Inovonics 525N Installation & User Manual Download Page 1

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525N

AM Modulation Monitor

with Networking

Installation & User Guide

www.inovonicsbroadcast.com

Summary of Contents for 525N

Page 1: ...525N AM Modulation Monitor with Networking Installation User Guide www inovonicsbroadcast com ...

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Page 3: ...are Rev 1 0 0 0 Inovonics Inc 5805 Highway 9 Felton CA 95018 Tel 831 458 0552 Fax 831 458 0554 Register online at www inovonicsbroadcast com PRODUCT REGISTRATION RECORD 525N Serial No __________________ Purchase Date _____________________ Warranty Registered Web Reg Date __________ By ____________ ...

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Page 5: ...THE 525N 10 Rack Requirement Heat Dissipation AC MAINS POWER 10 Fuseholder Mains Voltage Selector Power Cord RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE R F I 11 Location Ground Loops RF INPUT SELECTION 11 Antenna Input High Level Input High Level Gain Set PROGRAM AUDIO OUTPUT 12 ALARM TALLY OUTPUTS 12 Alarm Closure Polarity Section III BASIC SETUP AND OPERATION FRONT PANEL VS WEB INTERFACE SETUP 14 NAVIGATING T...

Page 6: ...DIO MONITOR SETTINGS 23 Audio Bandwidth Selection NRSC De Emphasis RECEPTION AND MEASUREMENT CONSIDERATIONS 24 Performance Limitations Section IV NETWORK SETUP CONNECTING WITH THE 525N 26 Connect the 525N DHCP Entering a Static IP Address Gateway Subnet Mask and Primary DNS HOOKING UP 27 COMPLETING THE NETWORK SETUP 28 The Network Page ACCESSING THE 525N REMOTELY 29 Dynamic DNS SNMP OPERATION 30 S...

Page 7: ... Signal Quality Peak Flashers NOW PLAYING 38 RSSI and Noise Alarms Receiver Tuning Station Presets GRAPHS AND METERING 39 Peak Modulation Meter History ALARMS AND NOTIFICATIONS 40 Overmod Alarm Audio Loss and Low Signal Alarms Email Notifications The Alarm Log Alarm Log Capacity Downloading and Clearing the Alarm Log Section VI UPDATING THE 525N THE FIRMWARE UPDATER 44 Warning Firmware Update File...

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Page 9: ...25N is supplied with a large aperture outdoor loop an tenna The directionality of this antenna can help reject adja cent and on channel signals that could affect measurements Features Leading features of the Model 525N include Maintains AM measurement accuracy with HD Radio hybrid transmissions and power saving MDCL modes Easy menu driven front panel setup and operation An intuitive Web interface ...

Page 10: ...ection See Figure 3 Audio Distortion Typically 0 15 THD at 50 carrier modula tion 0 5 at 99 modulation Modulation Display The peak responding front panel bargraph readout shows positive and negative mod ulation peaks simultaneously with extend ed persistence of the most recent highest peak value Measurement resolution is 1 between 50 and 100 negative and 50 and 140 positive modulation and 2 be twe...

Page 11: ...audio cut filter in the program audio and headphone outputs of the Model 525N This filter does not affect modulation measurements which always follow the FLAT response noted regardless of the audio cutoff selected Figure 2 Model 525N Off Air Measurement Response FLAT and Program Audio Cutoff Options Figure 2 above does not reflect the truncated 75µs NRSC de emphasis characteristic graphed below in...

Page 12: ...LOCAL OSC FIRST IF AMP SECOND IF AMP 15kHz LPF PHASE COMP VARIABLE LOW PASS NRSC DE EMPH PROGRAM AUDIO OUT CARRIER LEVEL INTEGRATOR AGC AMP NEGATIVE PEAK DETECTOR POSITIVE PEAK DETECTOR NOISE AMP MCU MICRO CONTROLLER SECTION A D A D A D A D OUTPUT DRIVERS ALARM TALLIES LINE AMP RF STAGE AGC AMP LAN PORT PANEL CONTROLS AND READOUTS BALANCED MIXER BALANCED MIXER ...

Page 13: ...ANTENNA The untuned loop antenna supplied with the 525N has a fig ure 8 pickup pattern with maximum sensitivity in line with the loop plane off the edge The antenna is cleverly fashioned from common PVC sprinkler pipe to be weatherproof under most circumstances a specification easily stated by us Califor nians who don t have much experience with real winters Your own common sense and experience wi...

