Nautel demonstrated a new transmitter at the ABU’s Broadcasting Symposium in Malaysian that is designed to keep programming on air under difficult circumstances. The transmitter has multiple program feed sources and can switch to alternate feeds if the main transmission links go down.
The Nautel VS Series of transmitters are designed for analog transmission and for upgrade to digital. They provide multiple inputs and advanced remote user control.
Nautel Market Development Manager Hal Kneller told the Symposium the transmitters are designed especially for hard to access sites, so that as much work as possible can be done remotely and lost program feeds do not necessarily spell disaster. Remote diagnostic tools built into the system are of higher quality than most of the standard test equipment held in smaller stations. All diagnostics are done over IP via remote computer interface.
Intelligent monitor alarms and email alerts for various failures are also more sophisticated than most, with the ability to send program silence alerts to the programming team, cooling fan problems and overheating alerts to building staff, and technical failure alerts to the tech team. This differential alert feature is designed to minimise wasted alerts and ensure better response time to fix problems.
The inputs scale from top end transmitter link and AES/EBU inputs, through standard balanced and unbalanced audio inputs, then to streamed audio via the web through an IP cable input. And if all else fails the transmitter also has a USB stick input so that a stick can be loaded with songs that will play until someone gets to the Tx to fix the other input sources.
The transmitter is computer logic controlled within the unit, allowing technicians to set the order in which fail-safe switching takes place. If the STL fails it will go to the next best feed that you told it to, then to the next one, etc until it cannot find any more inputs to transmit. Songs can be remotely uploaded to the USB stick to keep the backup program fresh.
Diagnostics Screen
Size and power range
Contacts: Hal Kneller
Market Development Manager for Nautel
International: +1 (902) 823-3900 x 5768
Mobile: +1 (941) 391-1958
e-mail: [email protected]
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