[WXBH-Discuss] ISDN and DSL and 802 as microwave link

Wed May 31 18:23:01 EDT 2006

Hi cory,

I didn't know there was a separate technical mailing list.  I would love to be
on that one and off of this one.  If whoever is in charge of doing that is
reading this post...

The ISDN modem that I used was called a Telos Zephyr.  I was trying to look it
up on Google, but I typed it in in eBay by mistake.  Alas, there is one for
sale for a small fraction of its new price.  I'm not suggesting that this is
what we get but just to show you the quality of the unit and the fact that a
128K digital line can have quality.  Check it out at
http://cgi.ebay.com/Telos-Zephyr-9202-Network-Audio-Transceiver-ISDN-NR_W0QQitemZ7418782070QQcategoryZ3278QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
.

Of course, we would need 2 of them.  The seller lists the codecs that it is
compatible with.  You seem to know more about these than I do so maybe you can
research the compatible codecs or find Telos's site like I meant to and see
their entire line and get all the specs you want.  I am an audio engineer by
profession and I must tell you that the quality was great.  I could listen to
the return feed of my live program and it sounded just like the source (but
delayed by about a second).

The reason I prefer ISDN is because it is a direct line.  It can't be 
hacked by
anyone on the internet because it never touches the internet.  It is basically
a 128K digital phone line.  If someone wants to hack you, they would have to
physically tap the phone line.  Hence, the down time would be about the 
same as
a regular phone line.  At home or work, my power probably goes out 3 or 
4 times
a year.  I can't ever recall when I've had a problem with my phone (at least
the physical line).

I wish I could say that about DSL - but I can't.  Look at what happened to
Insight just a few weeks ago.  Plus, those are not direct connections.  I know
we don't have to hit the web itself to make this work.  You would have more
knowledge than I about PPP or FTP or the other modes but I know we are at the
mercy of the provider's equipment.

Either way, I think uploading of MP3's might be a good idea.  Nobody ever said
that we would have to be a LIVE station to be on the air.  The speed of the
line wouldn't matter at all then.  I don't know what all this would entail -
remote control software...

Someone quoted a price of $400 per month for a dedicated line and I know that
ISDN is only $100 per month so that's why I suggested it.

The Ogg Vorbis sounds viable.  I read a bit about it months ago when I 
found it
was a plug-in for Cool Edit (i.e. Adobe Audition).  BTW,  Adobe is the 
DAW used
by Clear Channel if anyone cares.  Pete?  The Public Radio Partnership 
uses SAW.
I know a bit about both.  So, if we license multiple copies of Audition, we
will have a built-in Ogg Generator / Decoder.

Of course, ideally, we would have the transmitter in a different place 
and could
go with 802.11.  I just don't see that as an option at present.

Paul

Quoting Cory R <coryri at gmail.com>:

> Paul,
>
> This discussion needs to be made in the Technical mailing list.
>
> It's a big mess any way you look at it.  ISDN is slow, at the last meeting
> it sounded as if everyone just wanted to upload mp3's to the server, which
> would be ok if we weren't broadcasting live and we had a multiple day buffer
> time, that would actually allow for us to get dsl and whatnot.  Iglou is
> running a deal for 1.5mb/256kb at $29.95/mo, which would be quite nice.
> Since the antenna location wouldn't need any significant upload.
>
> By speed on the 802.11 link I was referring to overall bandwidth and latency
> times.  I'm really unsure how fast microwave is now but last I checked
> (probably 6+ years ago) it was sitting around 5mbps.  The idea location
> would be at the Brick House or near a surrounding building.  So we would
> skip the internet completely.  Although I'll start looking for ISDN modems
> and looking at software for that.  Seeing that we're wanting to do internet
> radio (I'll actually be setting up an icecast server sometime today) also,
> it will probably be just as easy to pull that stream down from the web at
> the antenna location rather than streaming it over the ISDN.
>
> As far as encoding audio, I would either recommend mp3, or ogg vorbis (
> http://www.vorbis.com/) formats rather than mp4.  Licensing issues aside I
> think for practical reasons it would be alot better to just stick with mp3
> and/or ogg.  Something interesting I found on the net was
> http://www.xciv.org/~meta/audio-shootout/.   I don't see a need to use the
> mp4 format on what we're doing anyway since it may require licensing and
> since radio isn't exactly the highest quality of sound anyway.  I'd say
> stick to mp3 or ogg vorbis.
>
> Cory
>
>
> On 5/31/06, topdog at woofer.com <topdog at woofer.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Cory,
>>
>> ISDN is an Integrated Subscriber Digital Network.  It could be used to get
>> to
>> the internet - but it is actually a digital line provided by the telephone
>> company.  As I understand it, it is not a "dedicated" line (you still have
>> to
>> dial a phone number (or SPID) but once a connection is 3established, it
>> will be
>> linked at that speed indefinitely.
>>
>> The 802.11 link would not be any faster than microwave.  Both are moving
>> at the
>> speed of light.  The main advantage is that the equipment would be much
>> cheaper
>> (and safer) than microwaves.  We could build our own antennas for that
>> part of
>> it too.  Some people have modified Pringles cans.  But that link is only
>> going
>> to work Line of Sight - and you can't try to stop anyone who is building
>> something in your way.  I think that the Kentucky Towers across the street
>> is
>> the only feasible way to do line of sight communications.  It is possible
>> that
>> Ky Towers might have a view of the "flashcube" building but not likely
>> given
>> their distance apart and heights.  Even if they did, we would have to get
>> permission from the Tower to use it as a "hop" point. No sense in paying 2
>> places for rent.
>>
>> I still think that ISDN would be our best (and cheapest) bet for now. If
>> you
>> can, use your talents to find some ISDN modems and a codec
>> algorithm.  ISDN is
>> very slow next to DSL so a high compression algorithm is need to code and
>> decode.  I hear that MP4 is quite nice but I don't know if it needs to be
>> commecially licensed for use...  If you could find out, that would be
>> great.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> --
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