Finding the Site of a Booster for the Usambara Mountains
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Area of the North-Eastern Diocese

 

Small transmitter on the Seguruma Mountain

 

Rich towards Lushoto, seen from Seguruma

 

Building of the new regional studio in Lushoto

 The North - Eastern Diocese covers the Usambara Mountains, the flat terrain East of the mountains up to Tanga, and the area South of the Mountains. To cover all the areas is a difficult task, because nearly optical sight between the transmitter and the radios is required.

1st Approach to cover the Diocese:

We wanted to find a place where:

- reception of the feeder station from Moshi is clearly audible

- where the most populated areas of the mountains (Lushoto and Mlalo) could be reached

- where the road to Tanga and the coastal line could be covered well

- where we could get an easy connection to public electricity

To meet all the demands, the transmitter would have to be located on a very high spot to ‘shine’ down to everywhere. According to the map the highest mountains (7550ft.)are located NW of Lushoto in the big forest area. We went to a place called ‘Skyline’. We found excellent reception of the signal from Kilimanjaro, but no contact to Lushoto town. Then we went up another two mountains within the forest reserve until we realised from above, that either the Mlalo or the Lushoto area would be blocked, wherever we go! And public electricity was far away from all those places. We had to realize:

There is no place meeting all demands!

2nd Approach:

We found the highest population density is around Mlalo. There is also public electricity available. So we looked for a suitable high location, and found the Seguruma mountain (7279ft.) just above Mlalo. From there we had excellent view towards Mombasa and all the coastal line towards Tanga. We placed a small beacon transmitter on a tree to verify the possible range from there. This transmitter could be heard nearly all the road along the Usambara mountains coming from Moshi through Korogwe up to Tanga, except some segment, which is being blocked by the mountains of Amani. Around Mombo the signal was also weak. We found a strong signal even in downtown Tanga and the road leading South to Pangani, about 100 km away from the 1-Watt beacon!

A second beacon transmitter was located in Lushoto on top of the future studio building. We could not receive the beacon from Lushoto on the Seguruma mountain, since the path is blocked by a mountain rich, and visa versa. But the signal from Lushoto could be heard on many places, where the signal from Mlado did not reach, as the higher parts of Sony and around Mombo, such substituting each other.

 

 

elct.jpg (2467 bytes)Evangelical lutheran Church of Tanzania


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Detailed measuring report

 

 

 

 


A practical way of covering the Diocese with radio programmes