OPB transmitter returns after lightning short-out

One of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s transmitters, hit by lightning last week, is up to full power again — just in time to be shut down permanently on Friday for the DTV transition. “That’s kind of the joke around here,” Everett Helm, director of engineering, told the Gazette-Times in Corvallis, site of the transmitter. Helm said this was a rare occurrence: The lightning appears to have caused carbon to form inside the antenna’s electronics, which caused the equipment to heat up slowly and eventually short out over the weekend.