New Dual Polarized UHF Omni-Antenna

Now also full C-pol capable

The over the air broadcast market has an increasing demand of dual polarized antenna systems. Especially in the US, where operators can use the vertical polarization as an additional propagation path, dual polarization antennas are highly desirable and sought after for NextGen TV. Up to now, there has not been an UHF plug & play dual polarized broadband omni antenna available in the market.

For horizontal polarized omni radiators, super-turnstile antennas are widely used. KATHREIN has a broad selection of available super-turnstile antennas – the plug & play types are easy to install and have a very low wind load. So, the question was, why not add a vertical polarized component to a super-turnstile based antenna? H-pol and V-pol should be fed separately, to adjust the resulting polarization arbitrary on customer requirements. Flexible mounting options will allow side mount or top mount installation.

Markus Gerl, project manager for the US market in front of a series of new dual polarized omni antennas.
Notice: the two separate inputs for H- and V-pol.

A challenge was to get enough room inside the antenna for the additional dipoles. By shifting the super-turnstile elements and using compact, new developed dipoles for V-pol, this was achieved. Moreover the phase difference between V-pol and H-pol e-field should be constant over the frequency band. This is a point at which many antennas of competitors – already with directional patterns – are struggling. By feeding the V-pol dipoles via an electrical radiating field, this requirement was be fulfilled. To ensure a broadband operation, couplers were used for stable phase conditions.

The test results of this antenna are impressive and show a superior VSWR and an excellent pattern. The first antenna systems were installed at the beginning of this year in the United States. The customers have been very happy with the coverage of the rock solid circular polarized signal of the new antenna systems. The circular polarized signal will improve coverage to mobile devices.

www.kathrein-bca.com

photo: © KATHREIN Broadcast GmbH|Archive

Renewal of the FM network in Namibia

Commissioning of new NBC Combiners

As part of the renewal of the FM network in Namibia, Kathrein supplied numerous FM Combiners with an input power of up to 6x 5 kW, which are used at several stations across the country. The high mechanical stability and robustness, as well as the excellent thermal stability of the Kathrein combiners prove to be a great advantage especially in African regions, where transport routes are often long and very difficult and the climatic conditions also changing frequently. Kathrein project managers Anton Vogl and Gerhard Lerche were on site to work with Mbeno Murangi from the Namibia Broadcasting Corpo-ration (NBC) to adapt the combiners to the narrow conditions and to put them into operation.

After difficult transport through the terrain in Namibia, the combiner modules arrive safely at the station.

www.kathrein-bca.com

Photo: © Vogl|KATHREIN Broadcast GmbH

New KATHREIN FM transmission antenna in “Buraimi”, Oman

Commissioning of an FM Antenna and Combiner

In January 2020, the radio mast in “Buraimi” in the Sultanate of Oman received two new Kathrein FM antennas and one FM 6-channel combiner. Delivery, execution, installation, cooperation with the customer on site and, finally commissioning, went completely smoothly thanks to the professional pre-planning by the Kathrein engineers. Anton Vogl and Bernhard Doll from Kathrein were at the transmitter site for the measurement and acceptance test of the FM system in “Buraimi”, which is now broadcasting 6 FM programs in highest quality.

photo: © Vogl|KATHREIN Broadcast GmbH

FM & DAB+ transmitters of the SWR now in operation

SWR Transmitting Station “Hochblauen” in the Black Forest

Acceptance measurement at the SWR location “Hochblauen”

The quality of the installation of the antenna system is at least as important as the quality of the products themselves to ensure safe and trouble-free operation over a long period. With transmitter powers of up to over 100 kW, even small errors could mean serious damage to the material.

The antennas of the Südwestrundfunk (SWR) at the “Hochblauen” location in the southern Black Forest were completely renewed or replaced in the last half of the year. A very special and tailor-made antenna system was used here for the first time, which made special planning by the KATHREIN engineers necessary. To save space, 3 vertically polarized DAB dipoles were nested in the horizontally polarized VHF system consisting of LogPer antennas. For this, numerous simulations and measurements were necessary in order to meet the specifications in the end.

