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Summer is here! Time for the Transmitter to get hot!

That happened in the Colorado Springs metro a few back the big thing was the place had motion sensors in the building and the vandals were subsequenly arrested. I think they got charged with Federal Trespassing Charges. The police arrived within 3 mins of the alarm.
 
Dr. Bob said:
There are some excellent ideas in this thread but I need to add something that was not discussed.....

If you cool air below its dew point the water in the air will condense. The condensation of the water in the air requires significant amounts of energy. This is important in areas (like the Southeastern U.S.) where the temperature and relative humidity can be high.

Under conditions of high temperature and high humidity, less energy may be required to cool down the transmitter exhaust than to bring in air from the outside and subsequently cool it. This is a straightforward calculation if the temperatures, dew point and volume of air are known.

Dr. Bob
Click to expand...

Significant, meaning the the load to the cooling unit is as great from humidity as it is from the outdoor ambient heat.

People don't recognize just how much cooling capacity condensing water takes away. It is helpful for the comfort of humans,
but makes no difference to a warm transmitter. Your AC guy can be instructed to set a system to keep the evaporator temperature
somewhat higher than normal, say 55 degrees, to minimize waste in this regard. Simply increasing airflow through the evaporator may be enough
to reduce the amount of condensation occurring.

Another solution is a secondary unit to kick in on the days with greatest heat or humidity setting it into operation.

This is why over-capacity is so darned important. You may be OK with hot days, but when the humidity soars, your "just enough" won't be.
 
We find in the Southeat that the 'apparent load' runs around 30% or so of the total load. And, prividing capacity to do this for a lost air system, by the time you figure in the mix of cooled room air to outside you find the load is greater than the equipment heat output. Transmitter plants run to smaller and smaller buildings, which are efficient and easily airconditioned. Once the initial moisture is pulled out, the A/C runs pretty much only removing equipment heat.
Closing it up ends up with negligable effect on the power bill. It does nice things for the equipment, all that caked dust becomes non-extant. It also makes the winter chills a thing of the past.
 
Today and tomorrow (sat/sun.) Gila Bend/Phoenix, AZ is expected to reach near 117 degrees F. (Ambient) This is prime for failures of the least maintained systems. (and a few undetected ones) And maybe a power outage or two, But I'll be scanning the dial every so often and let ya know who fell off.

3 to 1 odds are out that those with Gates transmitters fail first.

I know a few engineers who cancelled their family plans for this weekend and are monitoring their sticks. :eek:
 
My remote called me today saying the room temp was up over 105 degrees....going to be a looooooooooong summer. Happy friggin fathers day to me.

G
 
BrokeEngineer said:
My remote called me today saying the room temp was up over 105 degrees....going to be a looooooooooong summer. Happy friggin fathers day to me.

G
Click to expand...

You should have brought some hot dogs...
 
Hmmmm..... If your shack is hitting temps that high, I reckon it's not adequately climate controlled. Even in Texas, where summers can get really hot, the shack for the station I work for only gets that hot if there is a total failure of the air conditioning system. When the AC is working properly, the room usually remains at about 65 F.
 
I'll waste a weekend on something which failed, assuming it was properly maintained. However, if the plant overtemps because of lack of maintenance to the HVAC system, or lack of capacity, I'll have my "Weekend" price to go mess with it. Lack of action on the part of the owner ain't gonna constitute an emergency on my part.
Just like studios, whatever the calculated load is, we double it, and then stage that amount of cooling. Coils are cleaned annually, machines are inspected on contract quarterly. We don't loce airtime to overheating. Since the systems are staged, they don't hit you in the pocket too hard on non-roasting dasys.
 
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