The GB3OA repeater Shoutcast stream feeder equipment was moved from its temporary beta-testing home at the QTH of David G4TUP to its location by the GB3OA repeater last Saturday 18th January. If you’d been listening to GB3OA on-air and on the feed you would have noticed quite a bit of testing going on in the early afternoon.
Unfortunately, the envisaged position of the feed equipment was located next to trunking that held many cables with different types of data and voltages. When powered up it was found that the feed had a large amount of mains hum and data noise on the audio. Repositioning the equipment slightly within the available area reduced the interference, but still to an unacceptabel level.
It was therefore decided, in the interests of good audio quality, to return the equipment to David’s QTH and continue running it there. Fortunately, in about a months time, a new position will become available close to GB3OA which will be QRN-free.
For those that listen to the stream feed note that the player on shoutcast.com is only a very basic flash player, and suffers from not being able to handle any slight defect in the audio data stream. It’s therefore recommended that users go to The Stream page on the https://gb3oa.org.uk web site and use one of the players there…. Alternatively, those with iPads or iPhones can download the TuneIn app and use that.
David G4TUP.