Viktor Mann and Christian Sautter from Kathrein were on site recently to carry out the acceptance measurements and to hand over the antenna systems to the customer ready for operation.

The acceptance is carried out according to strict specifi-cations, which are set out in the respective specifications of the broadcasting companies. First, the mechanical structure is checked and measured. At the same time, a visual check is carried out and the plug connections of antennas, distributors and cables are checked for tightness. Of course, the acceptance engineers first have to climb the trans-mission mast. Certainly, this is done under strict conditions and the staff is specially educated and trained for this. Working at dizzying heights is really not an enjoyment.

After the mechanical check, the electrical measurements and a test operation are carried out. A key parameter here is the “VSWR matching” or “reflection factor”. With proper planning and execution, this value must be greater than 20 dB for digital transmitters. Only 1% of the transmitting power may be reflected by the transmitting antenna to ensure trouble-free operation. A very tight value, but of course controllable at any time for the Kathrein engineers.

Finally, the “knock test” is carried out. The components of the antenna system are lightly pushed with a fist or a small rubber hammer. At the same time, a colleague in the transmitter room observes the measurement curve on the connected pulse reflectometer. If this remains stable, everything is fine. If there are jumps in the measurement curve in time with the knock, this usually indicates a loose connection. This must then e.g. be lifted by tightening. With the high transmitter powers that are common in broadcasting, poor connections could lead to fires in the system.

Acceptance of the FM and DAB+ transmitting antennas on the “Hochblauen” went smoothly and the system was now ready for use by the customer.

www.kathrein-bca.com

photo: © KATHREIN Broadcast GmbH|Archive

Windload optimized Kathrein FM antenna systems

Low wind load FM LogPer antennas at the “Wittenberg” station

Logarithmic Periodic Antennas in “Wittenberg”

As part of a major customer order, a total of 19 FM panel antenna systems at 14 German radio stations were replaced by Logarithmic Periodic- and Yagi- antenna systems from May to August last year 2019. These antennas have a significantly lower wind load than comparable solutions with panel antennas. In this way, the wind load can be reduced by up to 75% with the same antenna gain. This results in enormous savings for the ongoing operation of the antenna systems. In addition to planning, design and delivery of the antenna systems, Kathrein was also responsible for the entire project management including coordination of the installation and acceptance test.

www.kathrein-bca.com

photo: © TSN Turmbau Steffens & Nölle|Archive

5 Good Questions to Ask Before Buying Object Storage

Make sure these 5 questions are on your list to ask when buying object storage; the uncommon questions can make a big difference longterm

My son left for college yesterday. To say it’s been a winding path to get here is an understatement. Our search took us all over the country as he tried to find the right fit for him. Adding in the impact of Covid-19, one can appreciate how difficult making a major life decision can be without all the information. Luckily, with the power of the internet, he was able to obtain information that he never got to ask in person. But as we packed up his belongings to move with him to his new dorm, a whole slew of questions that we didn’t think to ask while making his decision came up.

We feel good about the easy things to understand (what are the dorms like, where are the dining commons, is the department for his area of study reputable), but we wish we had known to ask for more information. For example, how much storage space is there in the dorm room, are there late-night food options on campus, and how can he engage the alumni network to help with internships/summer jobs? While these may not seem like big items, they will directly impact his life.

The Typical Questions Customers Ask When Buying Object Storage

The other day, I was speaking with a customer who was in the beginning stages of purchasing data storage, specifically object storage, and spent the meeting answering the typical questions. From physical aspects (capacity, footprint, and cooling requirements), performance (IOPs, latency, throughput), management (UI, FTE hours, failed component replacement), support, and, of course, pricing. (Refer to the Checklist for Evaluating Object Storage blog for an extensive list.)

Will a Storage Platform Meet, Exceed or Fail Your Needs?

