[SBE] Data Link

[Dan Slentz]

David,
 
Here's a link to Trango   
http://www.trangobroadband.com/wireless_products/TrangoLINK_45_usa.shtml
 
I hear the LINK10 was discontinued, but they did have some stock remaining.
 
This should give you the specs on the new 45 mbps unit (45 mile range).
 
This gear is line of site, but I found that the beamwidth on their stock panel antenna (shorter range at about 25 mile) was something like 9 degrees.  You just needed to aim it in the right direction and you had a signal.
 
At WHIZ, we were doing shots that were averaging about 6 miles.
 
Another neat consideration for this technology is you can drop your VoiP phone system right in the van and that phone becomes just another extension of your station's telelphone system (paging, transferring calls, etc.).  On top of that, you can edit your NLE stuff in the van and have a big pipe back to the station for a quick FTP.  You can even start writing your script via ENPS or INews and it's already in the house system and hitting the prompter.   
 
There's so many possibilities to what you can do with this stuff. 
 
Latency is very low on the wireless gear, but the encoding is where I had to watch what I did.  The Slingbox Pro (standard def) was as little as 2.5 seconds (my first broadcast test was 9 seconds... an eternity... which was dealt with by putting a cue mark on the director's copy and giving the cue VERY early).  By election coverage, we were able to fine tune the latency to 2.5 seconds.
 
The new Slingbox HD has a longer latency.  My first tests were over 30 seconds, but I've been able to pull them down to about 5 seconds.  This, so far, makes it less usable if there is any interaction between studio talent and field reporters.  What Slingbox HD does do is provide a great way to get bump shots to the station from locations around town (or traffic shots in HD).
 
I'm no longer the chief engineer of WHIZ TV in Zanesville, Ohio (market 202 of 210).  About three months ago I took the director of engineering position at WSFL TV in Miami, FL.  I'm still looking at using new technolog and experimenting, but I'm on a time crunch to launch a full HD studio for a new news launch, so I've put some new ideas on hold until the launch is complete.
 
I'm happy to share ideas and things I've done in the past.  The engineer at the CBS O&O in San Fran (Don) and I exchanged our ideas on experimenting with Slingbox a couple of years ago.  He was pushing it through early 3G wireless.  He wanted mobile broadcasting while I was looking for inexpensive solutions to ENG shots.  Down here I'm also going to do further testing with combining 3G for greater bandwidth on mobile testing. 
 
Best wishes,
Dan Slentz
 
 


--- On Fri, 12/12/08, David R. Wilson <david at wwns.com> wrote:

From: David R. Wilson <david at wwns.com>
Subject: Re: [SBE] Data Link
To: "sbe member discussion mail list" <sbe at sbe.org>
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 10:30 PM

Hello Dan,

What bandwidth and what distances are you dealing with?
Do you have a line of site shot?

Dave

David R. Wilson KU4B
Engineer for the Cromwell Group
Nashville Tennessee
WBUZ WPRT WQZQ
 

On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 18:54 -0500, Dan Rapak wrote:

> To the Group:

>  

> I am looking for a way to link DSL / Cable Modem data to a mountaintop

> location. This would be a strictly point-to-point link at 1.5 or

> perhaps 3 MB down. Can anyone recommend any equipment for such an

> application? As always, budgetary considerations will rule the day.

>  

> Thanks in advance,

> Dan Rapak

> WA3ATV

> _______________________________________________

> The SBE Roundtable, SBE at sbe.org

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