Bassett NOAA Weather Radio Transmitter Down For Maintenance

The NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) transmitter located in Bassett, Nebraska was damaged at the end of December due to what we believe to be falling ice. Very strong winds and large birds can also cause damage to transmitter antennas but due to the time of year and the recent weather conditions, we believe the damage to be caused by ice.

Picture of damaged antenna at WXL73
January 2017

The Bassett NWR was transmitting during the previous outage, but at a lesser power than the full 1000 watts because the damaged antenna was causing some output power to be reflected back into the transmitter. This is known as VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio) standard VSWR is tiny (i.e, 1000 watts out, 1 watt reflected back in). Due to the damage, the Bassett transmitter had a very high VSWR, with 200 watts reflected back in. That kind of activity does not cause further damage but it does make the output sound muffled and it does not travel as far as it used to. That's why people within a few miles of the tower are heard the output, while others did not.

The antenna was replaced and now a feed line to the antenna needs to be switched out. This process usually takes less than 24 hours. Work was begun around Noon on March 8th and it is expected to be complete by noon on March 9th.

The Bassett NWR normally covers the following areas:

White is "Most Reliable Coverage", Green is "Possible", Pink is "Unlikely"

If you rely on this transmitter and can no longer receive a signal, try one of the surrounding transmitter frequencies. Those are:

Valentine: 162.450 megahertz

Ord: 162.525 megahertz

Merna: 162.500 megahertz

Pickstown: 162.425 megahertz

This is a good time to ensure that you have multiple ways to receive our warnings. Make your weather-awareness fail-proof!