On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:32:07 -0700 Scott Silva wrote:
If the radi station has phone lines, they should be able to get something like a T1 or fractional part. Much more reliable and more bandwidth.
I don't think it's available there. Even the next-nearest town has only dial-up Internet. The nearest location that has real dedicated Internet service available at all is the location that I'm looking to move the signal out to.
Or look into a microwave or satellite link.
As always, cost is THE factor. I have no idea how much a 24-hour satellite link would cost but I suspect it might be more than a phone line. Based on my (very limited) experience with tv satellite dishes around here, they don't seem to perform very well when it's -50 degrees outside and blowing snow. Some years back I had to go out and try to beat ice off of a dish a few times in those conditions and didn't really enjoy it all that much.
I don't think you will be able to compress a radio signal enough to fit over a dial line without a lot of loss. You would need several lines multiplexed together for a decent sounding broadcast.
Well, that's what I'm looking into. I remember listening to streaming audio over a 14.4 modem way-back-when which wasn't great quality but modems have gotten a lot faster than that since, too. I don't know enough about it (yet) to be aware of exactly what can be accomplished.
There are many point to point links that will cover 40 miles (65 km). I don't know how far you have to go.
That's another thought. The station's antenna is on top of a hill but for protection from the elements and whatnot, the studio is down in a valley (i.e. a hole). They currently use a microwave link to send the signal up the hill from the studio, so I'm not sure how feasible that would be to get a point-to-point solution going, but it's worth looking into. Do you have any recommendations for hardware that might work? I just checked, and Google Maps tells me that the distance is 52.3km.
I've been talking to the station manager for quite a while about doing something to get their signal online, but the stumbling block has always been how to get the signal out where you can get an Internet connection. I just had this dedicated phone line idea last week; if it (or something else) will work, then I'll be able to provide him with a set of costs that he can take to his board of directors, and we'll see what happens after that. The phone company is working on a proposal for me so I'm now trying to get the rest of it figured out.