, there's some sparking across the gap between the two parts, they get blackened and pitted and no longer pass current and the lights go out. The showers here have big, 240 volt electric heaters right in the shower heads. [Yes, it's kinda scary.] The shower heads have an automatic switch inside that turns them off when no water is flowing. When you turn on the shower, a big spark jumps across the burned contacts in the meter base, temporarily spotwelding them together, which turns on the circuit, and turns on the lights. It seems like this "switch" stays on until the weld cools off, then the connection breaks and the lights go off again.

This flakiness in the power is dangerous for the transmitter, so we're off the air for awhile, until we find a new meter base and get it installed, or until i get up on the meter pole and try to clean up the contacts...but this I'm not too hopeful about, since they looked pretty bad the last time I did that.

We just had bunch of folks attending a communications training session here...Lots of good people and excitement about possibilities...but, unfortunately there's not very much opportunity to find work in Honduras.

This posting is coming to you via satellite...The folks from COMPPA brought a dish and wireless router, so for the first time Utopia has internet access, among other things enabling the radio studio here to take programming like Radio Globo off the internet and broadcast it live.

Here's a picture of the new dish and the old ladder which Nino used to put it up seen in the morning with the sun hitting the mountain tops in the background.



Less than a week left and lots to do.

Peace, Bill

Full power and what it brings

Hi Folks,

All the new parts I've been installing are beginning to pay off...The station is sounding great (thanks also to a reconditioned limiter contributed by COMPPA), and we are transmitting at the maximum safe power...reaching 60 km. out...to El Salvador and Siguatepeque and San Francisco de Lempira and to the Comayagua valley.

Here's an idea of the stuff I'm doing...



These are modules that I've been rebuilding...There are 13 of these in the transmitter, and each one takes about a day to rebuild. Of the two in the picture above, the top one is an original, unrebuilt one, and the one below with the considerably smaller parts, is one that's been completely rebuilt. Parts age and fail, or at least change value, so the 30 yr. old originals either don't work well or are completely dead.

Hannah, of the Viet Nam Veterens Against the War visited for the first week, participating with the COPINH people in some of the events in Tegucigalpa, and getting a good chance to do some birdwatching (maybe a chat?) Here{s a picture I took of a cow with some white cattle egrets in front of Utopia...not a rare bird, but fun to watch....



And here's Hannah as we headed out to catch the bus for her trip back to the U.S. at 5:00 a.m. yesterday...



Big things are happening on the coup scene here. Our radio ran a live feed from the Brazilian Embassy last night, in which Pres. Mel Zelaya announced that he would not participate in the upcoming election...and many local and departmental office seekers have pulled out as well. They feel that they cannot partcipate as long as the government which supports killing and torture of its citizens is in power.

Follow the Radio Globo link in the post below for latest breaking news in Spanish, and great pro-Zelaya music from many traditions, or check out Honduras Resists on the web for less timely news in English, and translations of interviews with my friends Berta Cáceres and Salvador Zúniga and others.

Peace, La lucha sigue! Bill

Carrying On

Hi Folks,

Well it certainly is lively at Utopia (the conference center - site of our AM radio station)... Lots of meetings happening and a constant flow of people passing through.

I've adjusted my work-sleep schedule to keep the station on the air during the critical morning and evening hours. It's working and sounding better, thanks to an AM limiter donated by Comppa.

If you want to listen to Radio Globo, which La Voz Lenca rebroadcasts every morning from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., you can go to http://chiapas.indymedia.org/index.php?category=9 then click on the Radio Globo link. I think they're on 24 hours a day. The actual times of our broadcast are the same as in Illinois, Honduras being due south of Illinois.

I've just tried out our camera. It's kind of blurry, but here's a couple pictures:



These are trees, a kind of tropical oak, in a line in front of Utopia. The ropes strung between them are hanging up bean plants which were harvested by pulling up by the roots - hung upside down to dry. That was a big effort yesterday, with lots of people from COPINH participating.

