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kyscott
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BobOnTheJob said:
This ain't the MW1 that was living over at WAVG is it?
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AM Transmitter
- Thread starter sparks794
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This ain't the MW1 that was living over at WAVG is it?
K
kyscott
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ncradioeng said:
I have a ZX2000 that I'm not to impressed with. What is it about Harris and loud cabinet fans? I'd take a closer look at that AM10. I would be willing to bet you have a grounding problem with it. I have a 500A that does not have a problem with lightning anymore. It was not properly grounded.
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kyscott
Guest
greenie said:
I believe Nautel's J1000 was introduced in the Spring of 2006. Not sure about BE's gear.
I'd have to agree. Stay away from Harris. There was a previous post about them being interested in only TV and military. That's dead on. They have contracts with the military and the FAA worth millions upon millions of dollars. Broadcasting, especially radio, is small potatoes to them anymore.
(warning: long post)
One of my stations has a 3DX50. I haven't been inside it a lot, and I'm not terribly familiar with it yet (after a couple of years after inheriting it). It does have its quirks.
I installed a DX-25 at an earlier job, and the 3DX has some similarities, but it seems way more complex. The RF modules are quite a bit different. Seems like the mosfets are bigger, but they are easy enough to change...I've gone through about 8-10 in two years.
The guys who installed the rig before I got there had all the fun with unstable operation. I don't know exactly what the problems were (not much was documented), but I'm guessing much of the trouble was fixed with firmware upgrades. There is a LOT of microprocessor control in the box. Open it up and there are cat-5 runs everywhere. One of the initial problems was caused by RF getting into the cat-5, or so I've heard...this was fixed by rerouting and shortening cables, and probably some judicious application of ferrite beads.
As I said, the box has quirks. The first time I stood in front of it after the switch to night pattern, the power output was swingin' back and forth by about five kilowatts. I eventually traced that problem to the "max power" parameter being set too low. Every time it hit the limit, the controller would drop the power down, then it would raise it back to the preset level, until it hit the limit again.
There is one really stinky, obnoxious, oddball thing our 3DX will do. The box is rather sensitive to power glitches (or maybe it just doesn't like the trains passing by a few hundred yards away several times daily) and it will "fault" RF modules off for no apparent reason sometimes. Every once in a while, it will "fault" an entire big-step module combination off-line. When this happens, the transmitter will still make power, but there aren't enough modules to properly generate the envelope...and the result is some really ugly splattering up and down the dial. Fortunately this is an easy condition to correct, by hitting the reset function, which can be done remotely, and doesn't even drop carrier when you do it.
I've talked to the techs at Harris about that one, but apparently nobody else has seen one do that.
Other than that issue, the box is more or less behaving itself. Lately it's been awhile since any fault lights have popped on. I've had other transmitters that would work fine for months, and then become problem children for no apparent reason. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this guy.
If I had to buy another 50K transmitter today, I'd probably look pretty hard at the Nautel. I had a 1kW Nautel at my last job, and I never had to do ANYTHING to it in seven years except vacuum it out once or twice a year. The only time it ever went off was during a power failure (once) and when the jocks accidentally turned it off a couple of times.
Nope...Cumulus is the proud owner of that one. This one is collecting dust at Paoli,IN on 1560.kyscott said:
K
kyscott
Guest
BobOnTheJob said:
Ah, Ok. Cause pieces of the one at WAVG has spent more time in Pete Boyce's shop than on the air lately. Seriously, if I had a 500 watt station I wouldn't hesitate to use the MW1 as a back up. It's just when you try to push the full kilowatt out of one is when you get problems.
Pete's taken many a vacation compliments of that MW1...I've had one or two myself. That MW1 is off line now with a new BE AM1A on the air. I do know that keeping the fault lights all off with that MW1 at 1KW is a virtual impossibility. Even after rebuidling all of the modules, 1 or 2 lights would invariably remain on...sometimes for a minute or two & then they would mysteriously extinguish themselves. Good riddance to that beast....kyscott said:
My experience with the MW-1 family is/was as long as the box saw 50 j), it worked like a champ and never gave problems. It would load into anything between 49.5 and 50.5 Ohms with a reactance of j + - .5 but no more.
