Press Room

WNWC

WNWC Madison ran an innovative food-drive promotion on Christmas Eve. Broadcasting from atop a billboard for twelve hours with no access to phone lines, they had a great chance to use the Matrix on GSM wireless service. CE Tom Weeden explains :

We started, a few days earlier, by activating a temporary GSM account through Einstein Wireless, and the account's SIM card was easily inserted into the Matrix. Our first indoor test connected successfully, and we were impressed with the audio quality over a 9600 bps connection. We also tried a test from the front seat of the station van in the parking lot using the 12 V cigarette lighter adapter. We could hear a little ignition noise in the remote headphones, but the audio was clean back at the studio. We also tried powering the unit from a 120 V inverter from the van, but had too much AC switching noise in the audio to be usable.

At the remote site in front of WNWC's billboard we set up a generator to power the Matrix, the lights, and a heater due to the frigid temperatures. It was 1 degree below zero when we started, wind chills were hitting minus 25 at times. Since it was so cold, we kept the Matrix inside the station's van and ran long mic cords to the lift where the announcers would do their thing in front of the billboard.

The layout of the controls is easy to figure out, and the audio is fantastic considering the slow bit rate available to work with. We have a Hotline system which usually connects around 24,000 bps. The Matrix audio quality is just about identical at less than half the bits!

Our remote lasted from 6 AM to 6 PM, and except for a one hour break, the Matrix was in use the whole time .

More Info on the Matrix GSM Module