Archive
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.
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.
Weekly What Up?
As you know, last week was fun. The upcoming weeks should be fun too. As we proceed to dismantle the old remains of the tower we will see how things change, tuning-wise, on the new. I also get to take care of the details preparing for the filings. We are already hitting a road block with the FAA. All pre-filings were no issue, now they want verification of the actual height and ground level. I really do not think the ground level has changed since the surveying for the original FAA notification. Wacky!
I get to head into the NV20 installations, too. Whether we get to those this week or not depends on the last of the AM work. I still need to time-align the HD install from December. Tough to do when the monitors are at the studio and the transmitter is just out of range of getting an HD lock! I can get the data, though, which makes me wonder why I cannot get an audio lock. Oh well, it will get done.
I also received the new Aphex HeadPod. A headphone amp which is claimed to be high end. I look forward to trying it out. I have some ideas of how to use it pending I am able to spend any money!
PPM is in, so we will see how that works over the next couple of months. Arbitron has been slow in responding to my call sign change notification and my analog backup for an FM.
Have a great week!
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 