Page 14: ...ient equipment may radiate substantial second hand heat so be sure that the equipment rack is adequately ventilated to keep its internal temperature below the specified maximum ambient AC MAINS POWER Fuseholder The fuseholder is at the far left of the front panel Apply downward pressure and pull the cap toward you to access the 5mm mains fuse Note that the cap has space inside for a spare fuse The...

Page 15: ...d green with a yellow stripe for earth ground Please keep these straight RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE R FI Location The Model 525N is a high performance wideband AM receiver requiring reasonable caution when using it in the vicinity of high power transmitters As an off air receiver the 525N was intended for use at the studio rather than at the transmitter site At the transmitter site the rear pane...

Page 16: ...cies The 525N will tune the signal applied to this input at its normal frequency and also at an indicated fre quency 600kHz above the actual transmission if this is within the tuning range of the 525N High Level Gain Set A 15 turn potentiometer marked LEVEL SET is adjacent to the BNC connector Use this to trim the gain of the high level in put for the signal applied This input benefits from a cert...

Page 17: ...drive an opto coupler or a remote LED indicator Alarm Closure Polarity Alarms may be programmed independently to either ground when triggered or can sit normally in a grounded condition and go open when triggered This is set up from the No 7 CLOSURE POLARITY menu or by using the Web interface The factory default is for these tallies to go from an open circuit to a ground for the alarm condition Th...

Page 18: ...will be used without a network connection We thus recommend starting with front panel setup as this method not only gives the immediate gratification of a hands on experience but is necessary for initiating network connec tivity in the first place NAVIGATING THE MENU AND SELECTING OPTIONS The lower right hand side of the LCD display is set aside for MENU AND ALARMS identification leaving the great...

Page 19: ...525N memory when the brackets are removed or after a 30 second timeout returns the PEAK MODULATION screen Flashing Alarms Low signal and audio loss fault conditions will trigger flashing front panel indications concurrent with rear panel tally logic outputs and Web interface notifications Setup of these alarms is detailed in discussions beginning on Page 21 NOTE With no station tuned in a LOW SIGN...

Page 20: ...defaults to show PEAK MODULATION When the title of this screen changes the SEL select buttons are locked out To return to SET FREQUENCY press the upper MENU button Tuning Increments Tuning steps may be set either to the 10kHz increments com mon to the Western Hemisphere or to 9kHz steps for Europe and other areas Scroll down to Menu No 3 SET OPTIONS to set channel spacing for your area Tuning Pres...

Page 21: ...n this section This total mod display has 1 resolution down to 50 and 2 steps between 50 and 20 Indicated modulation will be an accurate measurement consistent with the signal level and in terference factors that are addressed next MONITORING SIGNAL STRENGTH Cycle the MENU EDIT buttons to bring up the No 2 SIGNAL AND NOISE screen NOTE This display screen does not time out after 60 seconds and defa...

Page 22: ...enna signal by replacing the loop antenna with a short length of wire or use a direct high level input connection and adjust the rear panel LEVEL SET pot for an in dication of about 60dBuV Of course the numbers will not rep resent the actual dBuV level at the high level input connector in such a case but the numbers still serve as a relative indica tor MONITORING INTERFERENCE The synchronous detec...

Page 23: ...spillover will cause both positive and negative indications to read high SETTING THE PEAK FLASHERS The 525N has two sets of front panel LED peak flashers to show overmodulation The larger top and bottom red LEDs indicate the absolute US and some other coutries legal limits of 100 and 125 modulation The two smaller yellow LEDs may be programmed by the user to show when alternative values are exceed...

Page 24: ...will take interest in his behavior The longer he spends at or above the limit the more likely he is to be pulled over Bring up SET OVERMOD Menu No 5 shown below Use SEL but tons to navigate among the fields that can be edited As you cycle the SEL buttons you will see that blinking brackets ap pear around any item that can be changed When an item has brackets around it MENU EDIT buttons are used to...

Page 25: ...set number of seconds Bring up Menu No 5 SET LOW SIGNAL Alarm Trip Point With the SET LOW SIGNAL screen up as shown press SEL but tons to navigate among the fields that can be edited As you cycle the SEL buttons you will see that blinking brackets ap pear around any number that can be changed First position the brackets around the TRIP LEVEL value 35dBuV in the example Next use MENU EDIT buttons t...

