Happy Birthday!

La Voz Lenca is officially born. The inauguration of the station happened Saturday. Here, we dedicated a huge bonfire to the station. To match that fiery beginning, here's a photo Refugio just sent of the tower at night with the red light on top. More photos soon! Peace, Bill

Inauguration Day !!

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the official inaguration day of La Voz Lenca. Even though we're 2500 miles away, I'm planning a bit of a celebration myself. Here's the word from Refugio --

Aquí el sábado es la inauguración de Radio La Voz Lenca AM. Ahorita hay
una jornada previa de capacitación para corresponsales comunitarios del
proyecto de comunicación popular del Copinh y de Radio La Voz Lenca,
además hay un pequeño encuentro de radios comunitarias de Honduras. El
remate es la fiesta de inauguración el sábado por la tarde.
Compraron una vaca, que se comerán asada, la muy pobre.

Well, no carne asada here, but I'm planning to play a bit of music from La Voz Lenca anyway. (There's a retreat at the Kalyx Center, so I can't go far astray.)

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to Ben's house last night to see some scenes from the Lenca Radio Project and to eat some fine food. Thanks much also to Ben and Zelda for putting it together, and to all the folks who made yummy food and donated money to help cover the costs of the project, and to Jane for having a birthday to add to the merriment.

AL AIRE!!!

Al aire!!! On the air again!!! After several days of battling with weather and resulting power line problems, La Voz Lenca is back on the air!!!

Time to come together, tomorrow night, Thursday, Sept. 27, at Ben's House, for an evening of pictures of the construction and music from La Voz Lenca. (See Ben's invitation a few postings back for details.)

Since I left there has been a substantial increase in the daily rain pattern. Instead of a couple hours of thunderstorms each evening, it's recently been raining from mid day on. Rain often causes electrical outages and brownouts occur when people turn on lights (during dreary weather as well as at night). As a result of all this, it's been very hard for Refugio to (1.) find a time when he can get a ride inside a vehicle [the bed of the pickup can get kind of wet in a hard rain.] (2.) find a time when that vehicle can navigate the muddy city streets and dirt country roads to Utopia. (3.) find electrical power with high enough voltage when he gets there.

It seems that a power surge may have blown out the limiting amplifier...a critical link in the audio chain between the receiver which picks up the FM station and the AM transmitters. For now, there's a temporary cludge working (bypassing that amplifier altogether), but this isn't a good solution for continued operation, so other options are being explored. It's so great to have a person like Refugio who understands electronics and also takes detailed photos, coupled with email, which can give us daily communication. Now problems can be solved from thousands of miles away in just a few days!

I look foward to seeing a lot of folks tomorrow night when we'll have pictures and sounds galore!

Peace, Bill

Some Good, Some Bad

Although I'm getting caught up on farm work (getting running water, fixing the weedmower, catching up with everything that slid during my absence) the Lenca Radio Project is still in motion. Last night I got some emails from Refugio in La Esperanza. It seems La Voz Lenca was off the air all day yesterday. After much analysis, complete with pictures of the meters and settings of the switches, it seems that a sort of minor piece of the system went dead. (Got unplugged?) We arrived at about 4 different ways to solve this problem, all using stuff on-hand in La Esperanza, so I'm hoping it's working now.

Preparations are under way for our return trip in late October - early November. The plan is to reconstruct the WGIL transmitter to give that full power, to build a better link from the studio to the transmitter via microwave, and to build a small studio in the main building at Utopia to broadcast events that happen there.

Just last night, we got news of a wonderful donation. Gray Haertig talked to Tom King, president of Kintronic Laboratories, a leading manufacturer of antenna tuning equipment. Kintronic is willing to donate the coils and provide other componants at cost to completely rebuild the Antenna Tuning Unit (ATU) -- the thing that gave me so much hassle during the setup of La Voz Lenca. That has been the weak link in the whole antenna system, and soon it will be the finest quality components, and new to boot! Thank you so much to Gray, who's already done so much for this project, for offering to buy and ship the necessary parts, and to Tom King and Kintronics for their generousity.

