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News Arts Events Business Underwriting Updated: June 06, 2008 | ||||
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Even
a four wheel drive truck couldn’t reach the transmitter site. Fletcher had few
options; locating a tracked vehicle called a Sno-Cat to rent would have taken
several days; a snowmobile would be difficult to maneuver and impossible to
pack with all his gear. He turned to Program Director Roger Adams, who
had been concerned about a string of signal problems in the wake of severe
winter mountain weather that all but prevented
Wyoming
Public Radio is heard statewide on a network of KUWT, Toven and Fletcher
began troubleshooting the transm Fletcher decided WPR engineers are
familiar with the process of getting a motel room on trips to transmitters.
But horses? The Bar None Morgan Ranch in Thermopolis offered a comforta In the dawn Walking into a
violent snowy head wind, Buck looked back at Adams several times as if to ask,
“Are you sure we’re supposed to go up this way?” The trip took
The engineers’
remote analysis of the trouble back in Laramie proved to be correct. The
satellite
With a sense of
satisfaction and relief the men and horses starte Adams and Fletcher rewarded the gelding and mares; the men removed their saddles gave them a gentle brushing and a nice meal. Fletcher and Adams poured themselves a cup of coffee and headed for home. To see all our pictures click here | ||
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access
to several sites. He worried that listeners would be without WPR for too long
when transmitters on remote mountain sites went down. Earlier in the
winter, Adams had offered a proven but never before considered alternative.
He would guide engineers into snowbound sites on horseback - their tools and
parts aboard a pack horse.
24 satellite-fed transmitters
and translators located on mountaintops like Copper Mountain, elevation 8025
feet. In summer months, getting to these sites is a matter of driving, albeit
slowly in four wheel drive. When winter sets in, these elevations create
their own - often vicious - weather systems making the roads treacherous and
impassible much of the time. While regular maintenance of the transmitters is
performed in the warmer months, the equipment cares little about weather and
seems to choose the coldest day to break down.
Thermopolis
and KUWZ, Rock Springs / Green River 90.5 FM had both gone silent late on
Thursday the 14th. The Rock Springs site was accessible by truck.
Fletcher and WPR Engineering Coordinator Shane Toven drove from the Laramie
studios to put KUWZ back on the air and returned Friday night, then faced the
prospect of how to access the Thermopolis site. Adams’ offer to use the
horses, Wyoming’s original ATV, was looking better and better. They made a
plan to take two riding horses and a pack horse up Copper Mountain’s snow
blocked road the next day.
itter from their engineering shop in Laramie,
trying to anticipate what parts they would need and assembling a set of tools
that would cover all contingencies. They had to be within the 200-pound limit
the pack horse could reasonably carry. The transmitter was on but with no
audio signal from Laramie. Listeners in Thermopolis to KUWT and in Dubois and
Worland whose translators are fed by KUWT were hearing only silence. To the
engineers that narrowed the range of potential problems to the satellite
receiver or the satellite dish itself. 
ble
corral with water and great feed. Arriving in the afternoon, Fletcher and
Adams left the horses in the care of Bar None rancher Harvey Seidel and went
on to scout the trail they would take up to the mountain the following
morning. They were able to drive roughly half of the way in to Birdseye Pass
from Highway 20 where they found a spot to park the truck and trailer. From
there, they could just make out tiny radio towers atop Copper Mountain. It was
sunny and 41 degrees.
hours
of Sunday, February 17, weather on the mountain took an ominous turn. At the
higher elevations clouds had rolled in. The peak was no longer visible, the
temperature barely broke into the teens and the wind was getting stronger. As
they saddled Buck, Billie and Pepa, the horses looked skeptically up the
mountainside. It was going to be a cold ride.
two hours from
the trailer to the transmitter and each time the horses stumbled through a
drift or treaded gingerly on ice, it confirmed the decision not to attempt the
trip in a truck; even a snowmobile would have made for a white-knuckle drive.
Once at the top, the group picked its way through the small forest of radio
towers to the WPR antenna and transmitter shed that, thankfully provided a
wind break for the horses. 
dish that receives the WPR signal had been buffeted by wind and its
central aiming component had been shaken loose. The dish was no longer aligned
with the orbiting satellite. Fletcher, outside in the howling wind, made
incremental adjustments to the dish. Less than ten yards away inside the
shed, Adams watched readings on the satellite receiver and the radio spectrum
analyzer. The roar of the wind was so loud that to communicate with each other
the men had to shout a series of prearranged “hoots” to be heard. Within an
hour and a half, in time for the start of the Sunday rebroadcast of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, KUWT was back on the air.
d down the mountain. As if
to poke fun at them, the clouds broke and the sun shone down, just as they set
out. With the wind now at his back, and knowing that hay and a bit of grain
awaited below, Buck stepped lively and the small train left the transmitter.
The group shaved 30 minutes off the trip coming down.