Hi new here and Low Power FM Transmitter Issues

[freegold]

Hi, we run a low power radio fm station located in Eugene, OR (kepw.org). We have had various issues along our path of getting set up and broadcasting over the last four years, since we received our FCC build permit. Recently, in November of 2017, we finally moved to a functioning broadcast antenna that reaches to a 20 mile perimeter and because of our move friends recommended we buy the N vs3000 transmitter (I'm abbreviating because I don't know the rules about naming products here). This set us back 5K which is a lot for a small non profit radio station. Anyway, we have had a lot of issues with this device that have knocked us off the air, several times for various periods! Lately, the problem is and has been translating our digital signal to be transmitted. We are using a dedicated laptop in place of a barix box and our transmitter is not receiving the signal through its regular inputs, so we're attempting to rig our output to an xlr port. Supposedly, our transmitter comes with an Orban interface, but our experience is this also doesn't operate for us. Their support is not helpful, although maybe we aren't technical enough to throughly understand it. Also, they only host glowing testimonials on their website, otherwise they would probably be more helpful. Our advice is if you you are going to spend 5K on a transmitter, learn and study and ask all you can before buying!

Thanks for your time,
Rick

 

[MTS2000des]

Rick,

Nautel is a top tier manufacturer of broadcast products. Their transmitters are some of the best in the business.

Who is your engineer of record? Broadcast radio isn't something that a novice can do, and do well. Not trying to be harsh, but if your product is sound, it only makes good sense to sound good and this takes someone with vetted experience and skill set to work with things such as audio processing, IP, RF, and everything in your air chain. There are many variables that can cause issues like yours.

I *strongly* suggest contacting a broadcast engineer in your area who may be willing to assist your organization for say, a tax deduction or cost of services. As you know, the FCC has strict requirements for technical operations of broadcast stations.

You may also want to visit the Radio Discussions Forum as you are likely to find better advice there, as it is geared toward Broadcast radio and not two-way radio hobbyists which this forum primarily caters to.
Specifically, the "Radio Engineering" sub-forum.

Best of wishes to you and your station. It is refreshing to see community radio such as KEPW come to life. It is my belief that this will be the future of OTA radio, as corporate radio dies a slow death in the face of Internet based content delivery, radio will return to it's "roots" of being community based and serving those in the community with quality LOCAL programming.

Thank you for doing your part in your town!

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Best of wishes to you and your station. It is refreshing to see community radio such as KEPW come to life. It is my belief that this will be the future of OTA radio, as corporate radio dies a slow death in the face of Internet based content delivery, radio will return to it's "roots" of being community based and serving those in the community with quality LOCAL programming.

Thank you for doing your part in your town!

If you are into country mixed with a little rock, might check out 105.3 KJDL out of Ropesville, TX (near Lubbock) which is my personal favorite in the state or one of the sister stations if more into classic western or classic rock. Not low power, but they are locally owned, programmed and fully independent of corporate radio.

 

[freegold]

Hi again and thanks for the helpful dialog

Rick,

Nautel is a top tier manufacturer of broadcast products. Their transmitters are some of the best in the business.

Who is your engineer of record? Broadcast radio isn't something that a novice can do, and do well. Not trying to be harsh, but if your product is sound, it only makes good sense to sound good and this takes someone with vetted experience and skill set to work with things such as audio processing, IP, RF, and everything in your air chain. There are many variables that can cause issues like yours.

I *strongly* suggest contacting a broadcast engineer in your area who may be willing to assist your organization for say, a tax deduction or cost of services. As you know, the FCC has strict requirements for technical operations of broadcast stations.

You may also want to visit the Radio Discussions Forum as you are likely to find better advice there, as it is geared toward Broadcast radio and not two-way radio hobbyists which this forum primarily caters to.
Specifically, the "Radio Engineering" sub-forum.

Best of wishes to you and your station. It is refreshing to see community radio such as KEPW come to life. It is my belief that this will be the future of OTA radio, as corporate radio dies a slow death in the face of Internet based content delivery, radio will return to it's "roots" of being community based and serving those in the community with quality LOCAL programming.

Thank you for doing your part in your town!