While some people can make a decision and deploy storage fairly rapidly, it is not unusual to take upwards of 3 years to evaluate, plan, procure and deploy a new storage platform for a complex environment. With this type of time investment, it’s critical that you understand all the aspects that could impact your staff and organization so you can make the right decision. Whether its a 100TB appliance, multi-node cluster or geo-separated, multi-site deployment, certain, less-obvious questions that are missed can be the difference between failing, meeting or exceeding those needs. A lack of in-depth understanding about what a product and vendor will or will not do can result in a purchase of storage that never gets the job done right, so the IT team ends up having to go back through the lengthy purchase and deployment cycle all over again to find the right storage platform.

The Questions Customers Should Not Forget to Ask When Buying Object Storage

Here are some examples of “extra” questions I would ask if I was purchasing an object storage solution:

What is the tech refresh plan compared to your data’s Lifecycle Management?

Most of the customers we speak with hold data anywhere from 7 years to in perpetuity. Regardless of which end of the spectrum your retention plan is, odds are a hardware tech refresh will be required at some point. For some solutions, this is an easy process because the storage software is decoupled from the hardware. This allows customers to have disparate hardware with different components working in unison that empowers a non-invasive and self-performable refresh. On the other hand, some solutions require a total forklift and all the headaches that come along with that approach—such as double the footprint while migrating, version compatibility, additional networking and, in some cases, specialized power and cooling to be deployed. It’s important to find out the hidden costs to refresh which generally hits your budget in year 3, 4 or 5.

What are all the purchasing options?

While it’s common to have the software-defined storage (SDS) vs pre-built appliance conversation, not all think to ask about programs that will utilize perpetual licensing vs subscription agreement. And recently, more organizations are offering a hardware-based consumption model. The specific question I recommend asking is, “Are there custom licensing programs to match the growth, budget and support required to make the platform successful for my use case?”

Are support and services customizable?

A small organization with just a couple of IT people and a large enterprise customer can use the same software, but typically, they need very different levels of support. Some important questions to ask to ensure success are:

Can support be customized to meet the needs of the business, or are there just the standard options to choose from?
Are additional services like health checks, migrations services, or custom integration/development available?
Who can and will deliver the support and services?

It is common for a customer’s support needs to change over time, and it is critical to have options that will meet your future needs.

I’ve seen the roadmap, but what about a feature request?

Storage vendors build new features for a few reasons, including to stay current with the industry standards, add or enhance security, improve management, and facilitate data collection and reporting. Features are typically not developed with a specific customer’s workflow in mind, but rather by what will appeal to the broadest audience. But, what happens when there are specific changes needed to help a single company’s environment? Is that an option, and if so, just how does that get into the storage vendor’s development process and how is it prioritized?

How many operating systems or open-source applications have to be managed as part of the platform?

New versions of the system software (both SDS and appliance-based) will be released over the life of the platform. Asking about the details of the upgrade process (forced downtime vs no downtime is most common), is a normal conversation. But sometimes what is forgotten is how many different pieces have to be maintained. For example:

If one piece is an open-source component, like a database, where does the customer go to get an approved version?
How does a component upgrade impact performance?
What about the underlying operating system (if the platform has one)?
Does the customer need a seperate support contract for that to get help?

Where Can I Learn More About Buying Storage?

These are just some of the questions I would include if I were procuring a new storage platform. Like my son choosing his college, it’s going to be a multi-year relationship with your storage vendor and it’s important to be informed so you can make the right choice. Make sure you ask both the common and uncommon questions. For more information, I recommend watching these webinars:

You Don’t Need Big Bucks to Make Archives Active

How are sports organizations meeting current content demands? Can you do the same by building an active archive for content repurposing?

What is going on right now in sport’s video is giving us a good glimpse of what it takes to run live broadcasts today. Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) are adapting. What fans don’t see are the various processes and procedures the staff and crew must follow to abide by what seem to be continually changing requirements. What is really interesting are the different approaches and resulting production value.

