Archive
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
STL Issues!
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Mostly because it has been quite slow and doing a bunch of budget prep. Maybe I’ll post a separate article on budget prep. In the meantime what are the chances that both your main STL and your auxiliary STL have issues simultaneously? Yesterday our T-1 went down hard. We switched to our aux STL. It worked, but we were taking audio drops. The aux STL is a Moseley Starlink, 4-channel version. This system goes back at least 8 years and I was not too involved with the install, just the basics. Configuration was done be someone else and the factory. The bottom line is I felt that the 64Q settings were not robust enough for reliable transport of our audio and data. I was right.
I proceeded to configure all our sites to 32Q. We have a studio, a midpoint relay, and two receive sites. I discovered as I worked my way back that our studio transmitter on one system was running low power! Clue one for audio drops. I have an order in for a loaner and will be getting it repaired ASAP. After all the configurations were changed, the audio drops, even with a low power transmitter, have gone away. Of course by the time I had the system configured, AT&T had fixed our T-1.
If you have an auxiliary STL system that does not get used much I suggest you take a close look at all the operating parameters. Apparently on the Moseley you cannot monitor them remotely or you need to do some upgrading. As we clean up around here after years of neglect, we are scheduling routine maintenance of all systems. Have you checked yours recently?
Tech Notes from the Field 