Visits to Radio Road property to see progress

Jeff and Darla had built a concrete front porch, doing the layout and block work and getting the floor poured. We had seen pictures but this was the first time to see it.

They are going to use sections of the three large steel antennas which had stood on the property, but first they had to get them all three down, which was quite an adventure. They had a friend at church that climbed the 100ft antennae to tie them off so they could cut and drop them. As Jeff said, "none of the three came down as planned, but at least no one was injured."

Inside the large rooms, dramatic changes had been made. Besides removal of the metal walls and the building of the room-dividing wall, cuts had been made in the floor to run the plumbing for three bathrooms for the three bedrooms to be placed there.

In addition to the plumbing cuts, the previous channels where all the wiring ran are also being prepared for concrete fill to produce a smooth concrete floor for the full structure.

The floor cuts for the plumbing take a right angle near the doorway and proceed to the side of the building where the drain pipes will proceed to the sewage treatment location.

This wide view shows the back of the building with all the wiring trenches and the new plumbing cuts. Justin Fowler was working to put steel rods and wire for the concrete pour.

This shows the detail of the steel wire and rod stock being placed in the plumbing trenches. This is the area of the back two bedrooms for Elyse and Jordan.

It also shows the back door and the location of the entrance door to the back bedroom.

This shows the whole area of the back bedroom and the structure at the back door. The wiring trenches are shown, and the right one by the wall was the main one that took all the signal leads to the big antennae in the field for transmission.

This view is in the opposite direction to planned area for Ashleigh's front bedroom. It housed the breaker box for all the 3-phase and signal circuits for the telegraph and radio signals sent by the working radio facility. The main signal trench is on the left floor.

This shows the detail of the plumbing trench for the three bedrooms as it turns to go to the side door. Before the turn is the location for the guest bathroom, which will also serve the front bedroom across the hall, shown above.

Mark had driven down and Darla & Jordan brought him over a little after 3pm for his first look at the Radio Road property.

Running into the signal trench through the planned front bedroom location described above was something I had never seen before. Two strands of lead coated wire entered that trench where all the signal leads ran to the antennae in the field. They appeared to be just two conductor power feeds, as if for normal single-phase power supply.

Inside the lead sheath were just two ordinary copper conductors with a type of cloth insulation.

The only thing I could guess was that this was an extreme precaution against getting any 60Hz induced signal in any of the signal leads that were running with them through that signal trough.

Jeff was keen on Mark seeing him crank the big diesel generator and switch the house power to it. Just two button pushes after the generator was up to speed switched off the external power and switched the whole building to the generator.

Just two switches: one to take down the power from the AC line, and another to connect to the generator, and the entire building was being powered from the generator. We only had lights and one refrigerator on at the time of switch, but I heard no indication of loading on the generator.

Jeff, Darla, Jordan and Mark survey the status of the big room. Things are moving toward concreting the trenches to make a smooth floor, painting the ceiling, then using the stock of wood to start wall framing.