Radio World

Should FM translators in the United States be allowed to originate some programming content? The FCC is asking for public comment on these questions, prompted by a request from two dozen radio companies.

It’s an idea that seems to have been prompted by a separate unrelated proposal about using boosters for geo-targeting; but if adopted it could mean a proliferation of yet more programming choices on the FM dial, much of it on translators that were obtained relatively recently by AM stations as part of the AM revitalization effort.

As we reported in May, a group of licensees under the joint name “Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination” told the FCC in a filing that “to serve the public interest with increased program diversity,” both FM boosters and translators should be allowed to originate programming for up to 80 hours a week. The 24 licensees own 108 full-service stations and 85 FM translators.

[Read Radio World’s original article about this proposal.]

Their attorney, John Garziglia of Womble Bond Dickinson, notes that the FCC now has released a public notice putting this idea out for industry comment.

The petition argues that if the FCC considers allowing FM boosters to originate limited programming content to provide zoned programming to a primary station’s service area — as has been proposed separately by GeoBroadcast Solutions — the same opportunity for limited program origination should be given to translators.

“The Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination seek a uniform FCC rule change for both FM boosters and FM translators to allow each to originate programming content provided that the primary station is retransmitted for no fewer than 40 hours in any calendar week,” Garziglia wrote in a summary to industry journalists.

“The Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination observe that some radio stations may choose to broadcast different localized advertisements. Other stations may broadcast localized city council meetings for two or more communities in their coverage areas. Some broadcasters may determine what serves a particular station’s listeners are multiple localized high school sports games. Or, another broadcaster in a diverse area may broadcast two different kinds of ethnic entertainment programming at certain times of the day.”

The companies argue that this change would go along with the commission’s encouragement of diverse programming content; but also that if boosters get a “regulatory easing” on content choice, so should translators.

“Also, because the FCC’s new FM translator interference rules have re-defined the coverage contours of FM stations, the Broadcasters for Limited Program Origination advocate that extended coverage contours out to the greater of the 45 dBμ contour, or a 25-mile radius from the FM translator transmitter site, should now apply to what is regarded as a fill-in station for the purposes of the FM translator rules,” Garziglia wrote.

And the group wants the FCC to change its FM translator rules to give four-letter call signs with the suffix “-FX” for FM translator stations that originate limited programming content, presumably to help market these content sources as separate stations. The current rules give translators more clunkier and call signs like W250BC and K237FR.

They noted in their original request that they “take no position as to whether the GeoBroadcast Solutions technical proposal … is wise as a radio listener reception matter. Such concurrent broadcasting of different content on the same frequency within the same service area may be an interference disaster.” Rather, they wrote, their goal is “to provide diverse programming over FM translator and booster radio facilities without the FCC’s heavy thumb restricting their choice of content.”

[Related: “Large Groups Raise a Caution Flag on Geo-Targeting”]

The broadcasters in the filing are Miller Communications/Kaskaskia Broadcasting; the Cromwell Group of Illinois and Hancock Communications; TBE LLC; SSR Communications; Port Broadcasting; the Fingerlakes Radio Group and Chadwick Bay Broadcasting; Blackbelt Broadcasting; Mazur LLC; The Original Company, Old Northwest Broadcasting and The Innovation Center; Virden Broadcasting; Lovcom Inc.; Genesee Media Corp.; Viper Communications; Mountain Top Media; Eastern Shore Radio; and MTN Broadcasting and Eldora Broadcasting.

Among familiar broadcaster names on the proposal are Randal Miller, Bud Walters, Terry Barber, Mark Lange, Matt Wesolowski and Cindy May Johnson.

The commission is asking that comments about RM No. 11858 be submitted via its comment system by July 23.

The post Should Translators Originate Content? FCC Is Taking Comments appeared first on Radio World.

Zack Zalon. “I think Super Hi-Fi is a more attractive option for broadcasters who want to use what they are already amazing at — incredible radio listening experiences — and to apply that to the next generation of listening.”

Don’t blame Zack Zalon for all of the job losses at iHeartMedia earlier this year.

Fingers began pointing Zalon’s way after the radio broadcaster implemented a technological shift to artificial intelligence to help its radio station clusters operate more efficiently. Subsequently, a large number of iHeart employees were let go.

Zalon is CEO and co-founder of Super Hi-Fi, an AI company that designs digital music solutions for the iHeartRadio streaming platform. That relationship drew scrutiny from some radio industry observers who speculated the broadcast giant’s infrastructure overhaul included the use of Super Hi-Fi’s MagicStitch technology, an “audio stitching” program capable of creating “human-like” segues between online music tracks in playlists.

