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Moseley SL9003Q AES Gotcha
What a week. AT&T takes down our T-1 STL without notice. An aerial to buried cut-over and their documentation is all screwed up. Sure enough, off the air! Then I discovered the hard way that when we switch to our aural STL the main transmitter, HTHD+, has no audio, yet the backup, HT-25, does!
What did I learn? The AES audio from the 9003Q has a “no audio” bit set in the output card. The Flexstar exciter reads it as no audio and thus no audio on the air. Huh? I receive a 3 year old tech sheet from Harris stating a modification to the Moseley output card. I perform the modification and now everything works. My question: Why did this output work fine with our original Flexstar exciter but not this one?
Earlier this year we had an actual failure of the XLR input board on the Flexstar. Exhibited the same no audio issue, but from both AES sources. This time I assumed the same thing. When I found out about this modification, I was floored. My predecessor did not document this? As I mentioned, we have used the auxiliary STL before without issue on the Flexstar. Or had we?
All I know now is that it is fixed and we are covered as we should. Making discoveries this way sure drives you nuts.
Moseley SL9003T1 Surprise
I had a rude awakening on Friday night/Saturday morning. No audio on air. I got them up on the backup STL and came on in. As we run T1’s for our main STL’s I suspected that our friends at AT&T had more issues with their infrastructure which is more common that not. When I entered the TOC I was shocked to see one of our Moseley SL9003T1 units dark. After all these years one of these beasts went bad? I checked the back and the power supply was registering one LED and the other was blinking erratically along with a weird clicking sound. Bad power supply.
I contacted the emergency tech and asked one very important question, “Can I use a power supply from a spare SL9003Q (aural STL) receiver?” The immediate, unwavering answer, “By all means.” Even the much older unit’s power supply was good to go. I traveled to the transmitter site and raided the power supply out of the spare unit and ran back to the studio. Dropped it in and we were back in business.
Though the old power supply looked less impressive that the new ones found in the T1 unit, it works like a champ. When Moseley is open I will order a replacement and a spare. Looks like it will not hurt to have on on the shelf.
And that is how my Fourth of July started! My Third of July was an air conditioning failure at the transmitter site.
BTW, I’m still working on updating the Equipment Notes page.
Tech Notes from the Field 