Archive
Same,but Not
Ever get the feeling things stay the same, but then discover they are not? We had anotther UPS fault this week. This time on the processing rack. I did the early morning swap without incident. Off air time was that of the reboot. Phew. Then tonight a surprise; station drops off the air!
There are many frustrations when dealing with old infrastructure. We have an Aux site for three stations, but only the remote control for one operates it! So, said station goes off, it calls me and I go to the Aux transmitter: no audio! I instructed my assistant to turn on the Aux site, if not him I would have to dial up the Aux site and turn it on. Then I would dial back to the main site to make sure all is off there. Annoying and a waste of time.
So much for my rant. We need a better remote system! Anyways our Harris HDHT+ dropped. I could not find a problem. Ran it in a load. Ran it back on air. Nothing. No log entries. These are the very symptoms as last year. I suspect the Flexstar exciter did some barf. Again no logs to confirm or deny it. I checked UPS logs and found no indication of a power event. I looked at other devices for tell-tale signs, and found none. For piece of mind I rebooted the exciter. Let’s see where this goes. Of course all this occurs days before I take a few days off.
Next I will lay out what should be a reliable remote system. All busy work, but becoming necessary. That along with how to deal with the emminent NextGen system being forced upon us. Our 20 year old infrastructure cannot handle this extra hardware. No space and no power. I should detail that story in a future post!
Cheers!
Watch Out for Defaults
I posted I did a software push for our Orban 8500s to 2.0.8.127. I got it in the shorts for a couple of days when I couldn’t put my finger on why one station just did not sound right. I dug a bit and found I was over-modulating. What? Turns out the update returned all the I/O levels to their defaults. Luckily it did not change my diversity delay settings. So I had to set all my outputs to FM+HD, and HD, and double check my AES output levels. You would think it not be an issue, but when you have to match “the other end” things get changed. Luckily I found it pretty quick. Anyone else run into this?
AT&T is our suspect again on a remote control circuit. It went away. It came back. It’s alive. That’s all there is on that one.
I don’t know about your facilities and spending, but we continue to be stagnant. March begins next week and no capital has been released, so it’s tough to start any new project. I am beginning to line up my ducks for a generator upgrade project. Being in the state of confusion, I mean California, this will be a wonderful can of worms. I bet there are some interested to see where this goes, so I’ll post as things progress.
Routine takes center stage again while we wait. We can only purchase what we need. I slipped in a few capacitors on a trip to the supply store and used and old Aphex Dominator as a training ground on dry caps in a power supply. A little before and after is such a good tool by which to learn. It’s almost like magic.
A morning show is to get bigger windows, so we taped out how it will go. Of course we had to take money out of another project to make this happen. Also, said morning talent a year later decides he wants a different microphone. The Blue Blueberry which he demanded and said was the best I guess is not. He now demands a Neumann TLM-103. I received and installed a loan. Next week I start the PO to purchase. One week and no complaints. Ironic that our standard microphone is a BCM-104 which I find sound a bit better. Anyways, I didn’t need that parts and supply budget for that station, good luck getting anything else repaired this/next month! Should I mention I have not mentioned to them how much a shock mount for that thing will be.
I received my first notice that we are entering license renewal season. We are not due until 2013, but it is always to get a jump on cleaning up them public files and making sure your facility is running in compliance. Take the time to do this. It will be easier to prepare your filings if you get the busy work done early. Here is a link to the FCC Renewal of License for Radio Broadcasts Stations.
Stay tuned for the next post whenever some interesting tidbit of fun comes my way!
UPS Swap: WTF?
As tweeted earlier I received the new UPS today. I did all the usual things to it on the bench before the install. I cruised through preparing everyone to go on the Aux STLs and warned them of the Telos phone system going down during the transition. I do the swap. I check all systems. Everything looks good. Then I notice the satellite receiver. WTF? No signal! Alarm!
My heart pounds for a moment. I do the usual things like check the connections. I even whipped out the spectrum analyzer and verify signal from the dish. Go it. Check receiver again and it is back with no issues. DUH! Solar transit season! I go online and check to see when for our area and GE-8. Lo and behold, right smack in the middle of my verification checks! DOH!
When you do not have to deal with certain things on a regular basis you get a bit complacent. Things work. You get complacent. Not lazy, just complacent. Ha! Got bit. Oh well, at least I can laugh about it and I did not make and frantic phone calls! Remember: Don’t Panic!
