So now with the RF and IP links up and running, the system is accomplishing all the following:
• Passing two separate audio paths from transmitter to receiver
• Passing the E2X traffic along the HD LAN
• Passing TCP traffic over the other LAN

In the event that the RF path fails, traffic gets moved completely onto the IP link. When the RF link comes back up, traffic flow reverts.

So sitting in your office you can browse into both the receiver and transmitter, which is especially handy if you want to make other changes in the configuration, or perhaps more importantly, look at the real-time performance of the system.

Observations

A couple of items that I want to mention about this system that you should know about: The transmitter is a little noisy, because of fan noise - so you won't be able to put it in a spot that must be quiet. The system takes a large fraction of a minute to boot up - so I would recommend having a UPS on both ends of the link.

For my evaluation, I used a beta version of the software that was be released for the product in September 2011. In this final release you'll find a new feature that allows the user to configure a backup profile with reduce audio coding rate as well disabling of non-essential services. This allows the user to use a lower speed IP path for a backup or allows the RF link to automatically adjust (increasing channel coding or reducing modulation) when receiver experiences degradation.

I've barely scratched the surface on the features that this radio system has; but I can tell you that in the testing I carried out, the system performed very well, doing everything advertised. I'd also like to thank Keyur Parikh and Jeff Merrow from Harris for their help in this evaluation.

Irwin is transmission systems supervisor for Clear Channel NYC and chief engineer of WKTU, New York.