From Our Who’s Buying What page: San Francisco’s KQED(FM) has built an STL to its Sacramento area transmitter around Barix Exstreamer 500 IP encoders/decoders.
According to an announcement, the traditional T1 and ISDN telecom STL was increasingly unreliable. It adds details — “the Barix unit in Sacramento is connected to a Titus Technological Laboratories 3DRX audio switcher for automated failover. When the AES input signal from the T1 fails, the 3DRX switches the transmitter’s source to the analog feed from the Barix device after a pre-programmed delay. If an ISDN connection can subsequently be established manually from the studio, the 3DRX will then switch to the ISDN audio.”
In addition, the release notes, “KQED configured the Exstreamer 500s for 16-bit, 32kHz PCM audio, with a relay output used to drive an alarm annunciator for alerts. KQED also took advantage of the Barix units for monitoring purposes, leveraging the Exstreamer’s stereo channels for confidence return of both FM and HD Radio signals.”
KQED Chief Engineer Larry Wood said, “Reliable equipment is that which does not require you to become an expert in its setup and operation; it’s equipment that you set up once and just forget about. The Barix boxes are easy to install and are nice, reliable pieces of equipment. We haven’t had any Barix failures in all the years that we’ve had them.”
Wood added that Barix boxes will also be used at a new transmitter facility.