“We are dealing only with the iHeartRadio streaming people,” Zalon said. “We are working on the innovation side, which is streaming-based. Not terrestrial radio.”

iHeartMedia’s massive reorganization included the creation of AI-enabled Centers of Excellence, according to a company press release at the time. The broadcaster pointed to the improvement of its technology backbone, in addition to strategic technology and platform acquisitions like Jelli, a programmatic ad platform: RadioJar, a cloud audio playout company; and Stuff Media, a podcasting firm.

Super Hi-Fi was not mentioned by name in the iHeartMedia announcement.

BRIDGING A GAP

“We are working with iHeart on a very deep level to bridge that gap between broadcast and digital. There is a lot of roadmap stuff to improve the audio experience,” Zalon told Radio World.

The radio business “seems like an underdog right now,” he said, “when actually radio is still the number one form of music consumption in America. Radio has a lot of great experiences and resources.”

However, it seems “broadcasters just don’t know how to view streaming and whether it is a threat or not. And streaming media people think radio is old technology and not all that valuable,” he said.

Zalon says broadcasters and media companies have been reaching out to him during the COVID-19 pandemic in search of opportunities to add efficiencies to technical operations via Super Hi-Fi’s technology platform.

“Broadcasters are searching for a way forward that brings together broadcast and digital and drives revenue and loyalty. Broadcasters have been talking to us about inserting our technology into the broadcast stack for the purposes of efficiency. And when I say efficiency I mean using the resources they could free up for the artistry of radio. Focusing on the curation, the production and the human voice, which makes radio so effective,” Zalon said.

Broadcasters are realizing, Zalon said, that some broadcast technology could be more efficient if AI assisted them with things like placement decisions in their automation.

“Programmers are just lining things up in automation systems really, and that isn’t necessary anymore when AI can do it for you automatically. AI can make a lot of presentation decisions,” Zalon said.

“But AI isn’t a job killer. There hasn’t been a single service we have integrated into, iHeart included, that hasn’t utilized more human resources after figuring this out. When streaming audio works you need more people to curate music. You need more people to work with advertisers to inject commercials in the system. And produce those commercials.”

[Related: “Is Artificial Intelligence Friend or Foe?”]

AI is not a replacement for people yet, he said, but an “enabler of human capabilities that has never existed before.” But  Zalon does envision a day when computer-generated voices sound as real as a human voice and pop up on iHeartRadio streams.

WHERE THE ENERGY IS

Zalon said Super Hi-Fi’s primary focus remains enabling new audio streaming experiences and bridging the gap between what he thinks are “silos of broadcast radio and digital” that haven’t been bridged.

“We want to enhance experiences by taking the concepts of broadcast and engineering solutions. Steaming audio is where it’s going. Streaming media is fantastic. The sound quality is incredible. The personalization options are amazing. That is where all the energy is moving toward. We are interested in bridging the silos. Radio services will ultimately all be streaming when 5G is in the car.

“And when 5G is in the car what will be the point of connecting to a broadcast tower? Streaming is a technology not a technique. As technology evolves we think the technique should evolve as well. I think broadcasters are beginning to recognize that,” he said.

Zalon’s background is steeped in digital music experience, including building one of the earliest consumer digital music platforms, Radio Free Virgin, which was part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. At other points he has helped launch and design digital music services for CBS Radio, Sony Music, AOL Radio, Muve Music and Yahoo Launchcast.

Zalon handles the strategic direction of Super Hi-Fi, which he launched in 2018 with co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Brendon Cassidy. The AI company, based in Los Angeles, works with a variety of companies and has about 35 employees.

Digital music streaming’s lack of flow and production quality has always been an issue, Zalon said, with too many dead gaps in the music and a lack of emotion.

Super Hi-Fi and iHeartRadio announced its partnership in 2018 with a goal of creating intelligent audio transitions in the iHeartRadio app. MagicStitch is also deployed by Peloton and the recently launched Sonos Radio. And it just announced a partnership with Octave Group, which provides retail music entertainment in locations like Starbucks.

The patented MagicStitch system adds things like transitions, sonic leveling and gapless playback to the iHeartRadio digital stream, Zalon said.

“Radio is our inspiration. And I think one day radio owners will realize they hold the keys to digital listening experiences. They just haven’t activated them correctly. They have not seen them as assets but instead as liabilities. We see that totally the other way around,” Zalon said.

“Radio broadcasters have the tools and experience to create these incredible professional-sounding broadcast streams to make the digital music experience exciting. They have the tools to make the digital media experience stickier and more valuable than what is in the marketplace right now.”

