Behind the Scenes: Maintenance on KVVR Over the Weekend

You may have had trouble listening to KVVR for a couple hours this past Saturday.

With any piece of equipment that's in operation 24/7/365, there's a need for maintenance and upkeep, especially when the equipment is exposed to the elements the entire time.  Radio towers and equipment are no exception.

With that in mind, please allow me to present a heavily abridged guide to how radio broadcasts work.

If you've been to our studios, you may have noticed these antennas on a pole on the side of the building.

These antennas are paired with devices known as Studio-Transmitter Link (abbreviated as STL) transmitters.  They take the audio from the studios and send it to a matching antenna and STL receiver at one of our towers.

At the tower, the audio goes into the main transmitter, and from there, it goes up the transmission line.  The transmission line is coaxial cable, same as what you might use to connect an antenna to your TV or sound system at home, just far more massive.  In this case, the cable is 3 inches in diameter and there's about 400 feet of it, running from the transmitter at the bottom of the tower to the broadcast antenna at the top.

Now we get to the reason for this article.

Like utility lines for things like power, phone, and cable TV/Internet, radio transmission lines have a protective outer coating to protect the cables from the elements, keeping air, water, dirt and other things out.

Unlike them, however, the transmission line for radio needs to be not just protected, but pressurized.  Recently, the pressure on the KVVR transmission line dropped to zero, which means the line was no longer airtight and the pump meant to keep the line pressurized was now sucking air, along with water and anything else in the air directly into the transmission line.

So, a crew was contracted to go out and climb the tower to find and fix the leak or leaks.  They came out Saturday morning, and in order for them to climb the tower, KVVR had to drop to very low power so the climbers wouldn't get literally cooked by the broadcast antenna.

Long story short (too late!), they found the leak almost at the top of the tower.  It was quickly repaired, and once the climbers were off the tower, KVVR was returned to full power.

So, a big thanks to Rob and his crew at Montana Tower for their work!

As a heads-up, keep your eyes peeled.  There's more on the way for KVVR this year!