Transmitter

in Mlalo on air again!

Old Mlalo Mission Church

Old mission house, now guest house

Connecting to power from car

Following the cable running up

Checking line

Up on mount Seguruma at transmitter site

Burnt plug and Socked on stabilizer

Replaced by Connector

Continued checking of earth cable when Power was back

Actually we wanted to go to Mlalo on Monday November 28th  already, but just when taking off the main transmitter in Kidia failed.

So we started our trip on Tuesday. It had not been on air since November 2nd when I was on vacation for 2 weeks. We hoped the electrician on Mlalo could find out what is wrong with the earth cable bringing up electricity to the transmitter hut on Mt. Seguruma. But finally we got the call we have to get there to help.

We took off in Moshi after getting some additional cable, insulating tape, connectors and a test bulb. We also stopped to get drinking water and refueled the car.

At around 15:15 we reached Mlalo safely. Mzee Bendera awaited us already at the mission house. Since there was no electricity I brought up the car closer to our electricity meter to connect the line to the inverter in the car to test it.

We went up along the electricity line up to the transmitter site on top of Mt. Seguruma and checked on many places if the cable is still carrying the electricity.

Inside the transmitter hut we found the socked and Plug on the stabilizer burnt. The moisture which gathered all the time the transmitter was not on air during power cuts had made the contact bad. We connected the trailing socked straight in the stabilizer with a connector.

Everything else seemed to be working fine.

Coming back again down we were lucky public electricity had returned. We thought it is easy to get the transmitter on air now. But switching the electricity on just showed a dead short! What had happened? For some time it worked, then a dead short again! It became dark.

We checked the single wires of the earth cable again, and found there is an intermittent short on the cable, not far from this place. But how should we find it in the dark?

God touched a boys hart and he told Deo:" A little bit up there, where the heavy rain had washed the soil from the cable, other children have played with a nail! " That had been the answer! The should hardly could be seen from outside the cable, but there was a hole. And opening the able there revealed, that it was badly burnt inside causing shorts!

We Took a piece of cable and connected it between the burnt sides, switched on electricity and the transmitter was on air! How glad were all the people standing around us to spend the evening listening to our programmes and all the others up to Tanga!

Martin