Archive
Weely Roundup
Well, as the economy goes, so does the number of projects that get done. What do you do when things slow down? I like to catch up on documentation and one thing that really gets boring, inventory. I am also working on a couple of ideas that need to be researched before I make the budgetary plan. Sure it may not be for a couple of years, but it is fun to keep up and look into potential time-saving projects.
This week we had a Harris Flexstar exciter failure. Coincidentally, and if you have been following my tweets, it occurred about the same time our T-1 went down. The T-1 repair was at a B-box mid-span though AT&T testers showed it out our site. The tech dispatched showed it at the CO end. Go figure. Anyways, the XLR input board seems to have an issue on the exciter. No AES audio in the main nor the aux inputs. The analyzer says the audio is there and our axillary transmitter is on the air, but the Flexstar is not happy. My new parts should be here tomorrow. We’ll see if this is the only failure. I have a feeling I will be sending the box in for factory repair.
On the other side, I upgraded our Nautel NV20’s to version 1.3. Many of the minor things mentioned before are fixed. They even incorporated a screen saver. Some cosmetic changes makes the AUI look a bit better. One of these items is the Local/Remote button. It is not a split button and shows green on the half that is currently engaged, i.e the half that says Remote is green when in remote mode. Also fixed is the saving of profiles. The boxes will no longer put the profile being saved on the air.
Enco “fixed” their PADApult software and we are running PAD data on the older version of the Exporter. I don’t really know why the product was not compatible with the older versions as there are more out there than the the latest 4.2.
As for the Exporter 4.2, IBiquity has fixed the left/right channel swap and we await the software update from Nautel. Still have to wait for everything. Good thing HD is not that important.
DaySequerra has had our first M2.2R for over a week now. I still do not know if the fixed receiver board solves our RFI issue. When I know, you will know.
Phew. Have a good week!
All Is Well with Nautel NV20’s
Without getting into the details of version information as that is proprietary with Nautel, I will say we discovered a little issue with the controller on the NV20’s. Needless to say the issue did not cause much of an problem as more of an annoyance. It was a controller reset with no explanation. Random with no warning this reset would occur. I can say now that we worked this out as Nautel works on the next major release of NV software.
It is quite interesting to work through these issues and provide the information necessary to catch it and fix it. I feel good that we got it as quickly as we did. Tech support on Nautel’s side was awesome. If you find your NV series transmitter randomly dropping you off the air for 2 seconds and cannot find the explanation you better give Nautel a call. The fix is there. Get it.
I did drive our friends nuts as I was able to corrupt the AUI software on the transmitter itself. The fix was to ship me a new compact flash card with the “good” files in tact. Did the NV20 operate in this “mode”? You betcha. We had full remote control through the our remote control and we had full control via IP. If you are worried about such things as this with software based systems, you should be relieved to know that the important information is contained on the controller and does not fully rely on the computer running the AUI .
Great job Nautel. I look forward to the next major release so I can break that!
PS- Look forward to a Field Report coming to a trade near you.
Juggling the Fun
It is just crazy lately. I received a nice call today in regards to my comments on the Harris Flexstar. Thanks for that. I’m also busy with Nautel working out some little bugs with the NV20’s. These were to be expected as they are new products and will exhibit some strangeness. And that AM tower build, that is almost done though there are some details for the final city approval.
I am expecting my first software upgrade to the NV’s. This is necessary as we are experiencing an interesting little problem that may be commercial power related of which the NV’s are sensitive. Our Z10’s were also sensitive to something, but now it seems more apparent that a little phase brown-out situation may be occurring.
Overall I am quite please with the new transmitters, so these minor little things do not bother me. I feed information to Nautel and they are very receptive of the input. Daysequerra on the other hand….
Whomever decided that a shunt feed for an AM tower of odd-ball height is on drugs. Poor match that was closely matched shows signs of being unstable with some weather we are getting here. High VSWR that is random. A head-scratcher to say the least, but still annoying. It is a similar unstable thing our old tower exhibited in weather. Bad connections of the skirts? Poor design on how the skirts are installed. Rigidity of the skirts or lack thereof. Who knows.
All in all it is interesting, but very busy.
Cheers!
Nautel NV20 On The Air
We officially put the first NV20 on the air today, FM + HD. After cleaning up the air chain wiring we capitalized on the things we learned this week. It is amazing the engineering it takes to make a solid state transmitter run IBOC. Linearity is the key and on these boxes it is taken to an extreme. The mask is amazing.
I plan on having the second NV20 on by tomorrow afternoon. A slightly more complex chain and a bit more cleaning up. We will see how this goes.
And one question that may be in your head: yes, the exciter is brand new, built from the ground up. Bright and clean. Nice full bass. You may say it is transparent. Exciters should not color audio.
