Q107's Cure for Difficult Remotes

John Fielding from Corus Radio in Toronto recently wrote us to tell us about his experience with his Comrex ACCESS:

Hi Comrex folks….

Just wanted to share a great Comrex experience with you….

Q107, Toronto’s legendary classic rock radio station, is home to morning show personality John Derringer. In the last few years, we’ve done more on-location morning show broadcasts than any other radio station in Toronto! Q107 has pioneered morning show promotions such as “Derringer’s Tour of the Neighbourhood” and “Derringer’s Tour of the Workplace.” The Neighbourhood series brought the entire morning show crew to the homes of loyal Q107 listeners, sometimes in ‘remote’ locations. This always presented a technical challenge for someone like me, who’s responsibility it is to ensure the show gets on the air. Our standard practice was to rush-order dedicated Bell analog broadcast lines for each location. It was hit or miss. Luckily most worked out well. Sometimes, not so much. Not to mention the cost!

Q107 Morning Host John Derringer

Imagine the smile on my face when I saw a shiny new Comrex ACCESS sitting on my desk!

In Ontario, most residential homes have 2 choices when it comes to phone, TV and internet service; Bell or Rogers. Bell can provide traditional analog phone lines, satellite TV and DSL internet. Rogers on the other hand provides VoIP telephone service, digital cable TV and high-speed cable internet. For some reason, buying a home in certain new housing developments limits you to one or the other. The latter presents a challenge for certain radio remote ‘road warriors’ that rely on Bell copper to broadcast live from one of these homes. The morning crew was asked to bring the show to a beautiful home in Woodbridge, Ontario which would end up being a grand prize in the Princess Margaret Hospital Home Lottery for Cancer Research. The station always supports cancer research and was more than happy to bring the Derringer show on the road once again. I wasn’t so keen on the idea having heard that analog lines and ISDN would not be available in that area, but had to make this morning show remote happen. Comrex ACCESS to the rescue!

Nice house! Someone please pass us a brownie.

The house came equipped with digital cable and home phone so I politely asked if a high-speed data line could be installed. Sure enough, it was ready and waiting for my trusty ACCESS codec. I plugged it into a cable modem, chose my profile and it connected instantly. The Q107 brass said it was one of the best sounding morning show remotes we’ve ever done! Using BRIC-HQ1 (mono), Delay was very low making on-air conversations between the remote location and the studio a breeze. Loss rate was a reassuring 0% the entire time. As a backup, we connected a Matrix unit to the VoIP line but not once did we have to switch over to it. This event was our first ever full morning show remote using the ACCESS and it went extremely well.

I’ve attached an Mp3 clip from the show. Music was played back at the station, all the voices you’ll hear are live on location via ACCESS portable. Please keep in mind this is an Mp3 and compressed just a bit. CLICK HERE to hear the clip.

I have to say, I love my ACCESS and I don’t know how I got by without it before! Just knowing that I can take it out on the road, plug in my Kyocera 1x EV-DO PC card and connect right away is very reassuring. I’ve even tried it out on the Bell WiMax network and had very positive results.

In a separate email, John sent us this photo:

[Featured in this photo]("Alex at Kia") is another time we used the Comrex ACCESS in a tough situation at Kia Motors Canada. We connected with a Kyocera 1x EV-DO PCcard and it sounded great!

Q107 and Corus Radio are loving ACCESS!

Thanks Comrex!

John Fielding

Station Event and Remote Broadcast Coordinator

Corus Radio Toronto (Classic Rock Q107, 102.1 the Edge, AM640 Toronto Radio)

Direct, 416-646-8608

Mobile, 416-428-2458

1600-1 Dundas St. West, Toronto ON

Canada

M5G 1Z3

BRIC Remote Control available for FREE at www.comrex.com

If you need a way to control multiple ACCESS units from a central interface, we've got it! Download our new, cool app, BRIC Remote Control for FREE at www.comrex.com!

ACCESS is Working For The Weekend!

If you're a Comrex customer, you probably know that we love remotes. Radio is in our blood and sometimes, much to the chagrin of our spouses, if we see one happening we've got to find out what's going on. So, it was really cool to spot the WNGC-FM/Cox Radio Athens, GA outside of the Georgia Spa Company when we were out and about this weekend. We noticed that the Yagi and telescoping mast weren't up so we had to find out what they were doing. Maybe using a cellphone to call it in? Much to our surprise and delight, right there on the remote table was a shiny new ACCESS Portable IP codec!

You know, it kind of makes us giddy to know that our customers are so happy with our technology. Shana Vaughn, WNGC's Midday Host, and here broadcast team were set up inside the Buford, Georgia store on a rainy Saturday afternoon broadcasting live to their listeners all over the Atlanta Metro area. And the listeners kept on coming in to see Bullfrog Spas, Green Egg cookers and of course, their favorite radio station. WNGC was broadcasting back to their Athens, GA facility using a Verizon U727 3G Wireless USB modem. They been using it for remotes all over the Atlanta area and couldn't be happier! The management at Georgia Spa Co. seemed pretty thrilled also!

It looks like WNGC's ACCESS Portable has been getting a pretty good workout having recently been used at the St. Jude Radiothon, the Atlanta Home & Garden Show, a couple of Dickey's BBQ remotes and the WNGC Roadshow with George and Scott. You can see photos of these remotes by clicking HERE.

