Topband: Info about Haiti - delete if not interested

[DALE LONG]

Gentlemen:

Thanks for all the responses.  I will respond individually to messages sent to my gmail account.  The suggestion to re-locate made me laugh. (no offense, let me explain)

Haiti is another world, and cannot be easily understood.  Most land is not for sale.  But the big thing is that all land registration papers were lost in the earthquake.  Many landowners died. Even if you can find an owner and he would agree to sale, there are no legal mechanisms to purchase property. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. There is no "title insurance" and no proof of ownership.  We (the church radio station) own this land. Other land is not for sale.  It will be a great location for lowband activities and is ideally located to cover the major population centers for AM broadcasting. The people who planned this national radio system showed great foresight in purchasing this site many years ago. We as amateurs are fortunate to get such an invitation to use this great location. I hope that we can make some people happy on topband.


An important point about Haiti and radio.  Radio is king of the communication world.  Most people have no color TV, do not have internet, and have no newsprint.  In North America we listen to radio as the last choice (in the car) when other things are not available.  In Haiti, radio is their contact with the world, news, emergency communications, public health and in our case Christian programming. (not pushing it, just being honest). In rural areas, AM broadcast is the only game in town, and there are very few in the area.

We are aware of corrosion concerns.  Ideally we would like a tower made of flat stock rather than tubular towers.  But we want to get on the air and will use whatever tower we can find.  There is a source for locally made tower at low prices but the quality is not good enough for a 240 foot tower. The licensed frequency of our station is 660 Mhz so the tower is very short, but we have a tuning house and big tuning equipment. And we have done this before.  Initially we will be using a German-made 1KW transmitter and hopefully move to a 5 KW one.

There is nothing there now but some damaged buildings and empty land w/marsh near the ocean.  

We will make this project happen!  Thanks for your interest.

thanks again for all suggestions and ALL are appreciated.

sorry for any off-topic comments..I will limit my responses here on the reflector,

Vy 73,

Dale - N3BNA



>________________________________
> From: Ashton Lee <Ashton.R.Lee at hotmail.com>
>To: Charlie Cunningham <charlie-cunningham at nc.rr.com> 
>Cc: DALE LONG <dale.long at prodigy.net>; Group Topband <topband at contesting.com> 
>Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 7:47 PM
>Subject: Re: Topband: AM broadcast tower and 160m dxpedition
> 
>
>I thought a bit more about this… while a beachfront/salt marsh location might be ideal for building an international broadcast facility, if you were building a station for domestic Haitian audiences you would probably prefer a high location reasonably far from the sea and its corrosive effects. Or perhaps you might design a tower primarily as a support structure and utilize easily replaceable vertical dipoles with coated wire as the radiators. Without extensive maintenance a tower might last a relatively short period of time and have conductivity issues.
>
>
>On Mar 25, 2014, at 2:36 PM, Charlie Cunningham <charlie-cunningham at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Good point!
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ashton
>> Lee
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 4:03 PM
>> To: DALE LONG
>> Cc: topband at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: Topband: AM broadcast tower and 160m dxpedition
>> 
>> I would be especially mindful of corrosion issues in tower planning in the
>> Caribbean. There was a recent article in the Contest Journal on the ever
>> difficult tower corrosion experienced at PJ2T.
>> 
>> 
>> On Feb 25, 2014, at 1:17 PM, DALE LONG <dale.long at prodigy.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Gentlemen:
>>> 
>>> I have been reluctant to ask for help which did not relate directly to
>> our reflector. But today I got up my courage, so here goes.  I have been
>> invited to lead a group of amateurs to help build an AM tower in Haiti.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Two things that may relate to some of our readers:
>>> 
>>> 1. I will be returning to Haiti in November to build a 240foot AM
>> broadcast tower.  I know there are many AM broadcast engineers on this list
>> and would like to have your advice.  Specifically we are searching for a
>> large conical base insulator.  Sometimes when a tower rusts, they are
>> disgarded or thrown on a pile somewhere.  We would like to buy one, and
>> possibly a tower as well.
>>> 
>>> 2. In December of this year, I am organizing a small group to go to Haiti
>> and participate in the 160m contest. (this of course is dependent on the
>> tower being built.)
>>> 
>>> I am particularly pleased that amateurs have been invited to help.
>> Sometimes broadcast engineers do not have the highest opinions of amateur
>> installations.  So we do want to do it right.  We have a 9-acre parcel of
>> land along the ocean and part of the area is a salt-water marsh. I think
>> there hasnt been any serious 160m activity from Haiti for a number of years.
>> This location would present a nice opportunity for a serious lowband
>> operation.
>>> 
>>> If you have any information about base insulators/towers, or if you would
>> like to join a 160m dxpedition to Haiti, please respond off the reflector to
>> n3bna1 at gmail.com
>>> 
>>> Thanks for your time.
>>> 
>>> Dale - N3BNA
>>> _________________
>>> Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
>>> 
>> 
>> _________________
>> Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
>> 
>> 
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