Working In The Wind - 300 Feet Up

Thanks for your patience today while 89.5 WVPR and 88.1 WNCH were off the air. We've had equipment problems on Mount Ascutney that are complicated and time consuming to fix. (See previous VPR Blog posts from April 28 and April 21.)

Today, engineers removed antennae parts that had been broken by snow and ice. In the photo to the left, you can see the eight foot wide antenna bay being lowered down the 300 foot tower. VPR's Director of Engineering, Rich Parker, reported that it was extremely windy today and work was very slow. In the picture below, you can see the back-up antenna being threaded through the guy wires back up the tower. Engineers had to wait for breaks in the wind gusts in order to make sure it didn't get stuck or tangled.

As of this writing, we hope to have WVPR and WNCH back on at full power by nightfall. There is more work to be done in the coming weeks. We will keep disruptions to a minimum while still protecting the safety of our engineers and the integrity of the sensitive equipment.


Again, thanks for your patience during this period.

The View From 3400 Feet

Over the last few weeks, VPR engineers have been working on Mount Ascutney, attempting to diagnose a problem with our WVPR 89.5 signal. Yesterday, climbers from Prescott Tower of Rutland were on the tower inspecting VPR's antenna. They found no visible problems with the antenna, so the diagnostic work will continue until the problem is found and fixed.

In the meantime - enjoy the view! Mount Ascutney is 3143 feet high. The tower is more than 400 feet - the climber was at 330 feet up.

Here is another shot looking straight down the tower. And to think tower climbers love their work!