[cma-l] Mains power where there ain't any!

[Two Lochs Radio]

Sadly for us the cell bases here are no more reliable than the mains supply!

Worth noting that Android based mobile phone is also excellent for this - 
especially for OB contributions. With a touch of a button the better models 
can turn into a wi-fi router allowing other devices to connect and use 3G 
access (or even very slow ordinary GSM access) just as if they were 
connected to a router and a dongle. One less bit of kit to cart about, and 
one less phone account! You do have to make sure your cellphone service 
provider doesn't object to 'tethering' though - some tariffs do.

(I've also found it handy when away at a meeting in a room with no network 
access for allowing others at the meeting to hook up and get their fix of 
email/online diary etc!)

Unfortunately it's not of much use to us locally howerver for audio feeds as 
there is no 3G service within 70 miles of us. So far however we've had no 
problem finding helpful folks with houses in phone line or wi-fi range of 
events willing to let us onto their connection for the duration. And being 
in a rural area means we can generally trail wires across the ground without 
bother for temporary events. For one annual event we trail out 200m of phone 
line to the nearest house and take their router offline and put our own on 
the end - more reliable than wifi without a lot of extra aerials etc, though 
a bit of a fag rolling out 200m of phone line! We roll out a power lead at 
the same time.

Alex


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "CMA-L" <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
To: <cma-l at commedia.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Mains power where there ain't any!


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Eddie Stuart <eddie at kcr.fm>
>
> As a bit of extra knowledge, some Draytek routers (& no doubt those of
> other manufacturers) can use a mobile phone dongle for web access
> which would mean that you can easily have more than 1 computer web
> connected off-site.
>
> If like us, you use broadband to send your web stream to Canstream for
> webcasting, this can also provide you with a cheap studio based
> fallback should your broadband go down.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eddie