Crown RFBA, User Manual

Page 1: ...lic Service Band Triple Receiver FM MPX Translator and AM FM NOAA Weather Band Public Service Band Triple Modulation Monitor Document Revision History V0 9 27APR2012 CHT Preliminary Release V1 03 30APR2012 CHT Release V1 04 25JUN2012 CHT Update for Public Service Band V1 05 19NOV2012 CHT Typos Fixed and Updated for Firmware 1 04 V1 10 19MAR2013 CHT Updated for Firmware 1 10 V1 20 8JUL2014 CHT Upda...

Page 2: ...aration SASS 7 Mixed Combination of Other Configurations 8 System Overview 8 Functionality 8 Block Diagram 8 Front Panel 9 User Interface 9 Tuner Setup Menu 11 Tuner Monitor Menu 13 MPX Setup Menu 16 Network Setup Menu 19 System Setup Menu 20 Front Panel Lock Out 22 Web Server 23 User Interface 23 Appliance Home 23 Receiver Status 24 Modulation Analyzer 25 Device Setup 26 Contact Info 35 SNMP Simp...

Page 3: ...RFBA RFBA Plus User Manual Crown Broadcast Page 3 USB flash drive requirements 37 FCC IC Compliance 38 Class A Product 38 Class B Product 38 Contact Information 39 Crown Broadcast 39 Sales 39 Service 39 ...

Page 4: ... Tuner Monitor Menu 14 Figure 11 MPX Setup Menu 17 Figure 12 Network Setup Menu 19 Figure 13 System Menu 20 Figure 14 Relay Codes 22 Figure 15 Web Server Navigation Menu 23 Figure 16 Appliance Home 24 Figure 17 Receiver Status 25 Figure 18 Modulation Analyzer 26 Figure 19 Device Setup Receivers 27 Figure 20 Device Setup MPX Output 28 Figure 21 Device Setup Alerts 30 Figure 22 Device Setup Network ...

Page 5: ...from each tuner and a relay output for configurable alerts The power jack is used to power the RFBA unit via the included power supply at 12Volts 1 Amp Please note that not all power supplies are created equal The power supply that ships with the RFBA was specifically selected for its noise performance in the bands of interest Figure 1 Front View Figure 2 Rear Views The Phoenix connector mating pa...

Page 6: ... your RFBA unit to the full capabilities of the RFBA Plus please contact Crown Broadcast for sales and demo information Installation and Configurations Your RFBA is versatile and designed to handle many user configurations The typical configurations for the RFBA are Triple Tuner for EAS CAP Triple Tuner Modulation Monitor Standalone FM Translator with RDS Encoding or a Mixed Combination of Other C...

Page 7: ...Tuner 1 In contrast to older translator designs the RFBA does not simply pass through a down converted FM multiplex Instead the audio and RDS data are recovered using world class automotive grade reception algorithms customized for translator purposes A new FM multiplex with optional RDS data is then created digitally The composite output signal is available on the BNC connector on the rear of the...

Page 8: ...world class receiver performance Tuner parameters have been optimized by experts in AM FM reception to provide the best overall performance for this specific product eliminating the need for broadcasters to make adjustments The receiver is capable of tuning 1 FM frequencies from 76 00 108 00 MHz in steps of 0 05 MHz 50 kHz 2 AM frequencies from 520 1710 kHz in 10 kHz increments 3 AM frequencies fr...

Page 9: ...rs The navigation control has up down left right and enter buttons Long pressing the up or down button will auto increment decrement the current field until the button is released Some of the more advanced features of the RFBA are only accessible via the Ethernet interface though these features are generally only applicable when Ethernet is TUNER 1 Audio DSP Left Left BNC Composite Out Micro 40 x ...

Page 10: ...Squelch Squelch Level RSSI Alert De Emphasis Main Meter PPM threshold PPM Holdoff Hi jack Avoidance Hi jack PID RX PID Mono Stereo Bandwidth Audio Level Tuner 2 Monitor RSSI dBuV RSSI bar graph RDS PID PSNAME PTY PTYN UTC Time UTC Offset Local Time Local Date TP TA MS DI Modulation Analyzer Pilot Level RDS Level SCA 67 kHz SCA 92 kHz Peaks Minute Modulation Deviation Positvie Deviation Negative Au...

Page 11: ...ather band channels on one tuner In the dual band receiver mode frequency 1 audio is output to the left channel and frequency 2 audio is output to the right channel Dual NOAA weather band mode requires a software key to enable the feature Frequency This menu allows the user to program the received frequency for each band The channel spacing and band limits are determined based on the band and regi...

