Seeing the Light!
Posted by Ed Miley
Recently one of the major television news networks that is a client of Telecast Fiber has stationed a SNG truck in the metro Boston area that will service all of New England and where ever else the network chooses to send it as it all depends on the news.
For those who may not know Telecast Fiber Systems is located in Worcester, MA that is roughly forty miles due west of Boston. The news operation in question made good use of the proximity of our head quarters to their locally stationed truck.
On a recent phone call with the operator of that SNG truck he 
relayed that he was having a difficult time with getting his issued fiber equipment to work properly. It just so happens that this vehicle in addition to all of the normal equipment usually found in a SNG truck is also carrying close to 3000' of Telecast Fiber Tactical cable along with a Mussel shell and a Viper 442 frame. So when the call came from the local truck operator describing the problems he was having he was encouraged to bring the Telecast equipment out the headquarters where we could take a look and see what, if any problems with out equipment he was having. In the course of the phone call the truck operator described what sounded like problems related to either bad connectors or dirty optics, and that he has had no previous experience with fiber optics prior his new position. Obviously we asked him to take a ride out to see us.
Our friend arrived at the appointed time at our facility and we had him set up a fiber reel, the Mussel Shell and the Viper 442 unit, and route some audio and video signal into the either end so we could see what was happening. Right off the bat we noticed a few problems and decided to look at the optical connections first. We did a quick check by applying what would appear to be a flash light equipped with a bright red LED and a narrow tip so that you can aim the light right into the connector and fiber strand. Quickly we determined that our friend in deed was carrying around some bad fiber reels and also some connectors that require a little TLC.
During this time our friend, the truck engineer asked plenty of questions about how the system he has works, what are the do's and don'ts, what is the best way to handle the fiber, how to troubleshoot, etc. With the assembled group that was helping out he got some very sound and sage advice.
In the course of our time together, about two hours, our friend relayed to me on a few occasions his desire to get the equipment back from repair quickly because of the flexibility it allows him coupled with the fact that he has a large remote coming up and really needs the operational flexibility the fiber system offers over copper. Going along with him he explained that because the truck is smaller that it's not equipped to carry many copper reels typically found on a news truck. In all, including the two fiber reels there appear to be six reels on this truck, made up of AC power reels, Audio/Video mults
and the fiber. That is not a lot of cable l. Minus the fiber reels he would be carrying about 750' of copper cable. Those that work in the ENG/SNG part of the business can identify with the thoughts of this operator and how he now will change his approach in the short term.
On arrival at our facility our friend may not have had the experience working with fiber that others may have but he knew these few things:
- With the reels and equipment out for repair he now has to approach his live shot set up differently in terms of signal count and parking.
- HD signals do not travel far over copper cables.
- It's "way easier" to run 1500' of fiber then 1500' of copper".
- Last but not least he got a first hand tutorial on how to utilize and troubleshoot his system.
No pun intended but by the end of the day our friend had seen the light.