[BC] sports audio feed

[R.V.Zeigler]

Dennis,
We have tried the air card connection with mixed results. We find some 
places where it is usable, not great, but usable. Others, not really. We 
have air cards on Verizon (ex-Alltel) and Viaero and have found the same 
with both. We think of air cards as having "dial up" speed, which here 
in Nebraska seems to be the norm. Our greatest use of air cards is 
sending field recorded files back to the station. Takes a while, but it 
does give us good actualities from the Farm Dept. folks in the middle of 
a corn or soy bean test plot.
Our sports dept. carries JK Sport mixers, laptops, and cell phones, so 
they can use cell, POTS, or WiFi for the bulk of the games. They also 
carry 200' of Cat. 6 on a reel for internet or POTS. We have had very 
good luck with Skype when, and this is a big WHEN, the internet 
connection on the game side of things is decent. We have large and small 
schools we work from and the surprising fact we found was that the 
smaller schools had better connectivity.
One thing we do, right or wrong, is take the quality of feed from the 
venue into consideration when we determine how we are going to broadcast 
the game. If it is one of "those places" that we know has poor cell, 
poor connectivity, and no POTS, we usually only stream that game and do 
not air it. Surprisingly, we get almost the same money!
Rod

R. V. Zeigler, Dir. of Eng.
Nebraska Rural Radio Assn.
KRVN-KTIC-KNEB
Newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/RRNnews