Page 26: ...while the transmitter tries to cycle itself back into operation OFF simply means that the carrier must return to a point above the TRIP LEVEL and stay there for the duration of the OFF time before the alarm is reset Settings here pertain to the station that is normally monitored and are probably not the right settings for other stations when the 525N is used to monitor market companions When surf ...

Page 27: ... screen use the SEL buttons to bracket the condition GND or OPEN after each of the three alarm callouts Once the condition is bracketed the MENU EDIT buttons will toggle the rear panel alarm tally polar ity In the example above AUDIO LOSS and OVERMOD termi nals both go to ground for an alarm LOW SIG on the other hand has been programmed to sit normally at ground and go open circuit for an alarm AU...

Page 28: ...quality benchmark in the US But the full advantage of com plementary pre and de emphasis has been negated as many broadcasters have voluntarily opted to chop off high frequen cies drastically so as not to waste modulation Their ra tionale is that silky highs can t be recovered by AM radios that themselves have implemented narrow bandwidths to lessen the effects of manmade RF noise The 525N allows ...

Page 29: ...l several reception anomalies including adjacent channel signals that may not be audible in the program audio Use the signal nulling capability of the loop antenna to reject an intruder and to optimize the desired signal Performance Limitations Although the Model 525N carries the name Reference Receiv er don t be too disappointed if performance seems to fall short of that old Philco console your g...

Page 30: ...ENU EDIT buttons to navigate to Menu No 8 NETWORK DHCP SEL buttons will bracket the status of this menu which then may be toggled between ON and OFF using MENU EDIT buttons Unless you need to assign the 525N a fixed IP address you ll want to have DHCP ON so that your router will automat ically assign connection addresses With DHCP set properly press a SEL button until the bracket disappears so tha...

Page 31: ...dress DHCP ON these menus are locked out Only with DHCP OFF can values for these functions be entered manually just as described for a static IP address Once your 525N is on a network all this may more easily be programmed using the Web interface which is detailed in the next section of this manual HOOKING UP With both the 525N and a computer connected to a common network LAN or Internet bring up ...

Page 32: ... in painstaking manner with front panel buttons Be cause DHCP is selected most of the setup values are grayed out If operation were toggled to Static IP however all these values with the exception of the MAC Address could be en tered and overwritten right here on the screen The MAC Ad dress is unique to the particular hardware of your 525N and cannot be changed You are free to change the Hostname ...

Page 33: ...a specific port for the 525N on the net work router Within the router s Port Forwarding utility you will be able to enter your static IP address for the unit Internal IP followed by a colon and a port number The default port number for the 525N is 80 but as we pointed out earlier it may be changed to any reasonable number in the router s range If your Internet Service Provider ISP assigns you a st...

Page 34: ...ith the Hostname of your 525N they re different titles entirely Go back to the box above and click on the provider you have chosen Then type the setup information right onto the screen and click Save This will allow you to access your 525N operat ing under a dynamic IP address SNMP OPERATION SNMP Overview SNMP or Simple Network Management Protocol allows other TCP UDP IP equipment on the same Loca...

Page 35: ...erating choices shown in the inset Changing the Mode to Read Only allows the 525N to be interro gated by the SNMP Manager so that 525N settings metering and alarms can be integrated with other equipment on the network Setting Mode to Read Write allows the SNMP Manager to send commands to the 525N This allows other equipment to change station Presets and adjust 525N setup parameters Al ways click S...

Page 36: ... ab breviated SNMP is a complex utility managed exclusively by whatever SNMP Manager the monitoring equipment is em ployed Refer to published instructions for the SNMP Manager in setting up the 525N Wikipedia has a good overview of SNMP operation EMAIL PREFERENCES Mail Server Setup The email server settings and email addresses for the various recipients of email or SMS text message alerts are ente...

Page 37: ...test message to all recipients TIMEKEEPING Open the Time Time Zone Web screen to set up the internal timekeeping function of the 525N Correct timekeeping is es sential for tagging alarm notifications and for useful Alarm Log listings Select your offset from Universal Coordinated Time using the Time Zone Hours slider When this is set correctly local time will show at the top of the window You may m...

Page 38: ... setup all over again we recommend periodically downloading and saving a Hardware Profile This retains all the setup data and can be uploaded back to the 525N The procedure is described shortly Of course the old lost password is part of the Hardware Profile so you must edit this file before uploading it otherwise you ll be right back where you started The snapshot at the right shows the very botto...