And, I don't know if this will come out right...You may need to rotate it in your viewer...It's one of the many writings which line the inner walls of Utopia. I think it's very cool the way they have a mix of authors, some local, some well known, written in varying styles with varying abilities...very inclusive:



Well, I need to hike back to Utopia. Thanks for your interest!

Peace, Bill

Settling In

Hi Friends,

The situation here in Honduras is quite complex and heated right now. The coup leader Micheletti agreed to a power-sharing arrangement with Pres. Zelaya if the National Assembly voted for it...It would have been very difficult to imagine that happening, but it's a moot point, because Micheletti failed to call the Assembly into session by the deadline in the agreement, so, of course they couldn't vote one way or the other. Yet another subtrafuge by Micheletti. So many people here feel betrayed.

Meanwhile they rhetoric and violence increases. A priest in the indigenous Chorti town of Viejo Ocotepeque, Ocotepeque, very distant from the capitol in Tegicigalpa, who had publically supported the return of Mel Zelaya, was assasinated just this morning. Meanwhile, the situation here in La Esperanza is considerably safer, ironically because I'm here...apparently, the presence of foreigners, especially from the U.S., is a deterrent to intervention by the army.

Now there are many, many people around COPINH...almost all of the governing council and everybody from the radio station, and many others as well...what a stark contrast with my solitary last visit! It's great to get to see my friends again...Don Chico, Solitario, Cruz (She's now the Director General of COPINH), Juan, Efrain, Lorenzo, Justo, Jorjito, Albita, Rolando, Felix, and many, many more...no end to the smiles and warm embraces.

Hannah is doing well, plugging into the women's programming for an interview about VVAW's relation to the world anti-war movement. She's also done a bit of translation and digging (moving an orange tree that had been planted right above the buried antenna feedline) for the radio project.

Radio La Voz Lenca is programming 10 hours of national programming daily...reports on the "golpe del estado" fron Radio Globo and others...along with the long-running "Ecos de Opalaca", a daily program of local current events...all hard-hitting stuff. This programming has attracted a large and dedicated listenership, now from a large area of western Honduras, thanks to the AM station which penetrates into the remotest valleys in this mountainous region. The people here are doing a lot to facilitate my work. It feels really uplifting to be part of their lives.

Peace, Bill

Back In Honduras

Hi Friends,

Well, I made it back to La Esperanza safe and sound, with less and less questioning and inspecting from the Honduran customs and immigration people each visit...They recognize me now, and just pass me through without hassle! Hannah Frisch, flying in from Chicago, arrived about an hour later, and we travelled by bus up to La Esperanza together. She´s especially interested in plugging in some to the many other programs besides the radio that are provided by COPINH, the licensee of the station.

This is a very scintilating time to be in Honduras with the negotiations for the presidency being at such a critical juncture. La Voz Lenca is carrying hours and hours of special feeds from Radio Globo and other sources every day. The AM transmitter we brought down has been working reliably, though getting weaker and weaker ever since I fixed it up last summer. It now it heard in San Fransisco de Lempira, down to El Salvador, and west to Siguatepeque, and has already become widely listened to...many phone calls and letters from far away every day...the radio people and COPINH are all very happy...Thank you so much as well for supporting La Voz Lenca...We couldn´t have done it without you!

I´ve got the camera functioning, and will have some pictures shortly.

More later... gotta go. Peace and hugs, Bill

Back in the U S A

Hi Friends,

Well, I never got our camera's memory card to function, but luckily Andy Gunn and Morgan Ward took pictures during the week they were in La Esperanza. So, here are some....



This is Morgan, Andy and me starting the day with that great Honduran coffee in the sun in front of the main building at Utopia.
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We got some of the family to pose with Andy and Morgan at the house where eventually I ate all my meals. That's Do(ny)a Aleja with some really sweet grandchildren.
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Morgan and Andy assembled a new AM studio in the new room constructed for that purpose in the Utopia building. Here they're installing some of the sound-deadening foam that Adrienne and Jane dumpstered just before we left on the bus trip.
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Morgan found this beautiful lizard and promptly caught it.
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Well, you may be wanting to see pictures of all the demonstrations, which as of this writing, are still going on. Unfortunately, I never got to go to Tegus or SPS or the Nicaraguan border where most of that was happening. Check out Indymedia Chiapas for the latest info on that.