Updates & Repairs
Many little things were taken care of this week. Mostly routine. We had another older MGE UPS die on us. Luckily it passed commercial power before complete death. It seems the life on these is not too long and I can see why Eaton-Powerware bought it up and discontinued it. The latest models from Eaton have been much better. I place the unit on the bench after the failure and cleaned it up. I turned on and began to work properly, though it sounded like relays were a bit clunky during the start-up procedure. I let it sit and I am glad I did. Later that night I got a call from the station complaining of excessive beeping. They unplugged it and turned it off. It was indicating a fault once again. Needless to say a new one has been ordered.
I started my planning for my brief visit to the NAB show. I started a list of vendors to visit. I only have 2 days on the floor, so I need to make it count. Topics I have started are remote controls, STLs, and hopefully to crash an automation system. Maybe I will have time to blog some interesting stuff. I will attend the NUG (Nautel User Group) meeting on Sunday. That should be interesting and fun. If time permits I will look at the interactive and T.V. stuff.
Here’s an interesting article in Radio Magazine. We do this all the time. Technology is just way too much fun sometimes. New Options for Remotes
I was going to link an item I found in Radio World Online, but it seems I get a message “Service is unavailable”. I will try later when I think about it.
Have a good weekend and keep with the me on Twitter: Dragonbill
Tweaks Week
How do I sum up this week? Tweaks!
First is Studio M. Budget did not allow for “sizable” windows when we built it last year. Though I find them satisfactory and they “fit” the space, the talent has other thoughts. We started the process to purchase the improvement. Of course the week ended with the sticker shock which comes outside the mandated budget. Time to start tweaking again. Reduce the size and talk the manufacturer into meeting our cap. Politics and reality just do not mix.
Tweak #2: Orban 8500 updates. Pushed out, finally, the 2.0.8.127 update. Though not needed, I decided it was a good time to keep up to date. Since we had a major change on one station, I took it upon myself to clean up the processing a bit. A tweak here, one there, and all is good. As station #2 is slowly evolving, shall we say, I started the process to tweak theirs to match the new content. I would say success, but dealing with processing is always touchy. Now it’s time to let it sink in and make good.
Coincidentally I chatted with Orban on Thursday as they rolled their RV through town. It was a good chat. Typical sales call with typical equipment. the 8600 is not available and yes, it is cleaner on the highs. With a dual core DSP it has more power behind it to make things happen. I could not resist pointing out that even though they have identical presets running with identical inputs, Band 5 on the 8500 was doing more gain reduction than the 8600. I suspect that the clarity is coming from a de-coupled Band 4 & 5. Just a hunch. The processing power helps, too.
I also learned that I should read my email a bit closer, well, maybe pay closer attention. I accidentally misread and misunderstood a question and request delaying me getting a file out promptly. This caused a 2-day delay. I felt bad. I sent the file anyways even though the manufacturer finally coughed up the requested file and information. I won’t let that happen again!
I’ll post on my processing challenges and maybe some cool links on the age old EQ that I found. Cool stuff.
Have a good weekend!
Wild and Fun
Do you ever get the urge to do something crazy? How about with your own money? Well, that was my week. The result is I am writing this post via a non-traditional mobile device: A Nook Color.
After reading a couple of articles I could not resist: Could I use the Nook as a tablet and manage my equipment remotely. The boys and I headed to B&N and I bought the Nook. Following directions online I installed the “root” and now I have an eReader and mobile Android device. I’ve chosen not to link the websites, but they are easy to find.
By the middle of the week I was accessing the network via VPN and my equipment via VNC and a PC hosting the VNC server. Android devices are supposed to support Adobe Flash, but that doesn’t seem to be the case on this, so I need to run VNC just like an Apple device. The bottom line is I can view and manage the Nautel AUI and other devices!
Other conveniences such as email, twitter, and Facebook are a given. I did try to install Skype. No luck there. I attempted AIM and got one message off before I was no longer able to use the app. I may dig a bit on that since instant messaging is a normal daily activity. Interesting is Google talk works, but only under a single account. I cannot switch between accounts like I can do with email via GMail.
Of courses the week had real work. HVAC quarterly maintenance was in there along with dealing with daily requests. At least I had some good fun with this Nook!