Adapting and Creating New Broadcast Experiences

For example, the NBA invested $170M to secure isolation zones on the Disney Orlando Campus, inviting 22 teams to participate. They have 3 courts they broadcast from and have run hundreds of miles of fibre optic cable to create a unique experience by adding fans to virtual screens all around the court. The UFC hasn’t disclosed the cost of Fight Island, but I am sure they spent the same if not more than the NBA. As the name implies, it is located on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The MLB is taking a more traditional approach by restricting fans at ballparks, but piping in canned audio and, in some instances, putting virtual fans in the stands. In addition, production staff and announcers are isolated as much as possible or broadcasting from home in some instances.

Finding Innovative Ways to Monetize Content

With all of this investment on the initial broadcast, do you think these organizations would just broadcast once and then lock this content in an inaccessible archive? No! All of these organizations have pretty innovative and lucrative on-demand services. For $59.99/year, you can watch every out-of-market MLB game live or on-demand. A UFC fight pass ranges from $8–10/month and unlocks the entire UFC library (except for the live events). The NBA offers an annual pass for all teams for around $50/year. The point is that these organizations are spending so much on broadcasts because they are masters at monetizing content (and selling broadcasting rights and advertising…but that’s a different blog).

How to Activate Your Archived Content for Monetization

You may not be able to spend $170M on developing your own “bubble,” but you can certainly make your archived content searchable and accessible for repurposing and continued monetization. You don’t even need to put everything in the cloud to achieve this. You can create your own internal cloud-like infrastructure specifically for your nearline and archived content.

In episode 9 of our Brews & Bytes webcast, Liz Davis, VP of Diversified’s Media Workflow Group, will join Ben Canter, Caringo’s VP of Sales, and me to talk about this topic. Diversified is a leading technology integrator in digital media, collaboration, security and OTT solutions. You can register here for the live broadcast or watch it on-demand.

What is the Best Strategy for a Data Disaster Recovery Plan?

Evaluating your existing DR strategy or developing a new one? Learn how to efficiently add cloud storage for a hybrid cloud approach.

No single storage repository can guarantee that your data will never be lost, much less that it can be recovered once it is lost. Are you taking a holistic approach to your Disaster Recovery (aka DR) strategy to ensure you never lose access to your precious data and digital assets?

Taking a Holistic Approaches to Data Protection and Disaster Recovery

Early in my career, I worked on the Tandem Integrity NonStop-UX fault-tolerant computer systems, which addressed this problem by replicating data to a mirrored site at a different location. Years later, working at ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), I frequently heard about similar strategies where data was replicated and a failover was in place to ensure continuity of data access as I documented the Reliability and Operations Subcommittee meetings. Fast forward 15 years, and now, everyone is talking about using the cloud for both data storage and disaster recovery. But, how secure is cloud storage? (We all know that data in the cloud can be lost, as it was in 2011 when Amazon suffered a major crash and took down customer sites and lost data.) Is it enough when a true disaster strikes, or would organizations be better served by having data both onsite and in the cloud, as Tony Barbagallo proposed in his recent blog, The Future is Hybrid (Cloud).

What Constitutes a Disaster from an IT Perspective?

Earthquakes, floods, droughts, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and forest fires are all considered natural disasters. From an IT perspective, these can all be troubling. But. man-made disasters can be just as problematic, from a power outage to plumbing issues. I’m sure you can imagine all types of scenarios that would wreak havoc on a data center.

How Does Swarm Object Storage Protect Your Data?

Swarm object storage has built-in features that enable you to control to a large extent both the probability of data loss happening, as well as the size of the data loss when it actually does happen.You can learn more by reading our Elastic Content Protection whitepaper and Protecting Data with Caringo Swarm Object Storage.

Caringo has always made it easy to tier or replicate data to the cloud, and just recently added the Swarm Cloud Disaster Recovery service to provide a simple, effective way for customers to incorporate cloud into their DR strategy. This managed, offsite disaster recovery service can be added to any Swarm Software license or Swarm Server purchase. With Swarm Cloud DR, data is automatically and continuously replicated to one of Wasabi’s globally distributed data centers. If a disaster occurs, Caringo experts manage your recovery process, getting your data back online as quickly as possible.

