Third time lucky
10 days ago our transmission facility in the city of Puerto Maldonado stopped working. As 0.75mio people in the Region Madre de Dios and some adjacent districts can normally tune into our frequency 107,7FM, urgent action was required.
On Friday 20th December Doris Manco and Christian Oswald flew to the rainforest to look at the damage. It quickly became clear that repair parts were urgently needed. As Christian had booked a flight to Germany on 21st December the parts simply had to arrive by Saturday morning at the latest. Thus Isaac Panez, part of our media team, and a driver drove 10 hours through the night, but the time available was too short to be able to finish the repair works.
Yesterday a radio technician from Lima arrived. Due to the heavy rainfall it was unclear for quite a while whether his plane would be able to land in Puerto Maldonado or not. But then everything went well. At the third attempt the repairs had the desired effect. Since the early hours of the afternoon we are back on air.
Servicing our FM-towers is hampered by bad weather and the great distances. Especially in the rainy season where lightning strikes are frequent we will need a standby team in future that can head off the minute disaster strikes.
(Picture above: around lunchtime the head of our Media Centre Doris Manco met technician Condori, who had flown in from Lima, at Puerto Maldonado’s Airport).
