Axia Discussion Board

Was just curious if anyone is using a node at the transmitter site and also is anyone using a fiber link to your transmitter site?
We cannot get a clean STL shot and I need 3 audio streams, plus PSD, RDS and eventually HD2 so we are thinking fiber. We are also hoping to get Internet to the site as well as possible PBX phone extension from the studio PBX.
Skok has had some suggestions but was just curious if anyone is actually doing this?
G

Hey George,

We use a DragonWave AirPair 200 (18 Gig range at 12 miles). Works great with Axia nodes and can be setup to run multiple VLANS for office data, RDS, remote control, PAD and VOIP etc..I actually have an edge switch up at the site with two selector nodes plugged into it and have access to any audio source and GPIO functions on the Axia network at the studios.
If you have a short link you may be able to get away with the 24 gig unlicencsed version.

I have heard great things about those products but we have no line of sight as some giant a$$ palm trees are in the way and they are not going to cut 'em down .
I am considering such a shot for another 2 sites that I have. Do you experience much rain fade at that freq.?
G

Ditto the question about rain fade...

I am looking at a similar path using the AirPair but my past experience with rain fade has me scared...

I think it speaks volumes that no one wants to reply to the rain fade issue...

I have yet to experience any fade and we have had some heavy wet snow, thick fog lasting for days and heavy rain. The most fade I have seen is 9db. My rsl usually site aroung -44dbm at a range of 12 miles with a two foot dish at each end. I also use the high power version of the Dragonwave which gives me an additional 10db of gain.

cmac wrote:I have yet to experience any fade and we have had some heavy wet snow, thick fog lasting for days and heavy rain. The most fade I have seen is 9db. My rsl usually site aroung -44dbm at a range of 12 miles with a two foot dish at each end. I also use the high power version of the Dragonwave which gives me an additional 10db of gain.

At 18 Gig? Wow.

I tried an 18 Gig shot some years ago, 2 miles with 2' dishes and it failed completly every time it rained, or at least so it seemed.

I'm aware of two sites that use fiber, one is from their rack room up to an STL penthouse quite a distance away (I think it's several hundred meters). This one has an edge switch with an AES and analog node in the STL penthouse. Works great.

Another is a transmitter site where there are two transmitter buildings and they had fiber between them. They placed a node at each end with the appropriate media converters and created a snake. As far as I know it works like a charm.

What kind of distance do you have between the studio and tx site?

I am looking at a six mile path, across a good sized river and a state line. fiber is out of the question in this case.

dremund / tyler / George - I would be happy to have a look at the paths you are considering and make some equipment recommendaitons. Additionally, I can provide some information regarding rain fade and ways to incorporate redundancy into the design. Feel free to contact me via email at crussell@dragonwaveinc.com or 1-613-599-9991 x. 2282. Chris