PERSONALIZED AND SCALABLE

Super Hi-Fi has developed a technology that can deliver that vision, Zalon said, via MagicStitch and its ability to be more than just a playlist with long gaps of silence.

The AI system consists of a layer of cloud services, APIs and components/reference implementations for major mobile and desktop environments, according to a press release. The results are personalized and scalable listening experiences (see sidebar at end of this article).

MagicStitch, to borrow a broadcast term, takes the dead air out of audio streaming, Zalon said during a recent demonstration of the digital platform. The technology “stitches” together transitions between songs as if done by a real human DJ.

“Our research is focused on understanding audio content to the same depth as a human. When we were building CBS Radio’s digital platform, we all thought the gaps in the music were terrible. Pandora was around at the time. They all sounded the same if you close your eyes. We thought what if we were to smartly use radio techniques to stitch songs together to improve the experience. Then we started thinking about segues and how many of different combinations there could be and how to that figure out algorithmically.

“Well, we soon figured out it wasn’t possible at that time. The number of segue calculations were literally in the trillions. So went on building these music services but they still didn’t sound quite right.”

[Related: Read the Radio World ebook “AI Comes to Radio”]

Zalon said he and Dawson realized it was impossible to write enough algorithms to solve the segue problem and instead began to focus on training artificial intelligence to do what radio DJs do. “For the AI to be smart enough to have the dexterity of a trained human DJ,” he said.

“Our belief is that it’s the techniques of radio, the music transitions, the voice branding and all of those other elements of radio that makes the digital product stand out.”

Music services like Spotify and Apple Music use a “cross-fade” function to help cut down on the gaps between tracks, Zalon says, but the problem is the platforms still don’t recognize the subtleness of the human touch.

A MagicStitch transition from Super Hi-Fi’s testing application.

“It’s not all mechanical. MagicStitch in real time calculates what it thinks is the perfect segue for any two tracks you might play back to back in a playlist. And uniquely for those two songs. MagicStitch reaches back to our cloud server and gets back the proper instruction and then aligns it down to the correct thousandth of a second. It considers rhythmic elements and lets the previous song play out the right way. Whatever it takes to make it sound radio worthy,” Zalon said.

However, MagicStitch does more than segues, Zalon says; it can also brand the digital stream much like radio does with the human voice.

“Music transition is the core of what we do. The next step was training MagicStitch to understand branding elements and the human voice with that same level of depth. It uses radio techniques like interview snippets that don’t step all over the music in an inappropriate way to build a personality into a streaming service,” he said. “Now we can assign the branding component based on listener preferences and interject voice them like broadcast radio does.”

MagicStitch can layer multiple elements into the stream, such as audio liners, commercials and branding messages, he said.

“It’s capable of delivering a seamless layered stream experience to a smart speaker,” Zalon said.

And the AI system gets smarter each time it performs a song segue, Zalon said. “The platform has a feedback loop so it is digesting a lot of machine learning advances all the time and understanding content better. So as the data grows and the more calculations you add MagicStitch can represent in creative ways,” Zalon said. “It essentially gets smarter with each audio transition.”

MagicStitch currently completes a billion streaming song transitions across multiple services each month, according to Super Hi-Fi data.

Comment on this or any story to radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

>>>

Sidebar:

More From Zack Zalon

We asked Zalon further questions about how MagicStitch software works and about the company’s technology in general.

Radio World: What physical signal parameters are being measured and assessed about a particular music track to define the way that Super Hi-Fi handles that track?  

Zack Zalon: For starters, I’ll share that we are gathering a tremendous amount of data on the audio files. Yes, we are collecting countless features, but we are also gathering some very unique attributes from our machine learning services, as well as from over 1 billion data points from commercial usage that we collect every month.

The amount of data that we collect on each file is actually larger (in storage terms) than the source file itself. There are literally millions of data points that we collect, and then the trick is to train the AI to actually use these data points.

RW: Exactly how is the “human touch” of a segue developed for each track?

Zalon: For us, the key is not data per se, it is the idea of context. Yes, we need data, and a lot of it. But the data for us is a means to an end. What we’re working toward is a perfect contextual understanding of the audio file so we can automatically make really artful, human-like decisions about how to handle that content.

How does a quiet song transition into another quiet song? How does that same song properly transition into a higher-energy song? Does having a female singer make a difference, does it change the way a listener will react to a specific song transition? Should it be different if there is an advertisement that comes afterward? Should there be talking over the song?

These are the questions that we have been tackling, and then working backward to modify the service to ensure that it understands — comprehends — the content with enough depth to be able to make the right choices, all day every day.

RW:  Does the Super Hi-Fi algorithm analyze different segments of an audio track differently? 

