Last Updated on September 20, 2021 by tkp
In order to improve the signal reliability, it was decided to replace the vintage 2014 microwave radios in the STL system with next-generation units from 2021.
Because the technology is not the same, the radio unit on the studio end needs to be replaced first – the studio end is the “access point” and will try to match up with whatever is on the other end, even if it isn’t the same. Dan Sullivan and I attempted to do that on August 28, however, the new unit would not power up when connected to the wiring present at the studio site – it did power up fine when connected directly in the studio itself.
After posting queries on the manufacturer’s community bulletin board, it appears that the problem is the wiring in the building causing a voltage drop into the new device – because the old device worked off a higher voltage, there was less current present in the wiring and hence a lower voltage drop (Ohms law: V = I*R).
There are a couple of ways to get around this: use a different type of power supply to power the device, or replace the wiring. These will be attempted on the afternoon of September 19.
On September 19, Dan and I replaced the old microwave radio with a new one, and we were able to get the power to come up on the device. However, due to the time it took to complete this task, along with previous time commitments, we had to leave the site before we had much time to configure the device.
I came back the next morning (September 20), and completed configuration. However, the network conditions are now much different from what they were previously and this appears to affect the Barix connections, and it may take a few days to adjust the values there to their optimum….. this will eventually be remedied, but in the meantime there are some ‘Barix Noises’ present.
The plot below shows how the new microwave radio improves the network latency:
