Day 11 - More Audio

Hello again,

It looks like I am moving towards a one day a week posting schedule. The problem is that with audio cables, so much work is put into running one line that the entire process takes a good amount of time.

Speaking of the process, I guess I should go through that for anyone who would like to know. Unlike video cables, which only require a BNC end to be crimped onto the cable, audio cables require much more intensive work to be done. Starting at the patch panels, each line must be stripped, heat shrink tubing added, dressed with zip ties, and punched down. This is required in order to make a clean looking rack, of course. As you can see in the pictures below, the outcome is very clean looking. Then to the DA side of things, each line going to and coming from the audio DAs must be attached to small screw terminals. These require tedious and tiering work to be done to attach all the leads. And on the device side of things, each cable end must be soldered onto the cable. Most of the time, each connector requires two or three leads to be soldered. On top of all this, you must multiply every stereo line by two in order to run the left and right channels. As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done...

At this point, a majority of line coming into the audio patch panels have been run. All the inputs to and from the tape decks, router, audio board, and studio patch panels have been ran and punched-down at the patch panels. Whats left is running outputs from the audio DAs to the patch panels, running lines to and from each of the processing boxes, and COMM lines. Studio patch panel 1 (located behind the studio door) has been completed along with a coat of black paint to allow it to blend in better than the beige color it was previously. Work began on Studio panel 2 (located behind the set on the opposite wall from panel 1) by drilling the holes for the panel connectors and also giving it a coat of black paint.

Also, an exciting event happened for us as well. We two of the four components of the new monitor wall. As you can see in the pics below, we received the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that will be the main visible component of the monitor wall. On these two monitors, 24 video displays will be multiplexed using two Avitech 12 input boxes. Those will be coming within the next few weeks.

And one more side note...As always, here at MTTV, we strive to keep true to our roots. As any past member can tell you, we love using antiquated technology (considering we had a 3/4" tape deck and a Cart player still). As you can see below, the VHS deck has been wired and is fully operational.

Till next time...