<Lena first contact>

Michelle and James drag the comms unit off the truck bed and carry it inside. Jack grabs a large box filled with all sorts of cables and spare parts and follows them. Annie follows not long after, carrying a stack of thick binders of documentation. They walk up the stairs and set their things down somewhere off to the side. Then, they go for round two, fetching a generator, two fuel canisters, a toolbox, something else from the truck.

They have tried cranking the dish around by hand at some point before this. The tilt mechanism is completely seized up, the pan mechanism spins freely and doesn't work.
Jack begins to disassemble the gearbox in the floor that used to pan the dish around. Michelle looks up at the tilt mechanism and gets an idea.
James, help me up there.
With his help, she jumps up to the lower side of the dish and clings to a structural beam on its underside. From there, she climbs up to a thick cable hanging near the center.
She calls down to James: Can you pass me a screwdriver? Need a large flathead.
He grabs one from the toolbox.
Catch!
Whoop... Thanks.
Sitting on the cable, she begins to remove the gearbox cover in front of her.

After a while, she gets it loose and it falls towards her. She struggles to keep her balance for a moment as the cover lands wedged between her legs and the central post? beam? holding the dish. With some effort, she manages to wrangle it to th other side of the cable.
James, Annie, can you catch this? Careful, it's heavy.
The two stand across from each other and extend their arms. Michelle lets go and they catch it. She turns her attention back to the gearbox in front of her. It is completely dried out and the large gears appear to be stuck together with some dark brown gunk.
I think this one just needs to be cleaned and lubricated.
Jack says: Wish I could say the same...
She looks down at the gearbox he is taking apart. One of the gears had been partially stripped of its teeth and another one is fractured right through the middle. Jack has already removed some of the gears and is using a screwdriver as a pry bar for the next one.
Michelle says: You gonna break that thing.
I'm sure as fuck not putting my fingers in there.
He walks over to the toolbox and grabs a much bigger one.

Michelle begins to scrape off some of the brown gunk but can't get the gears to move. Meanwhile, Jack finishes taking his gearbox apart and organizes the parts on the floor, laying them out in rows. She climbs down and they discuss what to do next.
Jack says: This one could probably be welded back together.
He picks up the pieces of the split gear.
No clue what to do about that one though.
He points to the one that had some of its teeth stripped.
James asks: Without the gears in there, can't we just push the dish around?
Dunno, we can try – though it might just be too heavy.

missing section

The oscilloscope shows a thick wobbly line. Michelle slightly adjusts the knob for the trigger frequency until the image turns into a continuous sine wave, slowly rolling to the left.
She says: I think that's their carrier. It worked.
Jack flips a switch on the project box.
Ringing.
Michelle picks up the receiver and listens.
Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep.
It takes a while for someone to pick up.
A female voice greets her: Hello?
Michelle gestures for Jack to flip the switch back and speaks into the phone: This is ground support facility 53. Do you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you. So good to hear a human voice.
Jack hears it and says quietly: And I thought we were the ones facing unexpected difficuties...
Michelle notices the carrier strength gradually dropping and says: Listen, we don't have much time. We're on makeshift equipment. Please turn on the radio in front of you and tune to some frequency or channel.
Understood. Please stay on the line.
Michelle says: I give it about ...
She looks at the oscilloscope.
... three minutes until the connection drops out.
The voice on the other end frantically mumbles to herself: How's this thing work...
Michelle turns the receiver away from her mouth.
Jack, I need the manual. Radio panel.
He opens it at one of the bookmarks and hands it over. The page depicts the control panel on the other end.
Speaking into the phone again, Michelle says: There should be a button labeled EGCR-1. Push that in and flip the switch next to it up to AM. Turn TXP to max, then search for the frequency.
The voice comes through slightly choppy: Th-ank-s.
The wave on the oscilloscope is now almost flat.
The phone plays an automated error message: Dish unresponsive. Attempting network handoff.
Relays click inside the comms unit and some status indicators light up red. The green lights next to the network ports flicker for a moment, then turn off again.
Another error message: Handoff failed. Consult operational manu...
Michelle puts the receiver down.

The following dialog would benefit greatly from proper radio protocol. Unfortunately, that is sonething I have yet to learn. Feel free to send me a fixed version of it.
James aims the antenna at the moon. It's resting on some kind of stand. Jack takes the microphone off a desktop radio and pushes the talk button a few times. An indicator light on the radio blinks as he does.
Looks good... He speaks into the mic: This is ground facility 53. Do you copy?
He waits for a response.
Nothing.
He repeats himself: This is ground facility 53. Do you copy?
A few repeats later, the female voice answers: There we go... Loud and clear.
Missing: they introduce themselves, Lena says something along the lines of "everyone is dead"