Earlier this month, our office in Devens, Massachusetts was hit with a nor’easter that left ~3′ of snow. We may have technically entered the season of spring last week, but really – it’s more like “second winter” here.

Comrex ACCESS NX Portable IP Audio Codec

As we pulled on our boots and shoveled our driveways, with downed power lines scattered on the icy roads between employees’ homes and the office, we thought about how our products allow so many of our customers to broadcast from home.

Whether you’re avoiding inclement weather, trying not to get stuck in construction traffic, splitting time between locations, or you just want to work from home – solutions like our current IP audio codec, ACCESS NX Portable, make it possible. 

We talk a lot about how ACCESS portable codecs (NX as well as the older 2USB/Portable Classic models) help broadcasters send live programming from stadiums, breaking news sites, and pretty much any location you can imagine. It’s for on-the-go, in the field, and outside/remote broadcast. But another very common way people use them is to connect to the studio from their house.

ACCESS portable units and our other remote contribution tools like Opal gained a lot of popularity during lockdown, and have since enabled a lasting shift to working from home for many broadcasters. Comrex helped Oregon Public Radio navigate new remote broadcast workflows in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a few years later – their sound supervisor is running a full radio show live from his basement.

Whether it’s a massive winter storm or it’s just wicked cold out (we still remember those negative degree days last month), portability puts you in control and lets you opt-in for a home broadcast. Keep your show on the air when the weather, traffic, or the world in general is conspiring to keep you out of the studio. ACCESS NX is the flexible solution every broadcaster needs.

Learn more about how ACCESS NX can help you – contact sales@comrex.com today.

*Most people just refer to our gear as “the Comrex”, but we make a lot of different products (and now also offer a subscription service, too). So we thought we’d answer the question: What exactly is “a Comrex?”

A bright broadcast-adjacent story:
WBZ-TV meteorologists were in central Mass covering the nor’easter from a couple weeks ago. One member of their team, Jacob Wycoff, connected live to the Boston studio from Ashby, MA which lost 100% power and was one of the cities hardest hit. In the process, he came across Comrex extended family (as in, relatives of one of our team members) with over 30″ of snow and no snow-blower. He helped dig them out personally. Thank you, Jacob!