Going Green?

The way technology has evolved, the broadcast facility more closely resembles a run of the mill data center. Now computers run the shows, host the schedules, manage the automation, archive and deliver the digital audio, take in remote audio feeds, etc - more often than not all that equipment is hosted in a separate room away from the control rooms and studios. It is easy to see that as far as design goes, the broadcast telecom hub shares the same basic principles as the data center does, and the one I wish to focus attention on for this post is the Air Conditioning System.

Despite that Data Center = Telco Hub relationship, I have found that more often than not, the Telco Hub is setup and made to grow in a haphazard manner, little regard paid to air flow & heat load (current & maximum sustainable expected): BTU-wise the installed capacity of the cooling systems may well exceed the heat load the processing systems will impose on the room, but without due attention to the air flow within the room, you can have the latest and greatest monster tonnage unit servicing a mid-size hub with poor or spotty performance... just think of the electric bill running up to sustain that hungry beast 24 x 7 x 365.

Sun Microsystems set out a very useful guide on Data Center Design, it is a must read and you can find it here.


War Story:

That guide would have come in handy to a facility I visited a while ago (southern Arizona). They had been working with an old FM 1H Gates 1kw FM transmitter in an enclosed transmitter site room using just convection cooling; company decided to go to an HT-10FM (10kW) - no studies were ever done as what type of AC the room would now require, the engineer in charge of the install deemed only necessary to setup an intake fan at floor level and an exhaust fan on the opposite wall, flush top with the ceiling - no vent out canopy over the tube exhaust. The setup worked nice in the winter months, but as soon as spring time made its way the HT-10 begun to trip almost every day come mid morning... that 4CX7500 was putting out a nice blast of air hot enough to roast a chicken well done, if someone had wished to do so, the outpour into the room was more than what the simple ventilation system could handle.

Management must have been on another yellow submarine trip when they had some friend of them suggest an AC unit for the place. Again, all sensible studies were dismissed in an effort to save consulting fees expenses and the brand new 5+ tonnage capable unit with the outlet set right at the intake of the HT10 and the return on the same wall but flush to ceiling - no hood was set over the HT second time around.

Needless to say, the room did get quite comfortable, but the AC unit kept on running 20 x 7 and sometimes 24 x 7 on the hottest days. Not only did the radio station had to setup an upgraded electrical service to feed the HT (and an SX-5A also added to the same site - although being solid state based, its issues with heat were of less consequence), now the AC unit imposed an additional load in the power mains and that reflected IMMEDIATELY on the electric bill that was delivered by the next reading. Talk about sticker shock - I was there at the office with the manager as they were discussing what could be done to solve the problem. It was too late for that, the money that had been saved had long before been surpassed by the first new monthly operational expense, consulting fees to solve it not included.

This was in a Mom & Pop operation south of the border. There will be some readers that may think "troglodites!, that explains a lot". Don't.Go.There --> I've bench marked my share of facilities here in the NY area and their "solutions" (like old fashioned rotating blade fans strewn across crowded rack aisles in support of the AC system) stray away from anything I would call professional.

With the economic tough times those room design shortcomings are sore points hitting the bottom line of operational expenses. To fix them requires more money and usually there is none set aside for such an item.

Moral of all this:

If you're in charge of design or have a say on final approvals, DO your homework before deploying a Telco Hub. The little money you could save by cutting corners today will just swing by and return ten fold as an expense that will badly harm the operation. Not IF, but WHEN.
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