Page 39: ...ds folder un less you are asked for a specific save to location The file has a default name of 525Nsettings ini To upload a saved Hardware Profile to your 525N bring up the Admin page and click Browse to locate the saved profile on your computer Then click Upload Hardware Profile This will replace all setup parameters currently loaded and running in your unit with the saved Hardware Profile setup ...

Page 40: ...hich is always the full bandwidth FLAT response shown in the plot NRSC De Emph may also be switched In or Out here The NRSC curve is illustrated in Figure 3 on Page 7 Secondary Peak Flashers The programmable peak flashers the yellow pair that may be set to trip points determined by the user are programmed with the POS PK Flash and NEG PK Flash sliders You may grab and drag the sliders with your po...

Page 41: ...audio from your 525N without bringing Web pages up onto a screen This involves entering the IP address of the unit into a browser address bar followed by a unique listening utility extension Access streams directly at URL mp3_128 mp3 or for the lower data rate URL mp3_64 mp3 The entry in your browser ad dress bar should resemble the example at the right From this point you can even create a Deskto...

Page 42: ...s detector see Page 18 and is a relative indication only Arbitrary scaling goes from zero to 9 and any reading over 2 should be considered grounds to suspect the accuracy of the peak modulation readout Alarms The three alarms here Audio Loss Low Signal and Overmod have parameters that are programmed by the user see Pages 19 23 These alarms trigger tally outputs text message email alerts and SNMP t...

Page 43: ...ar displays show positive and negative modulation con currently with a floating peak hold segment hanging at the maximum level attained These meters follow the front panel LCD display exactly except that the Web interface meter is lin ear over the entire range and the LCD is compressed below 50 The Pos and Neg numbers above the meters are continually updated with the held peak values They display ...

Page 44: ...ved as an image file using the computer s Prt Scr utility or any popular screen snipping tool ALARMS AND NOTIFICATIONS Overmod Alarm The Overmod alarm reflects the trigger criteria described under its local front panel setup beginning on Page 19 Closure re lates solely to the 525N rear panel tally output assigning it ei ther to follow the integrated Alarm function or the instanta neous maximum lim...

Page 45: ...e at least one Recipient listed on the Email Pref erences Web interface page for the automatic message dispatch utility of the 525N to function Refer back to Page 32 for in structions on entering personnel into the Recipient list In the Email Notifications section of the Web screen click the ar row at the right of the Recipient box This will display a pull down list showing all potential recipient...

Page 46: ...r station at 640kHz seems to have left the air just before 7 30PM on February 27 Chuck received Audio Loss and Low Signal alarms on his phone at that time But that trusty old Conti nental must have reset itself because both the carrier and pro gram audio were back a few minutes later and Chuck would have seen a text message to that effect too Something else might still be hosed up because there wa...

Page 47: ...ts up an independent email notification to everyone when the alarm log reaches the set point This email notifica tion can be an alert to a frequently recurring problem or simp ly serve as a reminder to downloaded and clear the log Downloading and Clearing the Alarm Log Clicking Down load Alarm Log opens a browser dialog box where the log either may be opened at once with a de fault text reader or ...

Page 48: ...a simple software routine that runs on any PC connected to the same network as the 525N Refer to Section IV Page 26 for specifics on assuring a connection between the 525N and your computer This must be a wired LAN connec tion for both the PC and for the 525N Attempts to use a Wi Fi link are doomed to failure Warning A firmware update may or may not restore the 525N to facto ry defaults If so all ...

Page 49: ...s will bring up the In formation message shown here advising that the Firmware Updater does not yet find the 525N Click OK to start the firmware updating utility and dis play its main screen The bootloader window outlines the firmware update process in three easy steps The first step advises that the 525N must itself be in the bootloader firmware update mode From the front panel of the 525N naviga...

Page 50: ...your unit comes back with factory default values then upload a Hardware Profile to reclaim all user setup parameters Page 35 Updating the Web Interface Pages If a new version of firm ware calls for an update of the Web interface pages there will be an extra Web page Uploader exe file in the Firmware Update folder The snapshot at the right identifies this file with an arrow Immediately after the fi...

Page 51: ... at repair or modification or if the serial identi fication label has been removed or altered III TERMS OF WARRANTY Inovonics Inc products are warranted to be free from defects in materials and workmanship A Any discrepancies noted within THREE YEARS of the date of delivery will be repaired free of charge or the equipment will be replaced with a new or remanufactured product at Inovonics op tion B...

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