Sarkes Tarzian Radio Innovates with Tieline Bridge-IT IIs
By Jamie Till, Director of Engineering for Sarkes Tarzian Radio, IN.
Jamie’s career in communications started as a cable TV Engineer in the 80s. He was involved in broadband network and fiber projects before the internet existed. After leaving the communication industry for a few years in the 90s to manufacture stills, he has been engaged in cellular construction and upgrades, and also designed and implemented hundreds of microwave links all over the eastern US. He started firmly in Broadcast in 2007, having since built several transmitter sites, lots of studios and transitioned many facilities from analog to digital and IP. He is the Director of Engineering for Sarkes Tarzian Radio, which has facilities across northeastern and central Indiana, including WTTS and WAJI.
I have worked in Broadcast and Communication since the 1980s and have bumped into Tieline products my entire career. I think in general, Tieline products have always been a solid choice for any broadcast application. I have found that they have particularly distinguished themselves in my mind, by continuing to think forward while others have chosen to only move forward when they are dragged by circumstance.
This forward thinking was first shown to me about 7 years ago, when it was time to upgrade our STL network codecs. Tieline offered to loan me a set of Bridge-ITs to test. They were easy to deploy, sounded good and the price was competitive. I replaced all of our old STL codecs with Bridge-ITs.
5 years later with nary a single incident with the Bridge-ITs, I have a new project, a triangle of 3 locations that must interact. I had originally purchased leased fiber to interconnect the Livewire networks of the locations, but that proved expensive and overkill for my specific needs. I was contemplating a network of codecs to move around the audio and implementing an appliance-based SD WAN, using cheaper internet connections. I had talked with a couple of the other codec manufacturers and brought up SD WAN, they either glazed over, or told me stories of how I could “make it work”. When I took my idea to Jacob at Tieline, he instantly said SD WANs were not a problem at all, and proceeded to introduce me to the then new Gateway product that would do exactly what I wanted to do with my codecs in a single platform.
Because of the network compatibility and the flexibility of the Gateway products, we are able to provide satellite audio and air monitoring from Bloomington Indiana to downtown Indianapolis, and bi- directional STL from Indianapolis to the Trafalgar Indiana transmitter location for WTTS… all with a single appliance in each location. This is done over SD WAN, using 2 inexpensive fiber internet connections in each location for redundancy.
We are now in the process of changing out some more STL codecs in other locations and have started using the new Bridge-IT IIs. So far, they are proving to be the better version of a reliable old standard. The built-in Livewire capability on the Bridge-IT IIs and Gateways removes the need for audio I/O from an X-Node, and the associated wiring. It is just one less thing to deal with and if I was starting with a new environment, it would save about $2000 at each studio site. The Bridge-IT II’s upgraded networking capabilities has not only eliminated steps in the audio chain, it also includes some of the networking features that are allowing us to make redundancy upgrades to our infrastructure, utilizing secondary and tertiary network routes.
I have always gotten any advice I needed for deployment or configuration almost instantly. I must confess the I have no experience with their repair support, because I have never needed them.
Want to know more about Tieline products and software?
For more information on Bridge-IT II and other Tieline codecs visit www.tieline.com/products or contact Tieline sales:
- For USA, Canada & Latin America contact: sales@tieline.com
- For Australia and International: info@tieline.com
(“Sarkes Tarzian Radio Innovates with Tieline” first published in Radio World, April 2025)