Page 12: ...only choose RSSI MOD or OFF for Tuner 1 PPM Threshold This allows control of the peaks per minute readings in the Peaks Minute section of the modulation analyzer The user can adjust the percentage modulation trigger threshold in which the PPM counter will start counting The nominal setting for this control is 105 PPM Holdoff This allows control of the peaks per minute readings in the Peaks Minute ...

Page 13: ...iguration use the outputs and GND as the audio reference In FIGURE 9 conversions from dBV to Vrms and Vpk pk are included for reference Note that the Vrms and Vpk pk are actually twice that level when using the differential signals dBV 3 0 2 5 2 0 1 5 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 Vrms 1 413 1 334 1 259 1 189 1 122 1 059 1 000 0 944 0 891 0 841 0 794 0 750 0 708 0 668 Vpk pk 3 995 3 772 ...

Page 14: ... 2 3 5 V r m s P E A K S M I N U T E 1 2 9 MO D 1 0 3 D E V 1 0 2 k z D E V 8 2 k z L E F T 1 0 3 R G H T 1 0 3 L R 2 d B L R 3 5 d B A MN 4 MP T H 2 0 Figure 10 Tuner Monitor Menu RSSI dBµV This is the Received Signal Strength Indicator and is displayed in units of dB relative to 1µV at the antenna input The RSSI range is valid from 0 dBµV to 65 dBµV RSSI This is the Received Signal Strength Indi...

Page 15: ...RDS TA This is the decoded RDS Traffic Announcement TA flag It is used in conjunction with the Traffic Program TP flag for traffic announcements RDS MS This is the decoded RDS Music Speech switch A 0 indicates a Speech program and a 1 indicates a Music Program RDS DI This is the decoded RDS Decoder Information DI value The DI value ranges from 0 15 and identifies various operating modes for the RD...

Page 16: ...dulator prior to the demux operation of the stereo decoder This is measuring the level of the L R portion of the composite signal This reading is expressed in log units of dB referenced to 75 kHz Audio Left Right This is the output of the stereo demodulator prior to the demux operation of the stereo decoder This is measuring the level of the L R portion of the composite signal This reading is expr...

Page 17: ...teps Pilot Level The user can adjust the 19 kHz pilot on the composite output The value is referenced to the MPX Level as a percentage The user can adjust the pilot level in 0 1 steps The default setting is 9 and has a range between 0 and 10 RDS STATE The user can turn the RDS encoder on or off with this adjustment If the off state is chosen then the remaining parameters for RDS adjustment will no...

Page 18: ...et the RDS encoder to use the received TP from Tuner 1 PASS THRU or the user specified TP USER Use the navigation keys to select the TP state Push the enter button to have the RFBA accept the new RDS TP state USER TP The user can set the RDS encoder Traffic Program TP to a specified value Use the navigation keys to select the Traffic Program Push the enter button to have the RFBA accept the new RD...

Page 19: ... the new RDS CT state RT SOURCE The user can set the RDS encoder to use the received Radio Text RT from Tuner 1 PASS THRU or off OFF Use the navigation keys to select the RT state Push the enter button to have the RFBA accept the new RDS RT state SASS Alignment The Stand alone Automatic Stereo Separation alignment menu is used to initiate the stereo separation routine To start this routine connect...

Page 20: ...equest to change the subnet address This change will not take effect until the RFBA is rebooted either through the soft reset command or cycling power MAC This displays the MAC address of the RFBA The user cannot modify this value It is used for display purposes only System Setup Menu The RFBA system menu is designed to show the general features of this product A description of each of the monitor...

Page 21: ...cted by restoring factory defaults RELAY The relay can be programmed to close on many events The user can select the various combinations based on the codes shown in Figure 14 The user may also set these parameters via the Ethernet connection The LCD control will show three values separated by a colon The first value represents the squelch control for tuner 1 the second value for tuner 2 and the t...

Page 22: ...orized person from either changing or viewing the settings of the RFBA To unlock press and hold the up and down button simultaneously for more than 5 seconds The screen lockout will persist across a power down to prevent an unauthorized person from trying to bypass the lockout Mod An Key The user may enter the 16 character modulation analyzer key by entering into this menu A second menu will be di...

Page 23: ...ended as a web browser as it will require transferring more data to update web pages Crown recommends using either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox The various screens of the web server can be accessed by the navigation area in the upper left of the web page as shown in FIGURE 15 Figure 15 Web Server Navigation Menu Appliance Home The Appliance Home page FIGURE 16 shows the Model Number the Serial...