Nautel NV20 Update
I’ve been able to spend almost 2 quality days on these boxes. I have AES audio to each exciter and control is connected to the remote. I’ve done some basic tests into the dummy load. We still await AT&T’s repair of our data T-1, so no HD as of yet. I can rant about AT&T as it is over a month since the trouble ticket was called in.
As I am working without manuals, I have a list of items I need to discuss with Nautel, so they will not be written about until I have a proper understanding of the situation. On one box, I do seem to have a PM, power module, with a bad power supply. Not a surprise as I’ve seen other transmitters with modules that go bad within weeks of installation.
I do have an interesting situation with my Bird sample slug and the level to a Daysequerra modulation monitor. Either the slug is bad, and that means at least 2 are bad, or the mod monitor is bad. I do not seem to get any RF level on the monitor yet the meter shows full forward power and the spectrum analyzer shows the modulated carrier using the same sample. It’s just another thing to look at.
All in all, we are having fun doing this project, though it is taking a bit longer than expected.
Nautel vs. Harris
I really do not want to get into such a “fight”, but our IT guy and my assistant mentioned how much better our Class A simulcast sounds compared to our Class B main station. This morning we took a trip to a spot where both stations come in real well, analog and HD. We listened to one. We changed to the other. Very interesting results.
The Class A station runs the Nautel V1-D with the M50 exciter and the Class B station runs a Harris HTHD+ with a Flexstar exciter. Both have the same processing. Both are fed the same way. The only difference is the transmitters. The Nautel does NOT color the audio in any way and the station sounds really good. The Harris colors the audio, it is slightly grungy, and it seems to be lacking in fullness and apparently “missing” sounds. It is quite interesting. We intend to record our results when time permits and everything settles down on the other work.
Anyone have similar experiences? Oh, we also noticed the HD’s sound different too. To us the Nautel is more listenable than the Harris. Crazy. An exciter and transmitter should not color the audio or degrade the audio in any way, shape, or form.
Nautel V1-D 12vDC Issue
So the transmitter in question this week was the V1-D by Nautel. The thing has been running great since the installation last month. This week, Monday, we time aligned the digital and analog, then matched the simulcasting station. A day later, the Nautel falls back on power and shows a 12v fault. Hmmmmm?
So we head to the site and check things out. We cannot get it to fail, so we let it be. We get back to the station it starts showing 12v faults again and then a foldback of power. I switch it to the backup and head up the next day.
I talk things over with tech support and we tear into the box. We measure the test points. We check connections. We drop the fans and look under and deeper in. We find nothing out of the ordinary. Next we put it all together and light it up in the dummy load. That surely will heat the room up and cause a fault if it is heat sensitive. One hour and no problem. I have to get back, so we button it up and put the box on the air. IT’S BEEN RUNNING FINE EVER SINCE!
I sent the logs to tech support. This morning I follow up and leave an email stating that things are running just fine now. I get a response that some customers have had the wiring on the fans chafe and begin to exhibit these same symptoms. Short wires from the controller board to the fans. I noticed ours was somewhat tight, so next time up for maintenance I will check on that. For now, it works great and I will not touch a box that is not having any issues.
If anyone has an issue with customer support at Nautel, I sure have not had one. They are really nice and as responsive, or more, than some others I know.
What’s Happening
I’ve done a number of posts on the Nautel NV20. What else is going on? Well, we are rebuilding our AM tower that “broke” in half 4 years ago. It is now at 445 feet. We intend to move the diplexed AM stations to the new tower this coming Tuesday. Hopefully we will match well. We are using the existing ATUs for this move. Insurance would not pay for the complete replacement. Go figure.
As you know we install our PPM equipment. This is a completed project included our Internet streams. We are using the Roku Soundbridge for our monitoring source to the PPM monitor. It works well. I have also given each station a selection on the console to monitor this feed, too. Nice what I can do quickly with the SAS system.
One morning show talent has moved out of state, again. Still part of the show we create a studio for her. Our feed back to the station is using a Tieline iMixG3 using IP. We’ve done it before and will do it again. I make sure we are ready for Monday tomorrow.
Hope you all have a Happy New Year. I hope we make it fine during this slow economic times. I will have some comments on the FCC and their weak backbones and the liberals that will try to ruin the industry. I still have thoughts on how greed has attempted to ruin the industry, too. We’ll see how it all pans out!
NV20 Preliminary Installation
On 12/30, I finished the preliminary installation of 2 NV20s from Nautel. I plumbed the RF line into the switches and the electrician wired up the panels. One disconnect had to be upgraded to accommodate one of the new transmitters.
I successfully turned both on within 4 hours of each other without modulation. Both came up as expected and it is quite amazing what can be monitored and controlled via the front touch screen. As our IT guy said, we have two 20kW Linux computers!
Next is to finish the air chain and wire the audio into the systems. Nautel has a planned software upgrade for our boxes. This is to be expected as we have the first production runs installed in the real world. I am quite interested to see how they perform.
Tech Notes from the Field 