Radio Fidélité, a Nantes-based Christian radio station recently updated its main Studio-Transmitter link based on a 5.4 GHz wireless IP link and a pair of APT IP Audio Codecs from WorldCast Systems.

Here, Technical Manager, Charles de Wolbock, explains some of the issues they had initially & how these were overcome.

“In the early days of the installation, we experienced several disruptions to the audio. Despite the fact that we had multiple links and that the system was set up to automatically change frequency, multiple audio drop-outs occurred. We experimented with the different types of internet available at both ends of the link (fibre and aDSL) and we noted some improvement but the audio quality was still not of the standard expected in Broadcast Radio and by our listeners.

When searching for a back-up solution, I remembered SureStream technology which WorldCast Systems had initially proposed to us when purchasing our codecs. At the time, we didn’t feel that it would be required but I started to wonder if it may help with our current issues.  So we got in touch and were able to trial SureStream on our link to see how it performed. 

We enabled SureStream across our main STL, sending duplicate streams across two links, in our case a public aDSL and a fiber connection and we were able to see very quickly just how effective it was.

From the user interface on the APT IP Codec, we can see that both links continue to suffer from packet losses on a regular basis but, since we activated SureStream, these internet issues have no impact on our broadcast audio and we don’t experience any interruptions or drop-outs.

Naturally, we then purchased the license for SureStream and we at Radio Fidélité, and our listeners are very pleased to consistently experience audio with no interruptions!”

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