How Can I Incorporate Cloud into My DR Strategy?

If you’re evaluating your existing DR strategy or developing a new one, you’re probably pondering the best way to incorporate cloud storage. There are so many good reasons to include Cloud. Maybe you don’t want to build and staff another data center or you want to decommission your secondary center without spinning up a new DR site. Maybe, you’ve just outgrown your current solution.

In our next Tech Tuesday webinar, Ryan Meek, Principal Solutions Architect, and Jose Marcos, Sales Engineer, will discuss strategies for incorporating cloud (public, private and hybrid) into your storage architecture. They will explain how you can easily:

Tier data to a DR site with automated policies
Reduce risk and cost by using a deep storage archive for DR
Use the cloud to simplify your storage DR
Leverage Caringo’s expertise in data recovery processes

The webinar will include a demonstration of Caringo’s new Swarm Cloud DR powered by Wasabi and a live Q&A session.

Save your seat to watch live or view the webinar recording.

What is Metadata and How Does it Help You?

Metadata in short is “data about the data.” It is just as important as the data itself. In context, a video file may include metadata describing the length of time, GPS coordinates

The terms “metadata” and “metadata search” get thrown around often in the data storage industry. What does the word metadata mean, how does metadata work and why is it important? And, just as important, why is metadata suddenly a hot topic in 2020?

What is Metadata?

Metadata is literally data about the data. The term, coined in 1983, was formed by combining the Latin term “meta” which means “transcending” and data (a term first used in 1646), which is factual information.

According to Wikipedia, the first description of metadata came from MIT’s Center for International Studies experts David Griffel and Stuart McIntosh in 1967.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, acknowledged as the inventor of the World Wide Web, noted that the phrase “machine understandable” is key in his definition.

Where is Metadata Used?

The easy answer for where is metadata used would be “just about everywhere data is stored.” You don’t have to look far to find places where metadata is used. Metadata enables us to access information and entertainment every day, right at the tip of our closest device. It is also used to aggregate data for various types of research (scientific, business intelligence, etc.). Whether it is weather, healthcare, scientific research, biomedical, geospatial (such as that stored in the UK STFC JASMIN cluster), data warehousing, movies, music, or any other arena where digital data is stored, metadata is a valuable tool.

As the daughter of a librarian, I would be remiss if I did not mention metadata’s storied history in the world of Library Science. Remember the days of card catalogs? From the mid 1800s, those little cards were designed to include metadata for books, including:

Author(s)
Subject
Title
Date of publication
Location of asset (e.g., Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress)

This was a painstaking process, but it enabled librarians and library users to easily find books by author, title, subject, and so on. Libraries migrated away from card catalogs to using digital databases in the 1980s. At that time, I was a student at the University of North Texas working part-time in the campus library. The transition from a paper catalogue to an online system was a tremendous undertaking, however, it was well worth the result for both staff and students.

Surveillance video is another good example of how metadata is used. The date and time stamps and locations are critical for surveillance video to be useful in solving and prosecuting crimes.

Last month, Michael “Q” Brame chronicled his adventures in Home Surveillance Using NFS and Object Storage. When we posted the blog, we created metadata for the blog in the form of a short description and also created metadata about the image we used to show Q’s set-up. This type of metadata helps people to locate the material.

Metadata About a Blog Post

Title
Description
Author
Publication Date

Photo Metadata on Local Filesystem

Tags
MIME Type
File Size
File Location
Created Date/Time
Modified Date/Time
Date Last Opened
Photo Dimensions
Color Space
Color Profile
Alpha Channel
Name and Extension
Comments

Email Metadata on Incoming Message

Every month, I write a newsletter that is sent out via email (you can subscribe if you do not currently receive it). The image above shows metadata about the newsletter I sent out yesterday.

