[BC] Blue Box...

[Burt I. Weiner]

Kevin,

A Blue Box or Hotline should give pretty decent audio at 28 kB, which 
is what the phone company has claimed in the past as a "guaranteed" 
data throughput on a real POTS line.  I use a Hotline as a back up 
for some sports shows and have been told by the far end that even at 
around 19 kB it's acceptable.  I don't know how your using your's, 
but the main thing is it should be acceptable and reliable - CD 
quality it's not.

When I've ordered POTS lines for this kind of use, I tell them I want 
a "modem grade" line.  I don't know if there really is such a thing, 
but that's what telco people have told me to "order" and I've seen 
installer's paperwork saying that the line will be used with a 
modem.  The truth is that nowadays cooper all the way to the C.O. is 
rare and probably not going to happen.  Having the line come to a 
nearby point on fiber and then copper to you is also not the problem. 
VOIP is packeted data and that is a problem.

By the way, the little barrel connector the Blue Box and Hotline use 
for power is a real problem.  Any wiggling of that connector will 
cause gobs of grief.  I changed out the one on my Hotline to a 4 pin 
screw on connector like the ones that used to come with Ham Radio mic 
connectors.  That solved the connector problem.

Burt

At 02:26 PM 7/30/2014, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote
>From: Kevin Kidd <kkbroadcastengineering at gmail.com>
>
>All,
>