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Show , i is it.; -' ' 7j1A- I l I I I l The Crescent Junction microwave station north of Moab is one building bay bigger than the other five repeater stations because it is slated for Four Moab Men Spread Across Wide Expanse Of Countryside in Duty for AT&T Spread out over 161 rugged miles from the Southeastern border of Utah to it's center, are six repeater stations on a microwave radio relay rel-ay route. The stations are the responsibility of the Moab Maintenance Area, three craftsmen and a supervisor, of the AT&T Long Lines Service Ser-vice system. Part of the Bell System, the stations sta-tions are on the New York Oakland route of telephone, telegraph and t e 1 e p h o t o communic -ations. Operation of the facilities fac-ilities is carried out by Supervisor Craig Lar-sen Lar-sen and three craftsmen crafts-men Gary Dawson, Ray Spor, and Al King. Each microwave station is a relay tower and a window win-dow less, concrete, building which houses a full line of microwave r 5 .... Operations Supervisor Craig Larsen, left and Gary Dawson work on multi-plex equipment as part of their everyday duties with AT&T. One mistake on microwave equipment can dump at least 1,200 individual in-dividual conversations. ..... X v r .. t 1 r-vmrJ--- j Sj i ".., I 4 -1 ; i A - i " ,w, . ... ID- 'WJjt-J Gary Dawson, left, and Ray Spor adjust speed control on an emergency engine. With only four men to cover 266 road miles between stations, crew members find that it is necessary to be jacks of all trades. fulfil i -:srsi Craftsman Al King performs routine maintenance of a microwave channel at one of AT&T's repeater stations near Moab. There are six such stations spread across the southern part of the state which are maintained by four men. expansion in the future. Four men stationed in Moab alternate duties between the five stations which are spread from this area into central Utah. equipment. All towers are identical except for size which ranges from 60 feet at Ephraim to over 200 feet at Green River. In addition, the stations have systems necessary for alarms, order wires, protection switching and mobile maintenance radio. The units are located near Moab, Monticello, Crescent Junction, Green River, Cleveland, and Ephraim. The scenery along the route is spectacular and encompasses rugged canyon country, Arches National Park, sage-covered sage-covered prairie and impressive im-pressive mountain ranges. It is actually 266 miles between all stations. sta-tions. There aren't many towns along the way; Moab is one of the largest. All Maintenance "The microwave craftsman has to be a jack of all trades," says Operations Supervisor Craig Larsen, "because he's completely responsible respon-sible for maintaining everything at his stations. stat-ions. This means the mergency power equipment, equip-ment, the heating and air conditioning systems, syst-ems, and a lot of maintenance main-tenance odd jobs besides be-sides all the microwave and electronic equipment equip-ment in the station." Professionalism is a very important part of operation of the stations, stat-ions, Mr. Larsen stated, since one mistake can dump at least 1200 individual in-dividual conversations. The three craftmen are responsible for maintaining main-taining two stations. They switch stations once a year. Out of every ev-ery month, they spend two or three weeks on station maintenance. "We drive out and back to four stations daily from Moab," explains Al King. "It's our home base because it's the most central town along the route. There's still a lot of driving involved, though. And when we maintain the two farthest farth-est stations, we stay temporarily in towns close to them because of the distance involved." Mr. Spor, for example, exam-ple, has had the Cleveland Cleve-land station this past year. It takes, in addition addi-tion to the two hour drive to Price, an additional ad-ditional hour to drive out to the station each day. Winter Hazards The other far distant station of Ephraim is maintained by Mr. King. Atop a mountain at 11,500 feet, Ephraim means a three-hour drive to the station in summer; in winter, a three-hour drive just to Ephraim town, then a two-hour trek up the mountain by snow cat or in extreme ex-treme cases by helicopter. heli-copter. "Ephraim is the most dangerous station to maintain because of the winter hazards," comments Mr. King. "Even though it's my station, someone always goes up with me during the winter as a safety precaution. We try to maintain it like crazy during the summer, then only go up during the winter when there's trouble." "Another problem besides the distance is the crummy roads," says Larsen. "We drive a lot on unpaved, back-country back-country roads. We've never had a motor vehicle ve-hicle accident since the Moab Maintenance Area was formed in 1964, thoughand that's about 100.000 driving miles a vear between the four of'us." Crescent Junction When the men aren't maintaining their stations, stat-ions, they test and repair re-pair faulty equipment on Crescent Junction's test bench, maintain their vehicles, attend safeiv and plant error meetings, meet-ings, and do some of the routine office reports. re-ports. The station presently pre-sently is capableof carrying' car-rying' 12,000 2-way conversations con-versations at one time. Eight years ago it could carry 1.200. Future plans call for expansion to 33.000 conversations. They also plan and present two safety programs pro-grams a year to the other five Maintenance Areas in southern Utah, which do the same. "By taking turns, a really good, inventive safety program is presented each month," says Mr. Larsen, who initiated the rotating plan two years ago. Off the job, Moab's Long Line workers are involved in community activities and organizations organiz-ations from Elks and Lions Clubs, Jaycees and Toastmasters to the Canyon Country River Marathon Association. |