Getting Out and About

La Voz Lenca HRJZ is getting out! [all Honduran call signs start with "HR"] That is, it's still transmitting on days when there's power, and going fairly far. Here's a bit of a summary from Refugio, as of yesterday:

"Los tres reportes hasta ahora más lejanos de que se escucha fuerte y
claramente son de: [the three furthest places with strong reception]
Comayagua, Comayagua
Siguatepeque, Comayagua y
La Paz, La Paz

además hay reportes de que se escucha fuerte y claro en: [closer reports of strong reception]
Colomoncagua, Intibucá
Jesús de Otoro, Intibucá
en la región sur del departamento de Comayagua
Marcala, La Paz
toda la frontera de Intibucá con El Salvador
Yamaranguila y Guise, Intibucá
San Francisco de Opalaca

Hay dos reportes de zonas grises, es decir, zonas donde no se escucha
bien, pero que son más cercanas que lugares lejanos donde se escucha bien."

We'll try to post a map when more reports come in. [So far, all the furthest reports , Comayagua, La Paz, and Siguatepeque, are east of La Esperanza.]

I hope you all can make it to Ben's on Thurs., the 27th, and also we're having a huge bonfire and potluck at the Kalyx Center to celebrate the Fall Equinox on Saturday night, the 22nd, to which you're all invited.

Post Launch PARTY

Bill is back home and the radio station is up and running. We are still waiting to hear reports on how well the signal is getting out, but initial reports seem pretty good.

I got to hear the many details of the difficult problems Bill had to overcome to get the transmitters running and correctly tuned to the antenna. It is quite an accomplishment.

To welcome Bill back and to get a chance to share stories, we are hosting a party on Thursday the 27th of September at 7:00PM at my house. All readers of this blog are invited.

Email me at ben@peartreestudio.net to receive directions and my address.

Hope to see you there.

Ben

Go, Go, Go!

This afternoon everything came together. Tuning went just right, lightning hit the tower and did absolutely nothing to the transmitter. We went on with the full 1000 watts just in time for Ecos de Opalaca, Radio Lenca's great interview and education program, then stayed on till about 6:30 pm when we all took off for a wonderful meal and good-by celebration from the good folks at COPINH. It sounds good, and already we have reports of people picking us up in Comayagua, pretty far off, about 2 1/2 hrs. by car.

Thanks to everyone who pulled so hard to get this tower up and transmitting, especially to all the great COPINH volunteers who made super human efforts and sacrificed so much to make this happen.

Set!

Today, we're putting La Voz Lenca on the AM airwaves! Some final tweaking and testing this morning, then we're on the air!

Yesterday, we did some initial program transmission -- about three hours -- to the sound of drumbeats and Punta music (The "national" music of Honduras). It was Children's Day in Honduras, a day for much festivity and celebration, especially in the schools. Salvador Zuniga got on the air and asked people to report on how far the station is getting out. It may take a week or so to find out since a lot of areas don't have phone service, so the reports will come in by foot!

I'm planning on returning in a month or so to build another studio and improve the link between the studio and transmitter, but for now there's a lot of preparation to do at the Kalyx Center to get ready for a big campout there this weekend.

Peace, Bill

Ready!

Today is the day! Last night I found and fixed a problem that has been hindering the tuning of the transmitter, so I'm putting it on the air today or tomorrow morning! I know it's been something short of instant gratification, but it's happening now!

It's great to be here in this land of corn twice as tall as I am, dirt streets with speed bumps and a whole different way of looking at the world, but it'll be excellent to be back with all of you too! Thanks to all you wonderful people who helped out in so many ways!

Peace, Bill

Tune Up

Things are moving quickly. Gray Haertig modeled our tower on his computer, did some calculations, added his experienced insight, and wahlah! (sp?) came up with component values for the ATU that made a huge difference in the tuning. Much thanks again to Gray and to all the other engineers who contributed to the discussion via listserves.

