Locality Switch

The weekend starts tomorrow; that means only one thing – an Outside Broadcast from Castle Towers shopping centre. I’m really excited – this is the first OB they’ve let me do since Australia Day, so I’m rip-roaring to go! To make it better, we’re using some new technology (well, new to us, at least!).

The whole broadcast will be encoded into an Ogg Vorbis stream by EdCast, and then sent over a borrowed 3G connection back to our studios where it will go to air. This is the first time I’ve done this, so I’m excited, to say the least. It’s a four hour broadcast, so this will be a great chance to test everything out.

How do I know it will work? I’ve been trying this for weeks, broadcasting to myself over the 3G modem back to a PC at the station. I’ve been able to broadcast for quite some time, before being interrupted (usually by the smell of dinner). This whole thing is actually pretty good, and I don’t expect any trouble.

The real questions are, “what could go wrong?” and “what can I do to prevent/fix it?”. Here’s a couple of scenarios:

• People at the studios can’t access the feed. This could happen, if they misplace my instructions or something bad happens to the computer in the studio. To cover for this, I’ve got remote access to one of the PCs, so I can do it all by myself, if need be
• The internet at the studios drops out. This does happen every so often, so I’ve ensured that people at the studio have access to the modem, so it can be power-cycled
• No 3G reception; This would be dreadful. However, I’ve tested the site extensively, and there is full signal strength – hopefully this won’t occur.
• Laptop at the site breaks; I’ll be taking my MacBook which can run Windows, just in case

If you’ve got some free time tomorrow morning and live in the Castle Hill area of NSW, please come down and say hello. It would be great to catch up with you. I’ll be there for a 10am broadcast, running until 2pm. Full details are on the 2CCR Website.