Another Week, Another Update
I thought this week was going to be routine, maybe even slow. Not the case when you walk in and find the IT guy at the HD rack restarting all the devices due to a UPS failure! Luckily that is all it was. The only odd thing is the UPS was an Eaton-Powerware UPS. I have had good luck with these. The lesser models, the acquired MGE UPSs, are not worth the effort, but the Powerware models usually hold up well. At this point you are thinking batteries, but not the case. Darn thing bellied up and will not pass AC or even attempt to go into bypass. It took a power hit and protected the equipment by committing suicide. Oh well. I had a spare.
Finished Monday off well with the second NV20 field modification. Like last week, the modifications went well with only one hitch. Some excessive RF was getting into the monitoring and control of one PA module and affected the fans; shutting down said module. I was short ferrite beads, so we took a shot and added one, and only one, to a fan lead. All errors cleared and we were in business. This NV also received the cooling modification. Both modifications were completed in 3 hours. After doing the NV modifications I asked Nautel if the same modification to their V series would work and improve performance. The answer is a yes, but I figure I will wait and see if it is really necessary.
I got to meet with a Studer rep. Remember Studer? Yeah, they still exist. By the way if you have their old reel-to-reel machines, they have someone who will service them. Our meet was to discuss consoles. I cannot elaborate, but it was a good discussion. Ask yourself how many Studer consoles are there in radio stations in America? Europe? You see where this is headed. Anyways, I have some thoughts to make on how I will proceed in future console installs, but I will remain adamant that a console be simple and intuitive for the air talent, but flexible enough to perform technically without too many bells and whistles.
The last technical headache of the week involves Windows and USB to Serial adapters. Timed SAS automation events will not run if your computer running the Router Control Software is not functioning. We found out the hard way. Though many are convinced that something occurred with the SAS 32KD system, the logs and dump file show that an error with the device driver for the USB to Serial device caused a kernel crash. What a pain. Be aware of this if it has not happened to you before. We are researching other manufacturers of these devices, but since they seem to be made on the cheap the potential for issues remains at a moderate level.
It looks as though I am able to spend a couple of days at the NAB Show this spring. Automation or audio deliver systems will be high on the list of products for me. I look forward to attending my first Nautel Users Group meeting. Should be interesting. I hope to meet some readers out there. On to next week and beyond!
Weekly Update 1/28/2011
Once again another week winds down. No major work is planned on Fridays. How about you? Do you start anything new on a Friday?
Anyways, we had a good week. We attacked our first Nautel NV20 modification. Having the earliest boxes off the line, we get to do field modifications to match the current generation of transmitters. Ours are now two years old and running great. The modifications this week are the AUI/controller cooling fan and the PA modifications. If you have a box without the PA modification, definitely contact Nautel and get the instructions for it: IS10001 is the document number. Our DC-RF efficiency as indicated on the transmitter went from 56% to 70%. We dropped the PA volts down from 45.7V to 33.8V. Even the controller ambient temperature dropped from near 38C to 27C. I cannot wait to take care of the second transmitter.
We did a real world “test” and live segment using the Tieline Field Unit and a new Verizon LTE modem. We purchased a CradlePoint CTR500 3G/4G router and downloaded beta software “engineering release” for the unit. The USB modem supplied by Verizon is the Pantec ULM290. I tweeted earlier in the week, or was that last week, during a bench test we reliably connected the Tieline at 192kbps and took data hits based on movement and proximity to the antenna. Otherwise it was rock solid. In the real world, we ran the same 192kbps. Again one data hit during the segment. We were in a crowd of people smashed into a burger place. Nice and clean with little latency on the network: 60ms. Couple that to the Tieline encoder latency of 70ms and you have a winner. 3G uses the latency ranged from 250ms to over 1s at times. We will continue to look into this as the future of remote, live broadcasts is changing rapidly and the need for a licensed RPU is becoming less of a requirement. Then again, in our city and RPU is only good if you have many receiving points. Terrain is a killer!
A note to Tieline: Upgrade your USB interface to allow a direct connection with a USB modem for LTE! Built in would be real nice, as they say. Maybe even create a little WiFi hot spot with your device to route talent laptops with built-in QOS to favor the broadcast stream. Just a thought. I know, it’s only money!
I checked in with a subcarrier client. It is a shame they cannot get some cleaner equipment. Anyways, a basic clean up job eliminating the need of a second mixer with poor mic-pre’s. I told them to retire their main mic and they came up with an SM58 which actually sounded much better than the old SM7 that was falling apart.
Ending the week with a Radiothon for St. Jude’s Cancer Research Center for Children. What a great cause. I love our SAS and the ability to create the “remote” from our conference room. We aren’t like certain unnamed (CCR) companies that have a “performance” space. We just aren’t big enough.