Here's a cool picture of an ice-halo around the sun which is perched on top of the tower. Refugio took it about mid day, the day hurricane Felix passed over. Also, there's a not-so-beautiful shot of the lightning choke which COPINH volunteers made out of scrounged stuff a couple weeks ago. It's that silvery coil wound on a piece of white plastic drainpipe, and all of this is on the bottom of the antenna tuning cabinet.

Peace, Bill

In the Eye of Felix and Some Tentative Tones

Just a little note to let you all know that we're safe here. So far Felix has only dumped a bit of rain, threatened to blow the tin roof off of the transmitter shed, and made the usual light-jacket evening fairly cold, well really only probably in the mid 50's. It hasn't been so nice for the folks on the east coast though. First reports are just coming in to HRN, the national radio system. A lot of people live in just basic wood houses on stilts in the swampy rain forest there -- not a nice place to be in a category 5 hurricane. Tegucigalpa is bracing for a lot of rain and the mayor has evacuated the central market and steep regions of cobbled-together housing that washed away before in Hurricane Mitch. Tegus is in a narrow valley between mountains with kind of unstable slopes. The eye of the hurricane is expected to pass right over us about mid day tomorrow, but by then they're thinking it may be downgraded to a tropical storm.

Today, as Felix's winds were blowing in, I ran the first actual transmission on HRJZ, The Voice Lenca, 1580 kHz AM. Well, actually it was just a test tone, followed by a pretty distorted re-broadcast of the FM signal. The problem was that there was interference in the FM receiver from the AM transmitter being so close -- sort of a Catch 22 that can be solved by a better antenna for the FM receiver or by installing the microwave link that is the eventual design anyway. And, it's still running at just 250 watts out of the licensed 1000 watts. Between power outages and rain that have interfered with the main goal of getting the transmitters up and running at full power, I've been able to catch up on the lower priority jobs like designing the antennas for the microwave link, which need to be done before leaving.

I've got some problems with the tuning on these transmitters and the ATU as well. I'll put a technical discussion of that in the comments for this posting, so as not to clutter up the blog with technotalk.

That's it for now. I hope you all doing OK in the heavy heat that shouldn't be happening in Sept. in Illinois.

La Lucha Sigue! Bill

Out of date update.

I's been a long time since I've posted anything....combination of power failures, other obligations in the evenings, and sometimes not knowing what to say. The work is going slowly, because of difficulties in finding that "sweet spot" of resonance between the transmitters, the feedline to the antenna, and then matching that to the antenna itself. I've put out a second call to engineers for help on this, and I hope it'll be resolved really soon.

Refugio, Rolando and I have been hanging out after work for awhile the last two nights to watch for static discharge on the tower with the regular evening thunderstorms. So far we haven't seen any lightning strikes, but there's a lot of crackling and snapping as a storm approaches. I've done everything I can think of to drain those charges off, and so far we haven't seen any problems ith the transmitters.

Hurricane Felix is blowing in along the northern coast. The skies have been cloudy all day, home on the range. We hear that the tropical rain forest where the Misquito Indians live on the east end of Honduras, called Misquitia, got hit pretty hard, but news travels pretty slow here. We're already getting some pretty hard rains, though being way inland and at high altitude, we aren't likely to see much else.

No word yet on exactly when we'll be on the air, or when I'll be leaving for home. Thanks far all your communications!

Base designs

AM radio towers are a bit different than those for most other services. The whole tower is electrically charged with the broadcast signal. At the tower's base is a tuning box (ATU) which connects the buried feedline to the antenna. There is also a special coil, called a "choke" which separates the AM tranmitted signal from the ordinary 120 volt line current for the tower light. Here's a picture of some COPINH volunteers putting up the ATU a few days ago --



Here's a picture of the tower base, complete with the hitch-ball lightning arrestors designed by Ben.



