Tech Notes from the Field

After this last week and especially the last two days I have one question: Why is there such a lack of communications and understanding between customer and support?

I’ve mentioned our attempt to get the Enco PADapult to work. First Enco supplies software that does not work. They never activated and tested serial capture from their own workstation. It takes a week to convince them something was not right. Today we actually get something to work, BUT instead of being activated for 3 instances, it is only activated for one. Then we find out it only works with Exporter version 4.2. We have 2.4.2W on the Harris Exporter. We cannot change this until BTC catches up.

This leads to Harris. They could not tell us anything about why the Padapult did not work. All we got is a “it should work”. Not.

What is so different that one version takes something and another doesn’t? ID3 data is ID3 data. It’s been so for many years. Go figure.

Of course if the Padapult works with Exporter 4.2, who has that? Well, we do with the Nautel Exporter+. Guess what? The Padapult actually worked through that system. I check with another station in our group and they have pre-2.4 version of the Exporter and they have no issue. Of course their system is not Enco. Makes you wonder, eh?

My conclusion is we have a bunch of people messing with this IBOC HD crap and know one can make everything work together. Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to have resources and work something like the NPR labs? Do they even test for this type of crap?

IBiquity still has not corrected the Left/Right channel swap in the 4.2.2 Exporter software. OK, I can get PAD, oh, I mean PSD, data to the air, but I cannot get my channels straight? I’m the dog chasing his tail. It is driving me and our IT guy nuts. At least we know that there will be something to move on to.

I’m out.