With some huge luck, I was able to leave La Voz Lenca transmitting at the full 1000 watts [when the power line voltage is at it's highest] before I left...a bit noisy and distorted, but the word is getting out to a large part of western Honduras....and, wouldn't you know, just in the middle of a really nice tribute to me for all my fine work, etc. etc....the line voltage spiked and the transmitter shut down...oh well, at least it was just a momentary thing. I'm looking for a newer, more reliable transmitter to replace this one...there's a new one on eBay right now for about $4600, or best offer...if we get lotsa bucks in the next few days, this could happen.

Peace, Bill

two thirds of the way through

Hi folks....a little update.........

Andy and Morgan worked tirelessly during the week they spent here..
Built a new studio for the AM radio station at Utopia
Rebuilt parts of the AM transmitter
Helped re-install the FM studio at the COPINH office in La Esperanza
Even mowed a bit of grass Honduran style with machete

Some observations about the political strife here...
The national government declares at every opportunity that the removal of President Mel Zelaya and his replacement with Roberto Macheleti is perfectly legal, following constitutional guidelines. There are frequent announcements on many radio and TV stations, especially the national network, HRN, stating that, and implying that Pres. Zelaya is a puppet of foreign countries...especially Hugo Chavez of Venezuela whose plane Pres. Zelaya was using when he tried to land in Tegucigalpa recently to unite with protesters demonstrating on his behalf. Their point is that keeping Mel in office would have been equivalent to foreign control of Honduras, and they wrap themselves in the banner of national sovernty. "Pro-peace" rallies have been staged in support of the takeover, with the implication that the pro-Zelaya demonstrations are violent and anarchistic, though the main violence so far has come from the anti-Zelaya people. It´s interesting that the media campaign against Zelaya is being waged with an acumen that´s unusual, in fact unprecidented in a country where advertising is extremely simple and straightforward....hmm, I wonder where they might be getting advice?

Most all the time I've been here, almost the entire station crew has been in the capitol, Tegucigalpa, reporting on the demonstrations and other developments there. To check out what reporters from Radio La Voz Lenca are filing, google **Indymedia chiapas**, go to the Honduras section, and click on "English" at the top of the page for a side-by-side Spanish/English report.

Hey, I´ve been hearing about moves to get a bit of funding for bettering the radio down here. It would be a great thing...Whether Zelaya is reinstated or not, the Voice of the Lencas is strong and needs to be heard.

Peace, Bill

Back in La Esperanza

Hi Folks,

You may have heard about the political situation here in Honduras, so here´s just a little note to help contradict a lot of dis-information that I
understand is circulating around up in the U.S. While in a state of
governmental discord, Honduras is not in a state of social unrest. La
Esperanza, where we are working is largely in support of the deposed Pres.
Zelaya, and many people from here have gone to either the capitol,
Tegucigalpa, or the center of commerce, San Pedro Sula, where there are
mass demonstrations for and against Zelaya, but here everything is just
more laid-back than usual. Clearly, Zelaya was removed from office in an
undemocratic parlamentary-military coop because his populist agenda was
threatening the status quo of the ruling elite and of foreign interests.
Honduras is in a state of governmental crisis, with much posturing,
accusations, paralysis caused by questions of which authority is in
control, and uncertainty. Much of this is very thoroughly reported on
Honduras's centrist Radio America. (This isn't the Voice of America)

I talked to people in Chiapas recently. Their IMC is doing one of the
best jobs of countering the conservative dis-information out there. They
tell me that they will soon be posting reports in English...Google
"Independent Media Chiapas" and when you get there, click on the English button on top of the Indymedia Chiapas site for a side by side English-Spanish report.