Zalon: More specifically, we are collecting all of the data points you asked about earlier, though we use LUFS as a measure, not LKFS. But we also have designed and developed dozens of proprietary analysis tools and associated proprietary data points to measure. Existing tools weren’t giving us the broad-based view of the content that we needed for the AI to work properly. Please note that we aren’t just looking at music files, we are also analyzing spoken word, sound effects, advertising (of numerous types), sonic logos, etc.

So using traditional music analysis techniques wouldn’t be sufficient. Also to be specific, we analyze the entire file, not just any one section, and we analyze the difference of each data point so we can build a richer base of understanding regarding that file, how it changes over time, and how it relates to the other files that we may be stitching around it.

RW: Does the AI system do any audio correction or modification of the tracks?

Zalon: We do not do any audio correction or modification. In fact, we don’t actually deliver any files. Our customers deliver the files, what we do is to send them a set of presentation instructions in real time that they use to create their experiences. Everything for us is about placement, as though it is being mixed by a human DJ at a broadcast radio station. But it is actually AI making all of the calculations and sending those to our customers as they are requested.

RW: What really differentiates your AI from a cloud-based automation solution? There seem to be automation systems that can do the same right now. They have been stitching audio, liners and segues for decades. Is MagicStitching simply automation for the cloud?

Zalon: Today’s radio automation systems have some of these capabilities, like an Auto Jock, but they are very different from Super Hi-Fi. These radio system do a great job of automating for a linear terrestrial broadcast, using specific human annotation points — such as segue points — added in on a very select number of content files, be they music, voice liners, or advertising.

Super Hi-Fi is built for the scale and breadth of today’s largest digital streaming services, where the number of content options are virtually limitless, and the number of personal experiences are just as broad. With our AI, the data is all analyzed and annotated with no human intervention, so our system understands an incredibly wide array of music features on literally tens of millions of content files. Each decision — whether it be a song segue, a voice liner, a podcast snippet, or an advertisement — is calculated in real time based on each specific set of content options and for each unique listener. This provides enormous flexibility and control, and allows large streaming music services to start delivering radio-like listening experiences without limiting the kind of unique, personalized experiences that consumers have come to expect.

So, in a way, the outputs of the experiences are somewhat similar. We are very influenced by how radio uses production techniques to create differentiation and to build amazing branded services. We’re just coming at it from a very different direction and for use in a very different way.

The best example of this is in a comparison of scale: On a broadcast radio station, you can expect there could be perhaps 10 “transition” moments per hour (segues, liners, etc.), which adds up to around 7,200 per month. Super Hi- Fi is currently generating over 1 billion transitions per month for our customers. That’s the equivalent of us powering 138,000 broadcast radio stations, 24/7, all in real time. Today’s radio automation systems are fantastic at what they do, but they just aren’t built for the same use case.

RW: Are you collaborating at all with RCS, a company owned by iHeartMedia? RCS has a cloud solution for radio automation.

Zalon: We have a ton of respect for RCS, they’re definitely top of their field. But again they are focused on radio automation, and that’s not what we do. We are enabling unique, radio-like experiences for digital music streaming services, and so our technologies are very different from one another. That said, there’s no reason why we couldn’t collaborate with them; in some ways I imagine we’re each very complimentary to what the other does.

RW: You talk a lot about creating efficiencies with MagicStitch. What specifically do you add to the “broadcast stack”? 

Zalon: When we talk of efficiencies, we are generally referring to the breadth of streaming music services. Imagine the difficulty of having to manually tag all 51 million music files that exist on today’s services. Imagine having to program the transition technology to handle hundreds of millions of listeners, and trillions of possible content combinations. It’s just not achievable without the kind of efficiencies that our AI provides. Now, I imagine that there are efficiencies available to radio broadcasters as well.

As an example I can state with confidence that we’re gathering vastly more data on each piece of content than any human would be able to assess. So that’s one specific example. But as to where we add value to the broadcast stack, I would guess that it would be different for each radio service, based specifically on their individual goals.

RW: If Super Hi-Fi AI can make placement and presentation decisions, what specific decisions does it make? Could the AI replace the need for radio broadcasters to schedule music and promos, or even commercials?

Zalon: Super Hi-Fi makes presentation and production decisions, but it doesn’t program music. I would guess that a radio broadcaster could use some automated programming technology, but humans seem to do a much better job of that. Our technology takes what has already been programmed and automates the presentation so it sounds amazing, with all of the segues perfectly designed for just that set of content, without human intervention.

RW: That said, talk of efficiencies typically means jobs losses in any business field. Where can Super Hi-Fi AI save broadcasters money? Can you give examples?