Next week I look forward to talking with Studer and the product development manager to discuss, of all things, consoles. Should be interesting. Anyone else ever volunteer to spread knowledge? It is rewarding. It is not always about money. Be a good guy sometime.
Have a safe and trouble free weekend!
Weekly Update: 1/21/2011
Yup, still no good idea on a title. Actually I really haven’t thought much about it! There, the truth. Mostly routine stuff again this week. I like it slow as I can spend a bit of time relaxing and getting ready for whatever big thing that may strike.
Had our Telos Console Director go batty again. Just doesn’t want to communicate with the Studio I/O. Emailed Telos. No response. I know they are busy and have bigger things to worry about like marketing the Omnia processor or Axia studio systems. I let it set for a few days and then reconnected. It works again. Hmmmm? As a new test I placed an in-line power supply on that sucker with the thought that if I buffer it from the I/O we may see less trouble. So far we are good this week. Well, I should say no reports as the folks are pretty much trained to disconnect and reconnect at will. We will not discuss the concept of using the Desktop Director through the console as this seems to go way over the operators’ heads. For those interested this issues has been with us for coming up on 3 years. No solution has ever been found. Very annoying.
AT&T bummed our remote control line again this week. False alarms have stopped, so maybe they fixed it again. Also spent some time checking and ISDN (yes they still exist) at a venue. I replaced the block. Have you tried to order ISDN recently? It is nearly impossible with AT&T. Lead time is 4 weeks. Good thing we do not use ISDN much anymore. IP is our main transport of remote audio now.
Had a timed relay replaced on the transfer switch at a transmitter site. It works for the time being. While that was done we dug a trench for conduit getting ready for a new STL line pull. The landlord is preparing to “organize” the site’s STL dishes. I’m looking forward to a less than 600-foot run and no more iso-coupler.
Sorry for the boring update. Seems that the start of the year is follows the end of a year: slow. I will give an interesting report of the new iMedia logger we just purchased as soon as it comes it. Should be interesting to see how that goes. After 8 years, the old system just can’t cut it any longer. Why iMedia? It is the system we currently have and we will be getting the Websecure feature.
Till the next update, have a good weekend.
Weekly Update: 1/14/2011
I am going to attempt weekly updates with detailed posts on those things of interest. As most weeks are pretty mundane, weekly recaps seem to be the best. This week is no exception with the added twist of politics and a day with LTE.
The daily grind stuff is like an ATS (automatic transfer switch) service at the transmitter site. I discovered that it was not switching back to commercial power once restored. I sent the model number and pictures to the company that does the service; they send a tech who did not know the model number or device he was to work on until he saw it. He determined it is a bad timing relay, and of course it needs to be ordered. Part two of the service comes when the part comes in.
The FUN, yes capitalized, was our day with Verizon (lunch), and the USB LTE (4G to those who like buzz words and terms) device and prototype LTE router. After we got back from lunch we jumped on the test bench and connected our Tieline Field Unit to the router. We ran wirelessly at 192kbps! With 3G we were only capable of 33.6 to 38kbps reliably. Now that is an improvement. The item I noticed right off was the latency when locked in was 60ms! With 3G we saw a wandering latency from 500ms to over 1sec! We saw upload speeds approaching 5Mbps and downloads at 12Mbps. Now I must add that no one is really on the LTE network, but we were impressed. The one thing we did notice as we were testing within the confines of the building that as I moved near the antenna of the device we experienced some data hits. So, the speeds are there, you just need reliable reception to maintain. I bet outside without any interfering factors will make this thing fly real well. With a little tweaking of the pre-correction, I foresee some good times. Tieline: Create a way to connect this device directly to a USB port and you have a winner right now.
The political game of business is always fun. I do not take kindly to threats; yet, the third-party company is known to play this way. I kissed and made up with the part that is actually doing the work. It involves and STL move/change. I am wary of the 5dBm margin calculated by Comsearch. If they are a true engineering company this would concern them, too, but I suspect anything that comes under 0dBm of interference passes in their book. I do have the word that the installing party will correct any issues, so we are all playing nice. In our crowded microwave market, and whose isn’t, we try to play as nice as possible.
Next week a little trenching and routine work. Soon some Nautel NV modifications (with full reports) and maybe some thoughts on processing. Have a great weekend!
Tech Notes from the Field 