Andy and Morgan from Prometheus Radio in Philadelphia have arrived
for a week's stay. I'll try to check email about every other day, and
possibly upload stuff onto the blog, but there's no transportation into
town, so it's about a 6 mi. roundtrip hike to get online...not pleasant in
thunderstorms. There's a chance we may set up satellite internet access
here if we can get all the componants together. I left the memory card
for my camera in the U.S., so no pictures for the blog unless I can find
one for sale here.

Meanwhile life is ultra-peaceful here at the retreat center outside La
Esperanza. The weather is cool and sunny in the mornings with
thunderstorms most late afternoons and evenings. Lots of work to do, but
very few people around. There's a lot of improvements as the Lencas make
this place their own, including a brand-new kitchen here...the cooks have
wonderful little kids to have fun with. It's an exciting time to be
here...great timing from that standpoint.

Love, Bill

Fotos

That's Spanish for "photos", and here are some. When COPINH got Utopia last summer, it was a plain, whitewashed building. This past dry season, (our winter) many people decorated the plain walls here's some scenes.....









What I like about these pictures is the great diversity of styles ansd abilities of the painters. And here's caballo con duraznos (The Utopia horse amongst the peach trees with almost-ripe peaches).



We're getting ready to fly back. I finally got the electric power restored for reliable operation yesterday. What I found out after turning on the transmitter wasn't the greatest...some transistors I'd bought just before leaving don't seem to be working well, causing the modules I've rebuilt to be low-powered. I'm hoping I can get a suitable collection of stuff together to get on the air before I leave, but it would be wonderful to be able to be able to substitute a more reliable transmitter instead. It turns out that with the present state of broadcasting regulation here in Honduras, La Voz Lenca could actually increase coverage with a better transmitter and AM repeaters.

Thanks for all your help!

Peace, Bill

Getting Done

Sorry to have no pictures lately...It´s a combination of software and hardware problems. I think the transmitter´s good to go...¨think¨ because the power lines coming into the building have a problem which makes turning on the transmitter problematic. I´m hoping to rectify that soon.

Meanwhile the weather has been cold and rainy...strange to have cold winds blowing damp fog and rain coming out of the north, since we´re south of the hot, steamy caribbean coast. The folks here, though, are the opposite...warm and gentle...and inspired in their desire to protect the environment and their way of life.

At the transmitter location, Utopia, there are regular weekend classes to teach young Lencas to be teachers, so that they can go back in the remote areas to teach Lenca kids in Lenca-sensitive ways. It´s a program initiated by COPINH in cooperation with the Normal teacher´s school here in La Esperanza. Like so many COPINH projects, it´s ambitious, and it´s working!

We´re planning on taking off for the homeward journey this weekend. I´ll put up a summary of the trip, plus more pictures soon after we get back.

Peace, Bill

Getting down to bizzyness

The good folks from Comppa in Mexico arrived. They had coordinated the initial preparations for the tower construction, and are improving computer and the low-power FM station here. Its really nice to be working together with them -- all of us together here in La Esperanza at the same time.

Don has done a lot of work -- he claims it's vacation -- fixing the old, but reliable generator that Bob Wahlfeldt donated. It should be good to go for a long time. Thank you, Don!

I've been slowly rebuilding the transmitter with parts I brought down. Ironically, the more parts, the longer it takes to rebuild things, but its coming along.


Peace, Bill

Success Already

Hi Folks,

We arrived here in La Esperanza Saturday evening. It's great to be back with my friends here! Many people of COPINH have been out of town attending two regional meetings dealing with various aspects of water use and availability, reservoir projects and the threat they pose to the indigenous peoples' lands, so I'm encountering them one- or two-at-a-time...like a continuous flow of little gifts.