Page 24: ...trength Indicator and Total Deviation If the Modulation Monitor is not installed then Tuner 2 and Tuner 3 will show Not Available in the Total Deviation cells This page also shows any Alerts that are active for the RFBA such as Squelched RSSI Low or Hi Jacked Note that the RDS AF Alternate Frequency decoder is currently limited to Method A decoding of FM frequencies only which is inherently limite...

Page 25: ...t Page 25 Figure 17 Receiver Status Modulation Analyzer The Modulation Analyzer page FIGURE 18 shows the complete breakdown of the received signals for all three tuners A description of each item can be found in the TUNER MONITOR MENU Section ...

Page 26: ...er to set the region for the device North America Europe Japan the desired band AM FM Weather WX Public Service PS and the frequency which can be selected from a pull down box to ensure valid frequencies for that band and region In FM Band the user can also select whether to enable De Emphasis in the audio and whether to force the receiver to Mono forcing the receiver to Mono on Tuner 1 will also ...

Page 27: ...nents as these will be set to maximum FCC allowed values based upon the other selections The default MPX amplitude is 1 25Vrms but is adjustable in 1mV increments This page also allows for selection of user settings or pass through of received RDS data and will hide non applicable settings The RFBA currently supports RDS AF Alternate Frequency encoding using Method A of FM frequencies only and is ...

Page 28: ...erts Setup page FIGURE 21 allows the user to configure alerts for each tuner The user can also select options to trigger a relay to send an email and to send SNMP Traps based on the alerts Alert options based upon Modulation Analyzer statistics will be available only if your unit has the Modulation ...

Page 29: ...RFBA RFBA Plus User Manual Crown Broadcast Page 29 Monitor key installed Details for the Alerts and various configuration options can be found in the TUNER SETUP MENU Section ...

Page 30: ...RFBA RFBA Plus User Manual Crown Broadcast Page 30 Figure 21 Device Setup Alerts ...

Page 31: ... the Subnet Mask and the Default Gateway address It also displays the MAC address for the RFBA The Bandwidth Reduction pull down box is used to enable the Ethernet Nagle algorithm which is used to packetize the Ethernet data This function can be enabled for long latency low bandwidth applications such as remote sites with a satellite connection Figure 22 Device Setup Network IPV4 ...

Page 32: ...l Crown Broadcast Page 32 Network SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or E Mail The SMTP Setup page FIGURE 23 allows the user to configure the email account settings for use with email alerts Figure 23 Device Setup Network SMTP ...

Page 33: ...f SNMP Figure 24 Device Setup Network SNMP System The System Setup page FIGURE 25 displays the same information as the Appliance Home page but also includes the input method for the user selectable timeout values and software keys to add features such as the Modulation Monitor The Main Screen Timeout and Screen Lockout Time both offer 3 pull down choices OFF 1 minute and 5 minutes Details on these...

Page 34: ...RFBA RFBA Plus User Manual Crown Broadcast Page 34 Figure 25 Device Setup System ...

Page 35: ...NMP server consult the documentation for your SNMP management system The MIB file for the RFBA that is required by your SNMP manager is included on the RFBA s internal web server as is shown in the NETWORK SNMP SIMPLE NETWORK MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL Section After updating your RFBA s firmware you should always download a new MIB file to insure that you have access to the latest features of your Broadc...

Page 36: ...Range 520 1710 kHz Step Size Region dependent 9 10 kHz Sensitivity 20 dB SINAD 80 AM 1 dBµVemf THD 80 AM 0 15 SNR 80 AM 69 dB NOAA Weather Tuner Tuning Range 162 40 162 55 MHz Step Size 25 kHz Sensitivity 12 dB SINAD 6 0 dBµV Adjacent Channel Rejection 60 dB Public Service Tuner Tuning Range 144 000 175 000 MHz Step Size 5 kHz Sensitivity 12 dB SINAD 6 0 dBµV MPX Output Amplitude Rload 75 Ω 1 4 Vp...

Page 37: ...s will skip the version check and force the update Starting with firmware revision 1 03 there will also be an EEPROM update This update is similar to the flash update The EEPROM filename must always be image cei on the USB drive After the RFBA has loaded the latest flash firmware update it will check to verify that it also has the correct EEPROM image If the EEPROM image is out of date then it wil...

Page 38: ...15 105 b NOTE This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions ...

Page 39: ... Plus User Manual Crown Broadcast Page 39 Contact Information Crown Broadcast Website www CrownBroadcast com Sales Phone 1 574 262 8900 Email FMSales irec1 com Service Phone 574 218 6547 Email Service irec1 com ...