Radio Lumiere

The Jeremie AM outlet was Radio Lumiere's "no budget" station. There was considerable pressure from MEBSH leadership to provide better radio coverage for the Grand Anse. Yet, there was not any location available that offered the desired characteristics for an effective AM station. There were very few funds available to build a station there. The site was chosen almost by default. Mission par la Foi owned the property and was willing for us to use it without cost. By 1972 reliable commercial power was available at the site. It was a poor AM site, but few better sites existed. A site along the Grand Anse river or in the sea would have been better, but prohibitively expense for construction. We therefore committed to build the best station that we could within our budget constrains. The station was build under Dave Hartt's direction, but with several people becoming involved in the work. The 500 watt transmitter was designed by Dave and built by summer workers from LeTourneau College during the summer of 1972. It was built in the cabinet of one of our old shortwave transmitters and almost entirely from used parts, some of which came from the old shortwave transmitters. Several homemade tower sections were already at Jeremie from Dave's earlier experimental station there. He had additional sections fabricated from water pipe to give a total height of 120 feet. An abbreviated ground system was hand dug using whatever copper we could salvage. Originally the transmitter was housed in one of the Par la Foi houses. The station was meant only to be a stop gap measure. I remember riding on the ship to Jeremie to watch over our equipment. That was an experience. I also remember helping to install part of the ground system. One of the interesting aspects of this installation is the base insulator. We didn't have a base insulator or the money to buy one. Dave had one turned out of dry hardwood. When we first applied power the reactance was so high that the wood began to boil out sap and moisture. I think that the problem was resolved by increasing the top loading of the antenna. Amazingly enough, that wooden insulator is still functioning more than 20 years later. I don't know when Jeremie went on the air but it must have been late in 1972 or early in 1973. The only major change in the Jeremie installation was the construction of the transmitter building. This was built by Warren Griffin, but I don't recall the time frame.