All of that delicate and dangereous equipment at the base of the tower needs protection, and in turn, people and animals need a deterrent to keep them from touching the tower. Here's a few pictures of the fence COPINH folks built today to do that. It's made of "lomo", which is Spanish for the outside slabs with the bark on, which are the first things cut off to allow a sawmill to cut straight lumber --

Full Power and Friends

The WGIL transmitter is up for transmitting at full power! I'd been trying to get either one of the the transmitters to tune up to full power, without great success. I wrote to Gray Haertig in Portland to see if he had any insights, and he put my query up on a couple listserves. Thank you Gray, and to a bunch of other engineers who responded for a cachimbasa (Lenca word for "whole hunch") of new approaches. Through a combination of those, a new discovery, and a new approach to tuning, the thing is puttin' out. I'm so relieved...actually thinking about going home soon, but first I have to tune the feedline to the antenna, put together a studio-transmitter link, check out our homemade tower light choke, and some other small stuff.

Last weekend we had a huge number of visitors at Utopia -- some good friends and lots of young folks attending a jornada -- a regional 2 day meeting -- just what the place was designed for! Yesterday, by contrast, the watchman Rolando, Timo's dog Chikin and I were the only ones there, since everyone else had left for the movilizacion in Siguatepeque. Today was much the same, except that everyone was demonstrating in La Esperanza. The main focus of this is a proposed law allowing water resources to be privetized. This is a huge deal in developing countries because people don't have the money to pay for water. Either they need to divert resources from other needs, or they must do without -- both unacceptable alternatives. People here are under no delusions about the source of these threats to their lives.

Tonight we said good-by to Nancy Vasquez who's been working here in cooperation with COMPPA. She's leaving on an early bus to go back home to Guatemala City. She has been a great facilitator, with our customs both entering Guatemala and with our complex negotiations getting into Honduras. She did a lot of documentation, made sure workers had food, covered local events for indy media, and generally tying everything together. She's a great worker and fun to be with. Thanks so much for making this project go smoother!

Peace, Bill

Looking Up

Things are looking better. That plan of combining the best parts of the 2 transmitter tuning assemblies worked, so now the WGIL transmitter is tuneable. In the process, I think I figured a way to fix the other mechanism too, so both transmitters should respond soon. I've been making some last minute connections to the tower too. Most people are headed off in the middle of the night for a big national mobilization for clean, un-privatized water tomorrow in Siguatepeque tomorrow and the day after, but I'm going to stay back to try to get things up and running.

Looking up too, at the tower, with this new picture from Nancy Vasquez, taken back on the night of completion, with the lingering Hurricane Dean sky, with the Utopia building and the yellow 'cool bus in the background ---

Looking Better

Preparations for the big sign-on day continue. The COPINH volunteers focussed on protecting the tower guy wires -- very important because a truck hitting the guy wire pier could easily bring down the tower. Leonel says he's seen a tower destroyed by a horse damaging a guy wire anchor. It's hard to imagine how, but he wasn't joking. Here's a couple photos I took:



Don Chico spent a lot of time yesterday looking for the replacement belts needed for the transmitters, without success. Looking over the mechanisms for the two transmitters, it seems it will be possible to take the best parts of both, and unite them into one working mechanism to get the WGIL transmitter running once again. Then all that needs to be done is to tune up the transmitter/feedline/tower system, install the tower lighting choke, plug an FM receiver into the AM transmitter to rebroadcast the FM signal, and we're on the air! I have a plan to rebuild the mechanism for the WDWS transmitter without those belts, so that might get done fairly soon as well. Big thanks to Ben for his offer of support on this -- It may still be needed!

peace, Bill

Of Red Lights Aloft and New Problems

Hi Folks,

Well, the tower light works. A pretty red object in the sky next to the moon earlier this evening. Upon returning to the COPINH office here in La Esperanza, I wasn't able to see it. This is important, because we're planning to use a sub-microwave link from the studio here in the office to the transmitter site at Utopia. We've got a 60 foot tower for the FM station here at COPINH. Probably from up there, it will be possible to make the shot. Amongst other things, folks from COPINH wound a rf choke (of lampcord wound around a piece of 4 inch PVC drainpipe), dug a 25 meter ditch to run power for the tower light, and planted the ATU (antenna tuning box) at the tower base.

