Broadband connection through broadcast desk

I am a presenter on a voluntary radio station in Milton Keynes (www.crmk.co.uk)

We have one phone line for both BB and telephone. We are unable to take calls on air, because when the phone is answered, it drops the Internet feed.

Our tech guys cannot seem to fix the problem.

Any ideas how we can resolve this without the expense of a second phone line?

Do you have ASDL microfilters in place everywhere?
Putting an extra filter between the existing phone and filter can sometimes help too.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235 may help, and it is also worth trying the various filters/phones in the master sockets test socket, this disconnects any extensions which depending on the amount of stuff you have may be picking up excessive noise.

Obviously doing this when on-air is not ideal as it means unplugging the ADSL.

In reply to:

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Obviously doing this when on-air is not ideal as it means unplugging the ADSL.

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And all the phones. And only getting one back while in the test socket.

Thanks to both you and RobertoS for your advice. I'll pass it on to our tech guys.

The phone insatllation is quite old, and only has an old-style master socket with no removable faceplate.

The existing setup is as follows:

One master socket, fitted with a two piggybacked doublers (Don't ask me why?)

The remaining socket on the first doubler has a filter and is connected to the BB computer.

Both sockets on the second doubler have filters.

Filter 1 feeds the answerphone, which has a payphone attached
Filter 2 feeds the desk where the studio phone is attached.

Filters fitted to both doubler outlets.

Seems to me there are too many doublers in use, and the setup should be either:

1 Doubler, with filters on both sockets

Filter 1 feeds an answerphone, which has a payphone attached.
Filter 1 is also used for the BB computer

Filter 2 feeds to the broadcast desk, the studio phone is connected to the desk.

or

Master socket with filter attached

Doubler in filter
Doubler socket 1 to Answerphone + Payphone
Doubler socket 2 to desk + studio phone
Filter to BB computer

The cable runs for the desk and the computer are about 25 - 30 feet
The studio phone is an ancient 'dial' type with a flashing neon in the handset, so it rings silent in the studio.

I hope this all makes sense.

Just had another thought, could it be a REN problem?

To my mind the simplest fix for that would be to buy a filtered faceplate with a mounting box. That can be fed with a short lead from the current master. Feed all the extensions off the filtered faceplate connectors and the adsl from the socket on the front.

Sure it requires a bit of rewiring but what you have right now clearly isn't fit for purpose.

If nobody is capable of doing it just pay BT to replace the existing master with a filtered facelpale and wire up the other extensions.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/install.html#226

In pictures

Given current kit a better solution may be...

Master socket with single ADSL filter - and ADSL plugged into this, then a doubler added to support the phones, if more than 2 sockets needed you'll have to daisychain the doublers.

Effectively this is moving the ADSL closer to the socket, and reducing chances of interference.

Not applicable...

In reply to:

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The phone insatllation is quite old, and only has an old-style master socket with no removable faceplate.

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.. which is why I suggested what I did rather than just a filtered faceplate.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

I've passed all the relevent info on to our technical team.

In the meantime, I had another look at the socket last night, and it does indeed seem to have a removeable faceplate, although I have not removed it.

I did re-arrange the doublers and filters, so now the situation is:

Master socket to ADSL Filter to Doubler
ADSL Filter to Internet Computer
Doubler Socket 1 to Answerphone to Payphone
Doubler Socket 2 to Broadcast Desk to Studio Phone

A significant reduction on the original three filters and two doublers, and in my opinion a neater setup as it cuts down on the number of possible places for a faulty inter-connection and the computer is that much nearer the master socket (as proposed by another contributor)

Since it is a fairly long way from the master socket to the computer and desk, and it looks like standard phone cable, I suppose the next thing to do would be to replace the wiring with twisted pair or Cat 5.

Would putting additional filters between the doubler and the answerphone and/or broadcast desk have any benefit? I thought once the line was filtered, that was it!

Everything seems to work and most importantly, the Internet Stream has not suffered, however, I don't yet know if the stream is interupted by an incoming phone call. The phone line only accepts incoming calls (stops misuse), and our shows get surprisingly few phone calls as most people will text us. (E-mails cannot be received in the studio, as our technical director does not want an Internet connected computer available to the broadcasters in case they mis-use it! Even the computer used for streaming is hidden away in a locked and ventilated cupboard, we don't even get to see the monitor!)

Of course our tech team may disagree, but that's thier perogative. I only hope they try putting the phone through the thesk again to see if it works before they decide to re-jig the set-up.

Thanks again for your help, and I'll let you know if things are any better ..... eventually.

Standard phone cable has twists in the pairs inside the sheathing so is fine.

It is a case of trying the incoming call and see what happens, occassionally double filters for a phone can help to reduce noise on the phone, but rarely do they help with disconnects on an incoming call