Thanks and we are working with an engineer and part of our problem is that the outputs from the barix box to the VS3000 are not being received/processed. Currently, our engineer is doing a work around setting up new presets to allow us to use the AES/EBU XLR port for stream input. We may have to end up returning the unit, but we haven't got there yet. It's to bad people don't share more of their experiences, so others might benefit before making important decisions about expensive equipment. Thanks for the heads up about the other forum.

peace,
Rick

 

[freegold]

Futher info from our engineer about OUR experience with Nautel transmitter

Here is a little more about "the problem" for engineers to be aware of from our engineer .... "I'm working on a time machine we can use to convince our past selves to buy the TX300 instead of the Nautel transmitter."
"...The current problem arises from the difficulty in getting the transmitter to accept input from its XLR jack. As we can only seem to make it receive audio from its built-in exstreamer, which functions poorly, it goes down often."
Now, I know that people say Nautel is top notch, the best in the industry, but, really, if people have problems with expensive equipment they should NOT feel intimidated to share (the best they can) with others. If you head on over to the Nautel site, you'll notice that they tightly CONTROL the comments they receive! This is NOT acceptable! I've also been told, that this NEW transmitter is EXPERIMENTAL and we're one of the first stations to be TESTING it! Beware! Once again those Nautel people who will try to talk over important information that is being shared!
That is all for now!

peace,
Rick

 

[RF_Warrior]

Nautel responds...

Hey Rick,

I'm sorry you feel this way - I thought I'd pop in and offer some thoughts, since what I'm reading here doesn't seem to match what I've encountered in any of my customers so far.

Before I start, an introduction - I'm Jeff Welton, a regional sales manager for Nautel. I got here via a Google Alert that lets me know if anybody has issues that I might be able to help with. Don't let the sales manager title fool you - I spent the first 17 years of my career here as a customer service tech, so I've got some background with the inner workings of our gear. Beyond that, after 27 years split between sales and service, I've got a pretty good idea how we function as a company.

To the basis of your issue, it looks like you're trying to run streaming audio from a Barix to the VS300 via the streaming input, possibly as a shoutcast source? It's hard to tell - and I've been through the entire service history of your transmitter (which, by the way, was shipped last February, not November, and is serial number 1310 - we started at 0001 with the VS - so is nowhere near being "experimental").

Assuming the above is accurate - Barix feeding shoutcast to transmitter - no, it won't work. I'll be first to admit our documentation on what we can do with streaming inputs is limited. In short, we need a shoutcast server, the Barix is a client, and we need either MP3 or WAV audio. I'm happy to send a document giving additional tech info on the streaming configuration. To say that you can't feed a VS300 from a Barix is wrong, though... in my spare time, I volunteer engineer a community station locally and we're doing just that, feeding audio to our VS1 from a Barix Exstreamer. We use uncompressed WAV between the Instreamer at the studio and the Extreamer at the site, because we've got the advantage of fiber from studio to site, then use the analog audio output of the Exstreamer to feed the transmitter. Zero dropouts in almost two years. Not my preferred delivery system, but as you said earlier, community stations run on tight budgets.

We've opened three cases over the history of your transmitter - one with a streaming lockup that was resolved by cycling power, one with a failed exciter board which was replaced under warranty and one a few days ago (possibly the cause of this post?) where an AC cycle resolved a lockup. Each call has been from a different person, with extremely varied technical backgrounds. The latest provides a description of audio connection which says you're receiving a stream over a computer at the site and using the headphone jack from the computer to connect audio to the transmitter. We're happy to work with you, but we need specific information on configuration as you're doing it and on any problems that you're seeing (preferably before I see a google alert on a complaint online!).

On to the website - you'll notice that NO broadcast equipment manufacturer has a "submit your comment for immediate display on our website" button. The testimonials on our website are solicited - of course we post the glowing ones. So, yes we control what we post on our website - it's a marketing tool, not a support portal. I don't believe we're the exception there by any means. For support, either email support@nautel.com, or call the toll free number 877-628-8353 - or email me directly and I'll make sure you get looked after.

Best,

Jeff Welton
Regional Sales Manager, Central U.S. (and former field service guy)
Nautel
Tel: 877-662-8835, ext. 5127
email: jwelton@nautel.com

 

[TampaTyron]

Wow! I wish Moto acted like that supplier...... TT

 

[jim202]

Wow! I wish Moto acted like that supplier...... TT

They do, you just need to know who to talk with and how to get in touch. Not to blow a whistle for one vendor or another, but don't put down Motorola because you don't have the contact info you need. Motorola also has a fine on line source of documentation. Again, you need to get into the loop on how to get to it.

Don't ask about the radio programming software. All the current stuff has to be purchased with few questions asked.

I have been working a long time with the older radios that have long been dropped from their support by Motorola. There a some ham related chat sites that have people on them that will step forward and try to help you with issues.

 

[MTS2000des]

Wow! I wish Moto acted like that supplier...... TT

Nautel has tough customers who are primarily broadcast engineers and have to sell to the private sector, which don't play the sole source contract/competitive bid games that get played in the public sector.

 

[ffexpCP]

I've noticed many of the low power transmitters / exciters are all the same with another name sticker slapped on it. Look around and you might find a more complete manual from somewhere else.

I once replaced a bext that couldn't make enough power with a tx3000. Did not play nice. Turns out my optimod had several bad cards in it causing issues. Once fixed, I got a flood of emails saying how impressed they were with the sound. Our mod monitor cluded us in to the problem.