I just discovered a mechanical difficulty in both transmitters, very similar to a problem I once cured in another Harris transmitter -- The Voice of Nicaragua, Shortwave -- in 1989. This has to do with belts, much like a timing belt in a modern car that has teeth on the inside, though these are alot narrower and shorter. The problem is that, with age the teeth have sheared off, disconnecting the two gears that need to be turned together exactly, just like the valve timing in a car. This makes it nearly impossible to tune up the transmitters. So tomorrow I'm going to try to extract one of the belts, then look for an automotive belt that can be cut down to fit. If I do find that, it will be the best coincidence imaginable, but the alternative of waiting 3 or 4 weeks and paying a small fortune to get raplacemets from the states, is not an option.

I played some soccer tonight with Don Chico and Ronaldo, the wat-chee-mahn (Espanglish for watchman.) Even though it was a heavy day of work, the exercise and break from work were good to have.

Thanks for your blog comments and emails.

Peace, Bill

The Whole Thing!!

Late this afternoon, Leonel and crew finished the tower, topping it off with a red light (Which we haven't connected yet).

We're happy to present you with these fine photos, taken by Compañera Nancy Vasquez:

Going Up!

Leonel, the torrero, arrived yesterday afternoon, with a trusty little Toyota pickup loaded with three 20 foot long tower sections, a big reel of cable for the guy wires, a gin pole, some climbing gear, and two co-workers.

This morning at 7:00 a.m., the tower erection began, with lots of helpers from COPINH. In spite of a couple heavy rains, and a lot of drizzle caused by Hurricane Dean, the tower was up to 80 feet by day's end -- over halfway there!

Here's some pictures I took:

The first 20 feet put up with temporary guy wires.


Climbing high to 80 feet!

Another big hurdle -- Last night, working late in the transmitter shack, I sent out the first program -- a test tone -- a few feet to a nearby radio. It sounds pretty good! A lot of tuning is still needed, and connection work to the tower when that's done, but it's holding together OK! I think it might actually fly! Here's a look at the solid little transmitter building, with a Hurricane enhanced view of the sky over La Esperanza and the Utopia building to the right. What a beautiful place to work!



The days here are cool, but hot in the sun, with kind of cold nights (about 50 degrees). Heading home in the evenings about dusk, it's good to have.a jacket. I've been listening to La Voz Lenca on their small FM station. Really good programming, on environmental stuff especially, with great music -- Mercedes Sosa, Manu Chao, Los Torogoces de Morazan, Carlos Mejia Godoy and a lot more!

Lights and stuff

Hay luz! The electricity is on at Utopia!! The transmitter which was donated by WGIL in Galesburg shows signs of life! It's putting out the full 1,000 watts, but I have yet to test the audio aspects. It's still kinda dark in the transmitter building since the lights are yet to be installed. The transmitter from WDWS in Champaign isn't putting out power. Probably something got disconnected in all the bumping and constant vibration of the bus.

Lots of volunteers have been painting the tower and getting the groundwork done for erecting the tower. Leonel, the "torrero" (tower erector) is scheduled to arrive tomorrow mid day. He'll be bringing the remaining supplies necessary to put up our section (the lower 60 feet), and then he'll build the remaining 90 feet on top of that. I'm kind of apprehensive about this -- we don't have many supplies -- but I think we can pull it off. We're heading out at 6:00 a.m. = Hora de Honduras of 8:00 a.m., to get an early start assembling the tower. This has all been pushed up a day earlier in the schedule to get it done before possible heavy weather if Hurricane Dean heads south toward Honduras.

This afternoon, we had a great time shoveling dirt back over the new radial wire connections at the base of the tower. Salvador, Refugio and Soltero's constant good humor keeps everyone feeling good about the work. Maybe too, it was the fine lunch of salad and fruit we all had -- a great change from the usual tortillas, beans and cheese.

More soon.

Peace, Bill