Unfortunately, the box was marketed to Class IV stations back in the day, very few of which met the load psec the thing wanted. When you called to complain, you got "You must have a bad load on it". They did learn from it though - the Sucks series could be made to load into anything vahuely metallic, resonant or not.
Now if someone will nail Jeff Mendenhall's foot to the floor until he forces his tech types to get shed of all the Kaptan in the FMs and GOUND THE GO***MN SCREEN, they will be on the right track.
Unfortunately, the box was marketed to Class IV stations back in the day, very few of which met the load psec the thing wanted. When you called to complain, you got "You must have a bad load on it". They did learn from it though - the Sucks series could be made to load into anything vahuely metallic, resonant or not.
Now if someone will nail Jeff Mendenhall's foot to the floor until he forces his tech types to get shed of all the Kaptan in the FMs and GOUND THE GO***MN SCREEN, they will be on the right track.
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kyscott
Guest
littlejohn said:
I appreciate the passion, but I feel that Harris has been passed by in the 1kW transmitter arena. Harris was more interested in trying to use the "latest and greatest" design to modulate an AM carrier verses building a dependable, reliable box that was easy to repair at 2am. I would reccomend buying a transmitter off of eBay before I would reccommend Harris anymore.
They've been passed by in pretty much all the areas they're building stuff. Years ago. And at thye 1KW level, I doubt much of anyone manufacturing inthis country is making anything off their transmitters.
kyscott said:
Funny you say that. At the 2001 NAB I had a rather "heated" exchange with a Harris saleman (friend) about this. I was questioning him on behalf of my brother's problem with a SX that would dump carrier for no apparent reason at random.
My point was that having a transmitter with the latest and greatest, that calls you when there is a problem, and performs umpteen functions on the fly is great. But reliability and longevity was more important. I told him that they needed to heed the words of Parker Gates, "make it tough, and make it last." Still, six years later, the SX still resets, yet the BC-1H never flinches. Go figure.
However, this is not just a Harris issue. The TV digital transmitters are almost all computer. (Mine is Linux).
Fred, all HD radio is done in Linux, cos iBiquity decided that was the way to go (It's less expensive). But, will they gnu license the CODECS and code? Not on your tintype.
The Continental rigs' meters show what's going on inside, and tell you the health of the radio. While the gee - whiz alphanumeric display on my HT30/35s tells me in words that the drive amp is sinking slowly into the sunset.
The Continental rigs' meters show what's going on inside, and tell you the health of the radio. While the gee - whiz alphanumeric display on my HT30/35s tells me in words that the drive amp is sinking slowly into the sunset.
I guess we should at least count our blessings that it's not Windows.
It just blows me away that the new generation in the business, based on their experiences with PCs, thinks that rebooting a device on a regular basis, which takes it off-line, is an acceptable preventative maintenance.
Oh well, at least we're not talking about health care equipment. (yet)
It just blows me away that the new generation in the business, based on their experiences with PCs, thinks that rebooting a device on a regular basis, which takes it off-line, is an acceptable preventative maintenance.
Oh well, at least we're not talking about health care equipment. (yet)
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kyscott
Guest
FredRichards said:
The 1H would become my main transmitter. Did that several years ago when I had Continental's train wreck of a 5kW FM transmitter. For about three months an old CSI kept the station on the air because the Continental was too unreliable. I have a client that has an SX I just found out is going to be replaced next year with a Nautel J1000. Happy, happy day!
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kyscott
Guest
FredRichards said:
I have had this discussion several times when a PC running Windows and whatever flavor of automation system crashed in the middle of drive time. Management questioned why this was happening to the computers on the air. So I asked them, when was the last time your desktop PC needed a reboot or crashed. The answer was ususally within the last couple of days. I tell them that the PC in the control room is like the PC in the office. Just that the PC in the control room has a "better" sound card. The client that's replacing a SX with a Nautel I mentioned has a 1kW CCA as the stand by now. I called dibs on it when we pull it out of the building. He asked why I'd want it, I said "because you don't have to worry about rebooting it or lightning taking out the controller".
