Technical problems cause today’s transmission outages.
The failure of a Vadis server in the ABC’s Master Control room caused today’s transmission outages reported earlier on radioinfo.
This story has been up updated from the original now that we have further details about the equipment that caused the fault.
In old analog transmission chains there were many redundancies, if something failed your engineer could take out a module and replace it, but digital transmissions require different kinds of troubleshooting because they are server based.
The ABC’s technicians are seen here apparently patching around what is assumed to be the failed Vadis server, in a picture taken earlier today through the window of the ABC’s Master Control room by triple j PD Ollie Wards.
An article on the triple j website today identified the Vadis problem and said: “Australia was freaking out via text, the producers were freaking out. My mum even texted me, she was freaking out. Somehow we managed to remain calm, The Preatures were chilled out too. There was nothing we could really do, so we just kept on doing the show as per usual on the off chance that someone somewhere was getting it.”
Readers have also reported that other networks were also off air during the Vadis outage, including Classic FM.
The Latin translation of Quo Vadis is “Where are you going?” We hope that triple j now once again knows where it is going with its technical infrastructure. The outages certainly reminded everyone how important triple j is to listeners all around Australia.
In an earlier version of this article we incorrectly mentioned Klotz desks as being part of the outage problem. Triple j does not use Klotz desks and further technical information received has informed us that none of the broadcast desks were part of the problem, they were all working properly. The problem was in the transmission area.
Klotz is not the manufacturer of Vadis servers. VADIS is an audio and DSP engine which is controlled by a PC or a network of PCs. In most installations the radio stations are managing the IT hardware themselves and Klotz is not involved in the supply of the PC/Server.
It's one of the sad realities of the broadcast industry today. At least in Ultimo there are still a handful of engineers who know something about the system, everywhere else you have to sit and wait on the IT helpline and even when you get through, chances are the person at the other end knows more about Microsoft Word than they do about broadcast infrastructure. Welcome to the 21st century!!
Unless of course you're dealing with RCS, and their new console partner Wheatstone, in which case it's 24/7 with guys in Australia who know the system inside out and are exceptionally well-trained. And from what I gather most of them came from radio so they know the heat that's on you. Never had an issue that they didn't manage to fix, and they always stayed with me until we were back on air. And now with Zetta things just got even easier to manage because it can all be remote. Shame Auntie never invested in RCS systems instead of building their own ;)
ABC Classic-FM dropped out for quite a while during the latter stages of Haydn's masterpiece The Creation. Last time I listened to this work on Classic-FM, something went wrong in the studio and they lost the ending of the work ! I was hoping there would not be a repeat of that - but yes, there was !!
Having once had the frightening experience of hosting a live BBC Radio show very late at night when the 'control surfaces' went berserk (I couldn't hear my microphone working and each item I fired from the playlist appeared to fire the item before it - but studio monitoring was lying and not only was my microphone permanently on, but all the items I fired were playing out simultaneously.....) I have great sympathy for the guys at Triple J. And this is why my own internet station (which syndicates some programming to Oz & NZ) has a state-of-the-art modular ANALOGUE transmission desk!!!
Classic FM was off too, with the most irritating recorded message I think I have ever heard! It was repeated every five seconds!