User: Hal Kneller, Director of Engineering
Company: LECOM Radio WSRQ/WVIJ/WMCE/WWCB
Location: Sarasota, FL and Erie, PA
Products: Ecreso FM AiO Series 2kW
Key Benefits:
LECOM Radio recently purchased a new 2kW AiO Series Ecreso transmitter for WVIJ, Port Charlotte, which is part of a 5-station simulcast of WSRQ Sarasota in Southwest Florida. This is the fifth transmitter in the new line following the 100, 300, 600 and 1kW models. All offer an extremely feature-rich system with outstanding on-air sound quality. While many features are standard, others are enabled via software upgrade.
Ecreso now packages AiO products into three major bundles called Essentials (most basic), Perform and Extreme (all
eatures enabled including 10-year warranty). If you purchase a lower-level package and decide later to upgrade, simply request a license code through your favorite dealer, pay an upgrade fee and install the new code via the GUI. Our transmitter package is the Extreme, including, among other things, the 5-Band processor, AoIP decoder with APTmpX compatibility (as well as PCM uncompressed), AES 192 MPX inputs, full RDS/RBDS encoder, surge protector, stereo generator and many other items.
The different option packages are on the WorldCast website for comparison. We ordered this 2kW transmitter nearly a year ago, telling WorldCast we would wait for the AiO version. The first manufacturing run was to a customer for a nationwide rollout; we received the first transmitter from the second run which turned out beneficially as Ecreso made a few improvements. I picked up the transmitter personally at the WorldCast office in Miami after Julian Gomez, their tech support guru, had fired it up, set up our licenses for the Extreme package and test-ran the unit. This is the first 2kW AiO on the air in the Americas.
This transmitter replaced a 2005 secondgeneration solid state transmitter of the same power level at a fraction of the size and cost yet offers far more features plus a web GUI. Replacement of components (typically a circuit board) inside the Ecreso chassis is quite direct with good access once the top cover is removed. Easy replacement is provided for the two fans and PA power supply from the front panel.
Hal Kneller, Director of Engineering
The transmitter was set in place by me and a helper. With two people it was not heavy at 50 pounds. The 3-RU chassis is fully self-contained.
It does require rear support (not supplied) so we fashioned something from old brackets from a UPS that was no longer in service. The AC power (184-264 v) is via a supplied power cord with an IEC C-19 connector to a standard 20-amp 240 volt circuit. A new feed from the breaker panel via existing conduit and box near the rack and a new 20-amp twist-lock connector was added for electrical power.
All connections for audio and RF are on the rear – XLR for analog L/R and two AES 3 inputs, BNCs for two analog baseband composite inputs, along with provisions for adding SFN with 10 MHz and 1 PPS inputs or built-in GPS receiver via SMA connectors. Also, you will probably want a 90 degree DIN 7-16 elbow to route the transmission line upward.