"I must say that the Comrex ACCESS unit has allowed us to really open up and take our stations on the road anywhere we want. Before we were tied down to a phone line or would have to stay within Marti range," says David Ratz,Promotions Director for Cox Radio Athens.

Our good friend and syndicated morning show host, Moby, is a Comrex ACCESS user, too! He can be heard weekday mornings 6a-10a on 106.1 WNGC.

Bryan Sheets and Shana Vaughn from WNGC show off their ACCESS.

We recorded some of the audio of the broadcast taken off air. WNGC was using our BRIC-HQ1 Mono algorithm for the broadcast over Verizon's BroadbandACCESS (EVDO Rev.A) service and you can hear it by clicking HERE.

Update your ACCESS Codecs to FW 2.5 p4! The future of our civilization depends on it. Go to comrex.com for details.

Comrex ACCESS on the XOHM WiMax Network: WOW!

ACCESS Tested on Xohm WiMAX!
By Tom Hartnett
Technical Director, Comrex

We’ve long heard rumors of a new, ubiquitous wireless data network on the way called WiMAX, and have been longing to spec out its performance using ACCESS IP codecs. I got my chance recently when I received a WiMAX Express card for testing.

The first widespread commercial deployment of WiMAX technology is coming from a division of Sprint Wireless dubbed Xohm. They currently offer commercial service in the Baltimore market only, with several other cities coming on-line around the end of 2008. After enough begging, we got hold of a sample card, shown below, with intention of 1) finding a way to have ACCESS Portable utilize the card and 2) finding a friendly broadcaster in the Baltimore are to help us spec it out.


Fig 1- Xohm supplied WiMAX express card with PC Card adapter

As it turns out, the card offers literally no Linux support at this time, so the project of including direct support for it was shelved for a different day. For future tests, I’ll recommend using the available external modem, which should theoretically have no such interface issues. It may have an advantage as well, since building penetration at the 2.5 GHz frequency used by Xohm can sometimes be challenging. Utilizing the external modem would allow you to position it near a window, and run an Ethernet cable to where the action is.

Fig 2- The Xohm external modem

Before I booked my flight to Baltimore, a little Googling produced some reports that Baltimore WiMAX users have migrated to some other “soon to be covered” cities and had success with their Xohm hardware there. Since one of the reported cities was Boston, I ventured out on a little site survey to see if I could conduct the testing closer to home. Lo and behold, the card in my laptop lit up in various areas in the city and around the Route 128 technology corridor.


Fig 3- This will be easier than I thought!

So I found a convenient location to our office in Devens, which turned out to be the shopping area in Burlington Massachusetts. I went back a few days later, staked a location in a shopping center parking lot, and began testing...

Are you sitting on the edge of your seat? Want to know the results of Tom's testing? You can download a .pdf file of his complete "white paper" by clicking here: ACCESS Tested on XOHM WiMax

ACCESS In Holland is a hit with BNR

(photo: Reporter Wouter de Winther interviews VVD-leader Mark Rutte with the Comrex Access.)

BNR Nieuwsradio switches over to Comrex Access

"Prinsjesdag" (Day of the Princes) is the day on which Queen Beatrix of_the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the 'Tweede Kamer' (Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament) in the 'Ridderzaal' (Hall of Knights) in The Hague. The 'troonrede' (Speech from the Throne) sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session.

AMSTERDAM
On the Day of the Princes, BNR Nieuwsradio successfully used the wireless live connections of the Comrex Access. After the Speech from the Throne, politicians were interviewed by reporters from BNR.

"The interviews were done in the main hall of the building of government. Even in this surrounding built with many concrete and steel constructions in combination with very little bandwidth and fieldstrength, acceptable live connections could be made. The Comrex makes analog transmitters as good as obsolete."

Richard van der Veen, head of technicians with BNR: "One week before Day of The Princes we bought three handhelds and two 19 inch rackunits with Triple Audio. This way we can have three reporters on the road on the same time and have two of them contributing simultaneously. The users are very enthusiastic, because they can now go wherever they want and still do live reporting with broadcast quality.

The success of the Comrex Access at other broadcasters convinced BNR to start using this system for the BNR reporters. With this, BNR can increase the number of live contributions from reporters on studio quality, where before we were forced to use cellular phones."

With this important step BNR moves further towards using IP connections. "We shall probably use the Comrex Access during the election tour in America", says Richard van der Veen.

Tom Gleeson's Great Walk to Work and the Great Wall!

Tom Gleeson is a huge star in Australia. He's a professional comedian, radio personality and a Metro. To be more specific, he's part of Two Women & A Metro heard mornings on Melbourne's Mix 101.1. Not long ago, Tom became a part of Olivia Newton-John's "Great Walk to Beijing 2008" which strives to raise $5 Million for cancer research in an effort to find a cure for this disease. So, earlier this year, Tom started walking. The video below is self-explanatory. But since it was a long walk and he had to be on the air at 6 a.m., he (and his friends that joined him) decided to use the station's new ACCESS Portable using a 3G card to get on the air. (You'll see the glowing screen of the ACCESS in Tom's hand as he tries to get on the bus).



Since then, Tom has used his ACCESS to broadcast from the Great Wall of China! CLICK HERE for some photos of Tom on the Great Wall and to find out more about the "Great Walk to Beijing 2008" and how you can help the fight against cancer. We'll update this blog with his audio when we get it. Nice work, Tom!