And then there's the Logitek Numix consoles that occasionally require rebooting the audio engine.
At one local station where they're widely used, one of the control booth guys told me that on rare occasions when the two air consoles, plus the one in production, plus the small Remoras in the newsroom workstaions are being used; the system has frozen because the system can't handle that much load. So it's a call down to engineering - "Console locked up!".
You'll continue getting audio on the source that's currently on air, but forget about potting anything else up. Takes about three seconds to boot up, which can be an eternity. At least for me.
Digital has a lot of nice things going for it, I've found as I play with it more and more. But for reliability and "bullet-proofness" I think I'll stick with analog for most of my own personal stuff. 8)
At one local station where they're widely used, one of the control booth guys told me that on rare occasions when the two air consoles, plus the one in production, plus the small Remoras in the newsroom workstaions are being used; the system has frozen because the system can't handle that much load. So it's a call down to engineering - "Console locked up!".
You'll continue getting audio on the source that's currently on air, but forget about potting anything else up. Takes about three seconds to boot up, which can be an eternity. At least for me.
Digital has a lot of nice things going for it, I've found as I play with it more and more. But for reliability and "bullet-proofness" I think I'll stick with analog for most of my own personal stuff. 8)
That's exactly my thoughts on a lot of the newer stuff. It's great it'll do all those wonderful things, but the reality is I'd rather have something that works consistantly without fail and easy to use so the talent can do what they do best and turn out the most superior product they can without distractions. NOTHING sucks more than being off the air or just dead air... NOTHING. Give the more tried and true stuff and let the other geeks out there suffer though all the new crap full of firmware buggies.
You know what amazes me? People are sooooo hung up on getting digital consoles. I can understand the wiring and routing advantages, etc. but in reality do you think it really makes a damn bit of difference to the on-air product, especially on music that was recorded in analog to begin with? Digital STLs, digital exciters, linear digital audio playback, but why get excited about a digital console? The really hillarous ones are the stations that run mpeg compressed audio though a digital console and then send it out to their HD transmitter. If they would have spent the money they wasted on getting a digital console on getting their music library in linear form the actual quality of the audio would be MUCH better in reality.
You know what amazes me? People are sooooo hung up on getting digital consoles. I can understand the wiring and routing advantages, etc. but in reality do you think it really makes a damn bit of difference to the on-air product, especially on music that was recorded in analog to begin with? Digital STLs, digital exciters, linear digital audio playback, but why get excited about a digital console? The really hillarous ones are the stations that run mpeg compressed audio though a digital console and then send it out to their HD transmitter. If they would have spent the money they wasted on getting a digital console on getting their music library in linear form the actual quality of the audio would be MUCH better in reality.
OKCRadioGuy said:
I think that's basically the selling point of these consoles ... plus the flexibility. This comes to play especially in all-news stations
The consoles at all-news WBBR, for instance, are as flexible as a strip of paper.
You can call up hundreds of sources, all with one touch of a button and the spin of a knob and assign it to whatever pot you want. Different jocks/board ops can have the board configured to what best suits them (if you want the mics all bunched on the left, or on the right, etc.)
Imagine trying this on a normal console? You'd have racks full of switches and patch bays that would probably rival the dashboard of the Columbia space shuttle.
Now imagine the poor engineer who would have to wire all those switches and jacks to all those sources?
I was never big on digital fancy shmanzy...but I'm slowly learning that it has its benefits. My ideal control room would integrate analog and digital equipment.
Apologies for derailing the thread.
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kyscott
Guest
OKCRadioGuy said:
I personally like to make as much of the audio path digital as I can. I just recently hooked up a new Audioarts D-16 console. They use three Denon DNC635 CD players, Ahpex 230 voice processors and a server with SPDIF audio outputs. The output of the console is run down the hall to the AES input of an Orban 2200 processor. I heard a much improved audio signal leaving the station that night after the D16 install. When done right, a digital plant is an asset. However when done in a half assed manor, it's more of a pain than anything else.
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