Delivered-To
Received
X-Google-Smtp-Source
X-Received
ARC-Seal
ARC-Message-Signature
ARC-Authentication-Results
Return-Path
Authentication-Results
DKIM-Signature
Message-ID
Date Sent
Subject
From Email Address
Reply-To Email Address
…and more

Metadata for a Relational Database

Metadata is also recorded for items in a relational database, such as in this listing of content from the Caringo.com website.

Field
Type
Length
Unsigned
Zerofill
Binary
Allow Null
Key

What are the Types of Metadata?

Descriptive, structural, administrative, rights management, preservation guide and accessibility are all types of metadata. The efforts to standardize metadata have led to multiple systems and what is used by one industry or standards organization is not necessarily used across the board.

How is Metadata Generated and Stored?

Swarm Object Storage allows custom metadata to be defined by applications. This metadata is used to uniquely describe content objects. There are a number of other metadata elements that are stored by Swarm—including:

Number of replicas to be maintained
Erasure coding scheme
Retention period
Content type
File name
Originating application
Lifepoint™ (Caringo system-enforced and managed content lifecycle policies)

Swarm stores the operational and descriptive information to execute the Lifepoint policies as well as all other metadata with the object itself, keeping it portable and thus eliminating the need for database administration and a separate metadata database (which introduces unnecessary vulnerability and becomes a scaling impediment).

How Does Metadata Help You?

Simply put, metadata helps you help your organization by making sure that you can efficiently move and retrieve data in a manner that makes sense for your business or endeavor. For example, if you are a news organization and want to look for footage from a certain event, wouldn’t it be nice to have them in a centralized storage repository and to have each file tagged with the date, time, place and event so you could retrieve it quickly? Certainly a lot easier and faster than going to pull old tapes and then having to review them to find the footage.

Using metadata to annotate objects in storage can open up opportunities for how files can be searched, sorted and analyzed at scale. It is also key to being able to monetize existing content and build new revenue streams.

In the screenshot above, you can see how a search can be performed on the objects in a Swarm Cluster by selecting the type of metadata you want to search on.

Why is Metadata a Hot Topic Right Now?

To say there is a lot going on in today’s world would be a tremendous understatement—from scientific research organizations using high-performance computing (HPC) and managing huge data sets to video production organizations looking at how to create fresh content using an active archive. When used properly, metadata unleashes a host of benefits that are useful to almost every organization that stores some type of digital information or assets.

In an article authored by Caringo Co-founder Jonathan Ring, he listed 5 benefits of metadata for business information storage. They are:

Eliminates ambiguities.
Creates a data trail.
Improves risk profiling.
Establishes more efficient storage uses.
Eases migration.

This is a good starting point for thinking about just how metadata might benefit your organization.

Resources to Learn More About Metadata

The following resources were consulted in writing this blog, and may be helpful in broadening your knowledge of metadata:

Metadata Architecture, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, World-Wide Web Consortium, 1997-01-06
The Metadata Mania, Jason Scott, The Metadata Mania, ASCII weblog, 2011-06-11
Understanding Metadata, National Information Standards Organization (NISO), 2004
Metadata, Wikipedia
Metadata: Your City’s Secret Weapon, Jonathan Ring, Government Technology, 2016-05-27
What Metadata Means for Business Information Storage, Jonathan Ring, Alley Watch, 2016
How Do I Use Metadata with Object-based Data Storage? (webinar featuring Ryan Meek, Caringo Principal Solutions Architect), 2019-02-26

RLYL eBook: M&E marketing without trade shows

Building brand awareness and generating leads is hard. The cancellation of international trade shows like IBC has made it even harder.

In this eBook, we’ve gathered regional insights from members of our global PR agency network Convoy to help M&E brands grow globally.

Inside this eBook you’ll discover tips and tricks from marketing specialists and M&E companies like Panavision and Never.no to help your brand stand out in:

Asia pacific
Middle East & Africa
The Americas
Europe

Download eBook

New Dual Polarized UHF Omni-Antenna