Tech Notes from the Field

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  Mostly because it has been quite slow and doing a bunch of budget prep.  Maybe I’ll post a separate article on budget prep.  In the meantime what are the chances that both your main STL and your auxiliary STL have issues simultaneously?  Yesterday our T-1 went down hard.  We switched to our aux STL.  It worked, but we were taking audio drops.  The aux STL is a Moseley Starlink, 4-channel version.  This system goes back at least 8 years and I was not too involved with the install, just the basics.  Configuration was done be someone else and the factory.  The bottom line is I felt that the 64Q settings were not robust enough for reliable transport of our audio and data.  I was right.

I proceeded to configure all our sites to 32Q.  We have a studio, a midpoint relay, and two receive sites.  I discovered as I worked my way back that our studio transmitter on one system was running low power!  Clue one for audio drops.  I have an order in for a loaner and will be getting it repaired ASAP.  After all the configurations were changed, the audio drops, even with a low power transmitter, have gone away.  Of course by the time I had the system configured, AT&T had fixed our T-1.

If you have an auxiliary STL system that does not get used much I suggest you take a close look at all the operating parameters.  Apparently on the Moseley you cannot monitor them remotely or you need to do some upgrading.  As we clean up around here after years of neglect, we are scheduling routine maintenance of all systems.  Have you checked yours recently?