WTME
Rumford, Maine
October 2001
 
 
 

We have worked in a number of BEAUTIFUL areas but Maine tops them all.  The mountains are plentiful, unadulterated and absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  The area reminds me of the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina but without the commercialism found there.  We asked a local resident where a couple of boys from Tennessee could go to for the best sight seeing and he told us to go up a certain road and we would know when we got there.  Several times we thought we had found what he was talking about but the wonders just kept coming.  Beautiful streams flowing thru rock ravines, tall mountains (to us) bordering the highway and some of the most awesome scenery either of us had ever witnessed.  Then we topped a pass thru a small range of mountains and spread below us was Moose Head Lake.  Absolutely breath taking.  We arrived at this overlook just before dark and decided that we had to come back the next day as we were leaving.  We drove back up thru the mountains to the pass, stayed a little while and continued on northward toward Canada.  We drove within a few miles of Canada and turned westward toward New Hampshire.

A couple of years later, Connie got tired of hearing me talk about how beautiful Maine is and decided that was where we were going on our wedding anniversary trip.  The fact that she is enamored with light houses and Maine is the light house capitol of the country didn't hurt.  We flew into Manchester NH and made a 4 day trip up along the coast to Portland then north thru Rumford, by Moose Head Lake, west to the White and Green Mountains of Maine and New Hampshire (Mt. Washington) then south on I95 back to Manchester.
 

OK enough mushy stuff
Lets check out some technical details

This was a standard 120 radial 1/4 wave system for WTME's freq of 790kHz with a 48x48 copper screen around the tower base.  Before we arrived the owner discovered that he didn't have enough property cleared and hired a contractor to clear, "de-rock" and "de-stump" the property.  The local forest had encroached to within 100ft of the tower . 

This was one of those projects where I learned that asking a local for site details gets a purely relative answer.  I asked the owner and another contractor what the site soil was like.  Their answer...  "Not too rocky".  What I understood was that it was pretty good soil with some stone.  I was judging relative to our local soil in southern TN.  What they meant was that there was some soil in between the stones instead of the normal rock piled on rock that is normal in the area.  AND we're not talking about little loose rolling rocks.  The rocks in central Maine range from pea gravel to mountains.  If you make it thru the pictures below you will see what I mean.

 
 
 
 
 

A view of the "hills" along the road from our hotel to the transmitter site.	Almost every morning the mountains were shrouded in clouds and were absolutely breathtaking.
This is a view from the east guy anchor area (guys visible in the left side area of the image).	The ground ring.
More ground ring, tower base and ATU post.	Temp construction fencing around tower.
The JD 1050 4WD at work.	October temps ranged from afternoon highs up in the low 60s to freezing overnight
	The cleaned site. The tree line is just over 300ft away from the tower. The line had encroached to within 100ft of the tower base.
	The large track hoe in the upper left corner was used to "de-rock" the site. A few of the rocks defied it's efforts and had to be plowed around.
	Brazing radials and attaching existing ATU strap.
	Me carrying a partial roll of strap. The new Harris DX-10 can be seen thru the door.
The plowing is done and we are installing the screen. The brushy area past the tower is one of the more substantial rocks on the site.	Screen and interconnect strap. We make numerous interconnections between all grounds. Every part of the system is well bonded to every other portion. Nothing is left floating.
	Now that is some rocks. Most of the rocks in the following pictures are all that a D6 Cat will push. They were using a track hoe, a dozer and a log skidder to move some of the rocks. There was one close to the tower that defied all efforts. It was finally deemed Mount Kidd and left in peace.
Mount Kidd. The rock not the jiggling hunk of manhood standing on it.
I am a little over 6ft tall. These are not the largest rocks removed from the site.