I wrote last time about a lot of paperwork that needed to go through with the county.  Well, after a couple of revisions and several trips to the county building in Christiansburg, it's finished.  For not being any kind of professional engineer or architect, I am quite pleased with the site plan that I drew up.  With that completed, I was able to pull an electrical permit with the county a couple of days later.  With the permit in hand, we had out electricians come up and partially wire up the site.  They installed enough equipment so that the county inspector could give the electric company the go ahead for connecting electricity to our buidling. 

The new WUVT antenna on the tower

Either a little before or at about the same time this was all happening, WUVT-FM suffered a bit of a set back.  As you have read on the website before, on May 17th, 2009, WUVT-FM ceased its transmissions from atop Lee Hall.  As has been reported to me by Michael Williams (1960s era WUVT'er), That site held WUVT on the air for the better part of almost 40 years.  We've since been broadcasting from the top of Squires on a modified antenna that has been working quite well.  Even though we're only at about 25 Watts, we can still cover the majority of Blacksburg and some of the higher points in Christiansburg.

We have made some physical progress at our site.  As can be seen in the picture, our antenna (which for the technical folks is really four antennas) has been hung on the tower.  We have also hung our microwave antenna and we're able to receive signal on our Studio-Transmitter Link.  The coax has also been hung/run and connectors have been added to both ends.  We'll be looking at getting the air tank put in place as well as moving the new transmitter, Edd, up to the site.  However, these items are somewhat waiting on the electricity to be installed at the site.  This installation has been delayed due to almost two weeks straight of rain or thunderstorms in the area.  With the clearer weather this week, we're hopeful to get the electricity installed this week.

Otherwise, I've been working on a bit more paperwork.  We were finally able to acquire a NCE FM / Ch. 6 waiver from WVVA since their analog signal had ceased sometime this Spring.  With this waiver, we were able to modify our application for a circularly polarized antenna.  Even with more data being provided to the FCC on simulated RFR readings, the FCC still kept the condition on our application that we would need to do an RFR study before we began Program Test Authority.  Once we have the electricity and transmitter in place, we'll be ready to conduct the RFR study.  

A lot of people have been getting excited and want to know when we'll be done.  As of right now, I still can't say a date.  We're close to the end but not close enough.  I'll try to get updates a little more regularly as we near the final stages of the project.