Tired

     Four ten-hour days of installing a large transmitter -- one that still doesn't quite work as it should -- is grueling.

     The two-man installation team, subcontractors to the manufacturer, were skilled.  They didn't break for lunch.  They also didn't get quite as much detailed information as usual, thanks to this being a used transmitter a little over five years old, and so we may have missed a couple of network cables that let the various bits and pieces talk to one another.*  The techs back at the factory are pondering it.  They're also pondering our present transmitter, with a sixteen-year-old control system running a collection of high-power amplifiers that are twenty-nine years old: it was made by the same company, but not a bit of it is still supported.  And its performance, at present, is significantly better than the newer one.  Embarrassing.

     The new and old are not talking in more than one way.  There's a very basic connection between them, an interlock that shuts them down when transferring from one to the other.  It's as simple as a light switch, or it ought to be, but the connection that should tell the old transmitter "Lights out!" and then "Lights back on!" just tells it to shut down, all the time.  So we can't hook it up.

     I don't have to troubleshoot it.  I just have to keep pointing out that we paid good money for a system that, ahem, works, and that furthermore, it's not supposed to need risky jeeping to operate.  Alas, I do have to facilitate the troubleshooting; so it's going to be my headache until it gets sorted out.

     Back to that on Monday or more likely Tuesday.  For tonight, delivery food and, I hope, a decent night's sleep.
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* A modern TV transmitter functions in about the same way as an after-school chat room for Junior High girls: "I'm going to wear purple and violet tomorrow, and I want all of my friends to do the same!" vs. "I'm going to set my power level at 50% and so should all the other amplifiers."  I suspect there's even giggling; I know they all tattle on one another: "Power Amp 7 had an overcurrent!  PA 6 is overheating!"