When I first looked at the tower, it was clear that weeds had grown up and were affecting the tuning of the tower. Rolando, our friend and watchman of the site, soon dispatched those with his machete. --



Yesterday, I did a really thorough analysis of the tower tuning box (ATU) and set up the tuneable coils to the exact values that Gray Haertig provided. I had sent him data on our tower which he ran on his sophisticated tower modelling program. Again, great thanks to Gray for all his help! With the coils adusted as he perdicted, the transmitter was ecstatic! It looks great! Should be up to full power very soon, as soon as I get done with some rebuilding inside. Here I am doing that --



Meanwhile, Don's been vacationing by rebuilding the generator that was donated ny Bob Wahlfeldt, who died just a week before we left. In this as in so many other ways
his spirit carries us on. La lucha sigue! Here's the work in progress --



While I've been gone, a lot of decorating, murals, was done at Utopia (the location of the AM transmitter). Here's one --



Many thanks to Don for getting us here in style, for doing the generator stuff and, leastly, for these pictures.

Some Pictures From Our Trip

We´re in Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, on the bottom of the Gulf. Hoping to Fly to San Pedro Sula, Honduras tomorrow, take a cab to the bus terminal, then a bus to La Esperanza tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, a few more pictures:

Here´s Don and me just before taking off.



In Austin, we stopped to visit Shaya and Charles Zucker. Shaya is a past station manager of WEFT in Champaign, and is very active in community activities. They treated us royally! Here´s Shaya and me:



Last night we stayed in Tampico, I visited an old friend, then we zoomed off around the south side of the gulf. Here´s a picture of the mountains north of Veracruz:




The little plane´s doing well. we´re spending more time hassling with customs and flight-planning people than actually flying.

Peace, Bill

We have lift-off

Bill and Don went to Frasca field early yesterday morning. They had packed everything in the Mooney's tiny cargo space the evening before.

It's a beautiful plane, manufactured in the 1970's, Don bought it as a wreck and lovingly restored it. Mooneys are high performance planes and this one is capable of flying at a land speed of 150 MPH. They were planning on flying to Austin for the first leg of their trip. Don planned on that journey taking five hours of flying time.




Don removed the covers and tie-downs from the plane while Bill gathered up the last bits of test equipment, transmitter manuals, and spare parts from his car. They took an important last trip to the airfield's bathroom (they can't just pull over when the need arises!) and they both climbed inside the cockpit.

Don described the cockpit as being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle's interior. I think that's overstating the size. It looks very small when you see two men pouring themselves into the seats.



They put on the noise canceling headphones since the engine and wind noise will be very loud during the flight. Bill's ear jewelry made it difficult to fit the headphones and it took some adjustment to make his ear's ready for flight.

At last Don told me to step away from the plane, he shut the door and began the pre-flight checklist. I received a wave from the cockpit and heard the engine's starter wind up.... and then wind back down. Oh dear. The cockpit door opened and Don crawled out muttering about the starter solenoid. He applied a little tuner spray to it and tried again. Contact!

They rolled out to the edge of the field, roared down the runway and took off into the morning sky towards Arkansas, Austin, and Honduras.

Just Before the Flight

We're getting prepared to fly away on April 1st. Don Berliner is swinging by Urbana in his little single-engine Mooney to wisk me away to Honduras via Austin TX, and Veracruz, Mexico. Meanwhile, I want to acknowledge another donation of a huge number of transistors...all we need to rebuild all of the transmitter output modules for both transmitters...from ON Semiconductor, a really high-class manufacturer in Tuscon, AZ. Thank you so much for your support!

While we get ready, here's some pictures of me working with the Lencas of COPINH last summer......

Return to La Esperanza in April

We're gearing up to return to La Esperanza to do more work on La Voz Lenca on April first. This time, it's a barnstorming trip by single engine plane! I'm getting equipment ready, rebuilding transmitter components, collecting spare parts, and packing all the stuff to be airworthy. I've gotten the digital camera working again,, so I'll be uploading pictures of the trip down and the work at La Voz Lenca as it happens.

We're still casting around for funds to make the work even more effective. Folks who would like to help out with that can contact us at primarycommunicationsproject@gmail.com. Thank you!

Peace, Bill

Mid-winter Update

Well, it's been awhile since my last post, but things are moving along with the Lenca Radio Project. We had a lot of problems resulting from a power surge near the end of my last trip in November. I cobbled together one working transmitter with the parts I had available, so that La Voz Lenca could keep operating, but it's not up to full power, and the sound isn't the greatest.

