Going off grid in Africa - Again!

There are two big reasons for FM rather than AM or SW.
One is that we already broadcast in about six languages. A bigger area would mean even more languages. Right here in town, people speak (besides French) Moba, Tchicosi, Gamgam, Anufu, and I think there's another local language, too.
Second is that pretty nearly every cell/smart phone in these developing countries has an FM receiver. For AM, they would need to go buy a radio and they don't have the money to spend on a radio when they already have one in their phone.

No worries about posting this here. I saw your latest over on your thread. Too bad you missed that one. I think Todd is terrific. If you do end up going there, let him know I sent you. He kinda gets a kick out of that. BTW, the advertised price is what he actually wants for the car. You can always ask if that's his best price, but I've never heard him say it isn't his best price.

Things are going slowly here lately. We are kind of stymied trying to get the new inverter to communicate with the system. It came set to South Africa. I didn't know that it needed to be configured till after I had run it overnight. It turns out that once it's been run for over 10 hours, the configuration has to be done via software with a password rather than with the dip switches. We can't get the thing to talk over serial or ethernet. We're not out of possible combinations yet, but it's sure eating up our hours.
This is my friend Kuami making up a new ethernet cable to try to talk to the new inverter.



Here's one of the radio staff working on a morning devotional in the Anufu language.


Also, I developed "Togo tummy," something that happens to almost everyone who comes here. The Imodium bought me time while the cipro does its thing. I'm feeling better but still really tired.

And the guard killed another young snake. It's a carpet viper. They are particularly nasty.

 

But I learned over the weekend that there is at least one AM station in Togo.

 

Today, I start the second half of my sojourn in Africa. Thankfully, the diarrhea has "passed." My left knee is still messed up. Every time I bend it past 90 degrees, it locks when I try to straighten it unless I get just the right angle on it.

The communication box between all the inverters and the computers is still not working. I've gone over the cabling so many times I lost count. The trouble must be in the box itself and we don't have a spare. Time to move on.

A rat ate through a power cable sometime in the recent past, so I need to check out that temporary repair job and get it weatherproofed. And hopefully, rat proofed.

Also, need to teach the maintenance guy how to maintain the lead acid batteries in the solar power system.

Tomorrow I get so have a small world experience. My hosts here went to college with dear friends of ours who serve with our mission in Honduras. Those friends will be arriving here tomorrow for a couple days. That'll be a treat!


The radio station is out of town, but there is a lot of foot traffic as people go to and from their farms and homes.


End of the day last Friday.


Two hours after that previous picture. We get some pretty spectacular thunder storms here. I'm glad the tower system came with a good grounding kit.

 

Good observations, John.

Lots of Toyotas, but tons of motorcycles. Mostly little 125 cc Chinese models. Almost no Japanese brands here. Somewhere, I think I have a picture from a previous trip of two boys carrying a calf on a motorcycle. The calf was trussed up sideways on the back and the 2nd boy was sitting on the calf. Seeing four people on a motorcycle is not uncommon here. I'm uploading a 41-second video to YouTube. I'll link to it when it finishes uploading. It'll take a while at 200KB/s.

Roads are way better here than when I first came in 2015. Now they are only brutal. Even in the towns, not many have electricity. And out in the country here, many are nomadic which makes electricity pretty much a fairy tale for them.

Even here on the edge of town, the power goes out so often and for so long that I'm making good use of my lithium battery pack for charging my equipment. Also, the big lithium battery powered fans the missionaries have so I can sleep when there's no electricity.

Thanks. I guess in some ways, I enjoy it, but it's far from easy. Every time I get something fixed, I like that. And I'm enjoying making new friends and building on existing friendships. This being a work trip, there hasn't been much play time. I need to find a time to grab my camera and go for a long walk.

COVID stuff ... hardest part of the whole trip!! That combined with the overnight flight.

I'd love to see your pictures, John. Let us know when you have them ready to share. I'm not taking as many this time as usual. I guess that with this being my 5th time here, there would be lots of repeats.

 

Finally done:

 

Thanks, @john1701a. Those are fantastic!!

No big game here except hippos. The previous president and his friends shot them all years ago. My best wildlife shot so far was this one. Not tack sharp due to extreme distance.

 

Four more sleeps here in Mango before I start my trek back home. Leaving here early Saturday. Fly to Newark on Sunday. Fly to Tampa on Monday. Folks have taken great care of me here, but I'm really looking forward to my wife's cooking (not to mention just being with her).

Communications are a million times better than on any of my previous four trips here. I can FaceTime talk with my wife or various others back in the US just about any time as long as we're awake at the same time.

On the solar power, we've salvaged all we can. As long as the sun is shining, we can run the transmitter. If it's dark or rainy, the batteries are too far gone to keep it running. I'm still waiting for the wire and other parts to get here. Hopefully that will happen by tomorrow morning and we can run city power to the transmitter so we can broadcast at night or in the rain. Assuming city power is on. With the solar power at the radio station and with city power being so off-and-on, folks call us the radio station that won't shut up. If we don't get batteries, we'll lose that distinction. But batteries are really expensive, so I'll just have to see what they decide to do.

So today, we're fine tuning configurations in the studios.

 

Indeed, it is an RS-12. Good call.


Yesterday, late morning, the items came for installing breakers and a transfer switch so we can run the transmitter room on city power. To explain that requires a little history. The batteries for the solar power are almost totally shot and have no really useable watt hours left in them. So, not only will they not run the facility overnight, they won't even run just the transmitter room for a minute. But, if we have sun, we have juice.

So, now we have a transfer switch to feed power to the studios from the new 15 Kw voltage regulator we installed a couple weeks ago, now we have another transfer switch to send power from the voltage regulator to the transmitter room. This way we can stay on the air rain or shine -- assuming we have either sunshine or city power.


Below, in the electrical room are (L-R) Koami, our technician; Bofré, our electrician and general handyman; and their boss, Ali, the director of the radio station. We just finished the transfer switch installation which is seen between Koami and Bofré along with the 15 kVA regulator.