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 The
Radio Tower Project was started in the mind of Terry Lassiter
in 1999. Terry knew that God had called him and his family to
reach the Aukan people. As the looked for the best way to
spread the gospel to the Aukan people they realized that the
people moved so much that it would be difficult to keep them
in one place very long. This is when Terry got the idea to
reach the Aukaners with radio. This is also about the time
Terry had the idea to bring in a two year Missionary to live
in the interior and help with the radio project. This is how
we came to work among the Aukaners. In July 2001 we cam to
Suriname to start working with the Aukaners. It was also in
August of 2001 we took our first trip to the mountain to see
about where to put the tower.
At this time we had partnered with two agencies from the
states to help with the construction of the tower. We decided
on a location and started with the clearing of this area in
Jan of 2002. You can see in the photos how dense the jungle
was. I took eighteen Aukaners to the top of Mt. Lely to clear
the spot for the radio tower. It took many trip to finally
clear the area so the workers could erect the tower.
We then had a group of college volunteers from Moss Bluff
First Baptist Church come and build a shelter at the clearing.
This shelter would catch water for drinking as well as provide
shelter for the workers.
We hired a company from the U.S. to come and erect the tower.
The company was hired but we had many wonderful people come
and help volunteer as well. We would love to thank them for
all of the time an effort they put toward the tower project.
We started erecting the tower in December of 2002 and finished
in February of 2003. It was an amazing three months as
Aukaners worked side by side with the American workers.
As you can see we erected a 300 ft Pirod Tower. We powered the
250watt Crown Transmitter through a hybrid solar and wind
powered system. Phil and Aaron Yakligian and Steve from Mid
State Solar volunteered to come down and install the system at
there own expense. We put up 12 Solarex 24V, 120W panels,
using a 1524 Trace DR Series inverter, Trace C40 Charge
Controller, and eight solar batteries. We also put two 400W
Air Marine turbines. One mounted at 200ft and the other
mounted at 250ft on the tower. This provides us with enough
power to run the radio station from 5PM to 11PM every day.
We also erected a 75ft tower at the Radio Studio in Diitabiki.
From Diitabiki the signal is sent to the tower on Lely Mt. The
signal is received on Lely then sent out from there. The Crown
250W Transmitter we are using was suppose to give us a 50 mile
range. We are now getting reports that people are hearing the
radio as far as 100 miles away. Now many more Aukaners are
able to hear Bible stories in there own language.
On March 13, 2003 we had a dedication of the radio station and
tower. Here are a few of the people that attended.
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