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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: 1/14/2011
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 