During this trip our team ran into serious mud at the site and struggled the entire time with keeping the two hi-lifts from getting stuck. The aftermath of a lift getting stuck can be seen in the picture with this article. Several times we called for help to pull the lifts out and a few more times we had to improvise on getting the lifts out ourselves. The majority of the time the lifts had to be driven around on top of thick wooden boards in order to spread the weight and keep the tires of the lift from sinking into the ground. Due to these delays and other weather delays, only 9 of the 20 reflector wires were hung during this trip. A future trip will finish off this task.
All was not lost here as while conditions were not favorable for repairing the reflector wires, they were favorable enough to run the smaller lift around and replace all of the antenna feeder coax cables with new cables that used better connectors. The old connectors had plagued the site for years for mysteriously going bad or even having the metal completely break. In addition, repairs were made to the electronics inside of the building such that by the end of the trip, all of the transmitters on both radars were transmitting.
Fort Hays Reflector Rebuild Trip, May 2017
By: ksterne on: Tue., Oct. 03, 2017 04:06 PM EDT (6173 Reads)
Following an ice storm in January 2017 and an assessment trip in Feb. 2017 a major trip was made to make repairs to the West main antenna array reflector so that the west radar was fully functional well prior to the August 2017 solar eclipse.
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