Hurricane Irene Impact on Live Audio

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blantonl

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Interesting statistic. Normally, right now at this time we should have on average 2,825 feeds online and broadcasting. There are 2,629 online as of this posting, which means that Irene most likely caused 200+ feeds to drop and stay offline.

Warm regards,

Lindsay
 

zl2taw

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Interesting statistic. Normally, right now at this time we should have on average 2,825 feeds online and broadcasting. There are 2,629 online as of this posting, which means that Irene most likely caused 200+ feeds to drop and stay offline.

Warm regards,

Lindsay

Or have the feed providers shut their systems down for the duration of the storm
 

OCO

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There would be no reason to shut them down if they were able to keep them running.. You could watch, state by state as Irene went up the coast and shut down commercial power, more and more feeds were marked out of service. I saw comments from at least one feed provider that he kept his feed running on his backup generator for about 8 hours, until his ISP also died.
 

burner50

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Lets remember there is 5MILLION people without power...


I'm fairly certain that the feed providers or their ISP's are having service issues.
 

Rob_K

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There would be no reason to shut them down if they were able to keep them running.. You could watch, state by state as Irene went up the coast and shut down commercial power, more and more feeds were marked out of service. I saw comments from at least one feed provider that he kept his feed running on his backup generator for about 8 hours, until his ISP also died.

Yep, ISP shut down and is still down. Debating if I'm going to try and get one feed up via my WiFi hot spot that I've been living off of. I don't have a wireless card on my feed thin client but I do have a spare laptop....
 

OCO

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Hmm...Set your laptop up as a router and point the thin client at it for its gateway? I used to do that before cable broadband in our area.. Also used the old Internet Connection Sharing, but not sure if you can set the thin client up for ICS....You guys are heroes, getting those feeds up for the folks who are concerned (and do have power and internet)..
 

Gezelle007

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I can't get RadioReference.com to work at all now. All the site links are gone as well. It seems like the forums and the vBulletin platform are still up though obviously.
 

VFN05

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Impact from the hurricane

I thought I was pretty well prepared for dealing with the storm and keeping the feeds online, however my TV and internet went out for about 4 hours Saturday evening. Unfortunately, streaming 4 feeds over a EVDO connection on my droid wasn't really practical, so I had to wait until Cox had their system back online. I'm pretty sure that the culprit was power outages affecting their network equipment. At the peak of the storm, my area had close to 300,000 Dominion Virginia Power customers without power (nearly half of their accounts in SE Virginia). While Cox has a lot of redundancy in their network, to include large UPS systems and natural gas powered generators in street level equipment, some outages just can't be prepared for.

As for listeners, my Norfolk Fire-Rescue feed hit 276 listeners about an hour before the net connection dropped. That is the most I have had on there since placing it inservice about 2 years ago. To give you some basis for comparison, this feed typically has a peak of 16-20 listeners on a normal day.

So speaking of equipment redundancy....what do you all use to keep your feeds online?

Mine might be a little overkill, but I use the following:
APC 1500VA UPS for the streaming computer
APC 1000VA UPS for the radios
TrippLite 1000VA UPS for the router and cable modem (shared with VoIP hardware)
1800 watt true sine wave inverter with a large marine battery
Honda eu2000i generator
Enough fuel to keep the generators running for about a week.
 

Cruiseomatic

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........So speaking of equipment redundancy....what do you all use to keep your feeds online?

Mine might be a little overkill, but I use the following:
APC 1500VA UPS for the streaming computer
APC 1000VA UPS for the radios
TrippLite 1000VA UPS for the router and cable modem (shared with VoIP hardware)
1800 watt true sine wave inverter with a large marine battery
Honda eu2000i generator
Enough fuel to keep the generators running for about a week.

What did a setup like that cost you if you don't mind my asking.
 

Rob_K

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So speaking of equipment redundancy....what do you all use to keep your feeds online?

I host 3 feeds. I have most of the parts (and need a couple of more) to keep things online but here is the plan:

Optima Yellow Top battery to power:
2x BCT15
1x BC350A
1x HP T5720 Thin Client

I connected the thin client direct to DC power (instead of the power cube). The above setup draws about 2.5 amps.

My cable modem and firewall/router are connected to a UPS in the basement (350va) I think. That usually gives me about 30 minutes of run time.

I considered purchasing a larger UPS to keep network infrastructure up and running but my ISP crapped out about 8 hours after power failure. If I am home, I only need enough run time to get my generator fired up
 

jthorpe

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I had 1200 people on my feed when it dropped offline for about 9 hours. Never recovered that amount of users. I think it got back up to about 600 and that was it.
 

VFN05

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What did a setup like that cost you if you don't mind my asking.

APC 1500VA UPS for the streaming computer -$50 on Craigslist

APC 1000VA UPS for the radios -$20, was discarded by a business. Was just "playing dead" and needed new batteries.

TrippLite 1000VA UPS for the router and cable modem (shared with VoIP hardware) -$100 @ Costco or
Sams Club. The only piece of hardware that was actually purchased new.

1800 watt true sine wave inverter with a large marine battery. -Inverter was given to me by my employer. They were stripping out a van they had purchased. In a previous life, the van was used by a local cable TV provider. They had no need for it and it was just taking up room where they wanted to put a storage rack in the van.

Honda eu2000i generator. -$400 on Craigslist. This one looks like it has been used extensively (read- old and beaten), but with the low oil shutoff and such a durable engine, they are pretty much indestructible. It still starts on the first or second pull, and the power is exceptionally stable since it has an inverter output. Highly recommended if you can find one for a reasonable price.

Of course, as I found out...unless you have a BGAN terminal and very deep pockets, you are still at the mercy of your ISP, no matter how many on site redundant backups you have.
 
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