SO - We're planning to return in April, loaded down with spare parts and test equipment, to put things right. I'm in the process of rebuilding modules and a microwave transmitter that I brought back for "homework", and I'm seeking contributions of the spare parts we need.

Even with this pared back power level, La Voz Lenca is doing great work. It's a very effective tool that the Lencas are using to improve their lives, thanks to your interest and support.

Peace, Bill

More and More

Sorry for the long gap in feeding the hungry blog. A lot of what I've been doing has been fairly complicated, but not very blogogenic. Here are some new developments, though. Late Thursday night, I decided that I had not accomplished enough so far in this visit, and also had not done enough outside of radio work, so I would delay my return and spend the next three days with my Lenca friends in a journey of recollection and commemoration. We traveled to Santa Marta, El Salvador, to celebrate the solidarity of the Lencas with the Salvadoran refugees who lived here in camps among the Lencas during the Salvadoran civil war which ended in 1992.

That was one amazing adventure, fording rivers on foot and in a bus, joining a hoard of others in a tug-of-war style mass pulling of several huge trucks up a soggy mud highway slope, passing through some beautiful scenery, while laughing to hours of Lenca humor and singing and cheering along with about 70 others. The event was beautiful, despite the sweltering Salvadoran sun. We bounced and swayed over the mountain into La Esperanza about 2 a.m. Sunday night full of dirt and memories.

Now my return to the U.S. is scheduled for Wed. the 28th. There's still a lot to do here, but things are getting done as well. Taking advantage of a day without electricity, I dug a 60 foot trench to the transmitter building from the Utopia building, and buried an audio feedline which will bring all the programming to the AM transmitter when the installation is complete. Last night we got the COPINH office computer system partly back in operation, after weeks of not being able to connect to the internet.

We're moving into the dry season here in La Esperanza. The clay streets are getting as hard as rock, though with a fine layer of dust on top. People are already cutting this down by throwing water on the streets.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Peace, Bill

Exito!!

No, that doesn't mean I'm leaving yet,"ëxito" is Spanish for "success". I've just gotten the FM signal to sound a lot better, and gotten the AM tuning spiffed up enough to tune up the transmitter into it's comfortable range for the first time. The weather here is cold for Honduras (mid 40's), with a lot of wind. Makes me thankful for the inefficiency of the transmitter, which causes it to put about 1 kilowatt of heat into the transmitter building where I have my workshop set up. (None of the buildings here have heat, and many have a lot of gaps for the cool air to whistle through.)

Peace, Bill

Back in La Esperanza

Sorry to be so long in writing stuff to the blog. I've been here in La Esperanza for about 1 week, but what with power outages, and rain blocking off the satellite internet reception, it's been hard to get a chance to upload stuff.

The weather here is cold [for here] -- 50 degree days, and nights probably into the lower 40's, but rainy and raw. It seems pretty cold, since none of the buildings have heat, and some are "well ventilated" to boot. The people are warm and it's really good to be back with these folks.

Right after I arrived, there was a "taller" or workshop, on organizational internal structuring and politics, part of a four session series, given by a group from Tegucigalpa and held at Utopia. Though I was doing other things, I got to enjoy great food and conversation during their breaks. [Ever tried tortillas broken up and soaked in coffee with milk and sugar? It's a strange combination, but it works! -- Kinda like rosquias, says the woman who demonstrated the delicacy. I guess I have to cultivate that taste.]

I've brought a lot of small parts and new test equipment this time which make it possible to upgrade parts of the transmitters and antenna system which need improvement. The AM station has been operating at somewhat lower power than it's licensed for, so I want to get that up to full power and make it reliable enough to run a good long time without problems.

I've rebuilt the antenna tuning unit, but it's either been really rainy or the power's been off, so I haven't been able to use the snazzy new antenna analyzer which Gray Haertig has loaned us, except to do initial checks on the tuning. Even so, that's helped a lot.

That's it till later. Peace, Bill