PARIS – The carillon on the Deering Memorial United Methodist Church has begun to ring again after nine years of silence.

“We have got it fixed,” said church member Charles Longley.

The job wasn’t easy because the equipment dates back to the early 1970s and was manufactured with an analog system using radio tubes.

When the carillon stopped playing almost a decade ago, Joel Zufelt, an Oxford resident and a member of the church, attempted to fix the chimes. But the fuses in the amplifier kept blowing.

The original manufacturer was unable to work with what was by then “old-fashioned equipment,” Longley said. “They couldn’t help us.”

“It had to be an expert in electronics,” he said.

Longley called Bates College in hopes someone could direct him since the college had a carillon. Faculty member Gene Clough came to Paris one cold February morning to look over the situation.

“He took the amplifier back to Lewiston to study the equipment,” Longley said.

By creating a schematic to understand how the equipment worked and testing each of the components in the amplifier, Clough was able to determine which piece was defective, Longley said.

The interior of the carillon box is about 2 feet by 2 feet and filled with rods, both long and short with a solenoid, which acts as an electric magnet. The rod goes up and down to make the sound, Longley explained.

Clough found a chassis to mount the new component he created and last Saturday the bells started ringing again.

“It chimes every quarter-hour, then strikes at the hour. It sounds very nice,” Longley said.

Clough refused to take any money for his work or time and instead suggested that the congregation make donations to the tower fund.

The 98-year-old stone bell tower has been at the center of an $800,000 fundraising effort for the past several years. Parishioners are trying to save the tower, which shows evidence of serious water damage that has weakened the masonry structure.

The church has developed a less expensive restoration plan that will cost about $300,000 and which will repair the masonry only. But still the church, which has about 30 active members, is far from reaching its goal and time is running out, Longley said.

The granite Gothic Revival-style church was organized in 1815 but the building, constructed by the Badgley and Nicklas architectural firm of Cleveland, Ohio, was built in 1909 to replace an earlier building.

The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.