Additional update via WRMI Facebook
0115 UTC Monday December 16: A Florida Power and Light truck is here now, and another is on its way. Together, the crew thinks they can repair the electrical transformer. But we don't know how long it will take. Meantime, a professional bee removal company has eliminated that problem. At the moment, we have 7730, 9395, 5850, 7780 and 5950 kHz on the air, plus our Internet stream which airs the 9955 kHz programming. Hopefully the others will be back soon. Thanks for your patience.
1849 UTC Sunday December 15: A Florida Power and Light investigator finally showed up here, 13 hours after the power went out. There is a definite transformer blown, and they need to get a specialist repair team here to fix it. However, there is a very large colony of bees inside the small building where the transformer is located, so they have to get the FPL bee team to get rid of the bees before they can work on the transformer. Realistically, they say it's likely to be tomorrow (Monday) before they can possibly repair the transformer. This means that transmitters #3-10 will be off the air until at least late Monday. We have put transmitter 2 (7730 kHz) on the air at low power with a generator. Transmitters 11-14 have power and will be on as of 2200 UTC today. We may switch frequencies on some of them. Stand by for updates
1600 UTC Sunday December 15: We are still without power in most of our transmitter building. Florida Power and Light has promised several times to send a crew out to investigate and repair the problem, but no one has arrived, and no one has been able to give us any information by telephone either. This is very unusual, as we generally have very few power outages here, and they are usually very short if they occur. But they are totally absent now. Hopefully they will respond soon. Meanwhile, all frequencies are off the air at this time.
(WRMI Radio Miami International Facebook page, 15 Dec)
0645 UTC Sunday: 15 Dec 2024
There has been a large explosion, probably of one or more transformers, at the WRMI transmitter building which occurred at approximately 0415 UTC Sunday. Electrical power is out to most of our building, and most of our transmitters are off the air. We still have power for transmitters #11-14 (which are 7570, 5850, 7780 and 5010 kHz. 7570 kHz is scheduled to be off the air until Sunday evening, but the other three frequencies will be on the air until at least their normal sign-off at 1500 UTC Sunday. Florida Power and Light is sending a crew to our site as soon as possible to determine the exact cause of the problem and to repair it. We'll update you as soon as we have more information.
(WRMI Radio Miami International Facebook page, 15 Dec)
(BDXC/Alan Pennington)
