As we reported yesterday, the transmitter at WIOX 91.3 in Roxbury has been down since Monday night. Today, the station's management forwarded us an update from the radio station's managing consultant, Joe Piasek.
According to an email Piasek sent yesterday, the transmitter's circuit board needs to be replaced. Piasek has ordered the new circuit board and hopes to receive it by Thursday.
Here's Piasek's email, which he sent last night to the station's staff:
The WIOX FM signal went off the air shortly after 9 last night. After scrambling to the town garage and installing a stylish styrofoam gasket on the transmitter (the alleged short term fix for problems with the on/off switch), and with Dr. Darn on the phone, a bigger problem was apparent (because the styrofoam solution didn’t work). Luckily Dan was able to blow in from Worchester today to work on it. After a considerable amount of time under the hood and on the phone with Harris electronics (the transmitter manufacturer), it appears that the control board has fried, so to speak.
The solution: replacement the circuit board. I ordered from Harris today at 5:00 pm (4 central). Because it needs to be configured for our frequency and power, getting it out to us overnight tonight was going to be a stretch (although the Harris tech said he would try).
Once the new $1200 item arrives ($1072 plus shipping and refundable tax) tomorrow afternoon (or more likely) Thursday I will attempt to snap it in without breaking it and, shazam, we should be back on the air.
A drag, indeed, yet WIOX still sounds great online and locally on MTC.