Zalon: I really can’t yet, as we don’t have any of those specific examples to give. Right now our customers are using Super Hi-Fi for next-generation streaming services, and in each of those cases our customers added employees. In other words they are using the efficiencies of our platform to grow listeners and revenue, not to drive cost savings.

Now, I imagine radio broadcasters could use our tools to save time and money, eliminating the need for anyone to add data to content or to align content in their radio automation services. But I think Super Hi-Fi is a more attractive option for broadcasters who want to use what they are already amazing at — incredible radio listening experiences — and to apply that to the next generation of listening. In other words, to take what they’re already doing but to do it across a new generation of listening platforms for a new generation of listeners. That’s where Super Hi-Fi really starts adding huge value.

RW: And those computer-generated voices you mention. When are those coming? Years or months? And how close are you to a solution?

Zalon: Great question. We aren’t a text-to-speech company, though we definitely keep our eye on the space. Amazon is doing some amazing things with their Polly service, and there are some very cool products that are in the early stages of commercial deployment. But let’s not forget that Bill Gates said in 1995 that the computer voice services would be amazing in five years, but here we are 25 years later and it still sounds computer generated. So it wouldn’t surprise me if it took another 25 years.

 

The post Super Hi-Fi Queues up Streaming Music appeared first on Radio World.

The author is vice president of business development for Orban Labs.

We all know that engineers have way too much on their plates and may not always have the time to check things thoroughly, especially with equipment that may, at first glance, appear to be operating correctly.

After spending a fair amount of time at multiple AM transmitter facilities recently, I have some observations on things that really should be checked more often.

MODULATION MONITORS

Out of the dozen or so AM sites I have been to since March of 2019, I haven’t found a single modulation monitor that was accurate.

For the sites I visited in this report, I carried a Belar AMMA-2 that I had calibrated by Belar just prior to the start of my visits (thanks Belar!) and I am certain it’s accurate. That being said, there are a few issues with mod monitors that I have found:

— Non-MDCL/AMC capable modulation monitors should not be used on transmitter

Not all modulation monitors indicate properly with MDCL or IBOC enabled.

s running MDCL/AMC. Typically, I found these types of mod monitors were reading upwards of 40% higher than the actual modulation when compared to my AMMA-2. In some instances, the AMMA-2 showed 75% positive modulation on a transmitter running MDCL where the onsite modulation monitor was showing 115% positive.

— Modulation monitors out of calibration or broken. If your modulation monitor is going on 10+ years old and hasn’t been back for a calibration, odds are it’s not going to be accurate. I highly recommend sending it in periodically to make sure it’s operating correctly and in calibration.

— Incorrect setup, or making measurements off air. Most AM modulation monitors need to have the RF input set correctly. There is usually a “Cal” or “RF” level adjust for this. If this isn’t correct, your readings are going to be meaningless. While you are at it, you might want to check to make sure that the sample port output of the transmitter from which you are feeding the mod monitor is good. A scope will go a long way to check that the sample port is operating correctly. And, please, “just say no” to making AM modulation measurements off air …  it’s not going to be remotely accurate.

TRANSMITTER PROBLEMS

I “broke” a couple of 1990s-era 50 kW AM transmitters during my tour. Both of those weren’t happy to begin with, and my attempts to get them to make full power at 125% positive modulation were met with a number of PA faults.

Once the PA problems were sorted out at these sites, I found that both of these were happier at 120% positive mod than 125% positive modulation. It might be that your aging transmitter simply won’t handle the higher positive modulation levels anymore.

Additionally, I found a couple of transmitters that had the audio polarity reversed …  and that will also lead to a lot of unhappiness with trying to get positive modulation over 100%. I found a backup transmitter with its audio polarity reversed too. The main transmitter had the correct polarity.

If the transmitter with which I was working on my tour had a digital audio input available, I always used it. I typically found that peak control was within 0.5% using digital inputs.

And that brings me to LF tilt on analog transmitter inputs: a scope and a square wave generator will tell you quickly if you have an LF tilt issue on the transmitter. Put a 50 Hz square wave into the transmitter and take a look at the output of the transmitter on a scope. Adjust the transmitter LF EQ in the processor to minimize the tilt.  I usually found I needed +3 dB at 3 Hz to flatten the square wave on older transmitters.

You also might run into modulation overshoots (bounce). Bounce is typically a nonlinear problem caused by a sagging or resonant transmitter power supply found in older transmitters. Newer transmitters fed via a digital audio input typically do not have this issue.

If you are running MDCL, your transmitter may have issues of which you are unaware. It’s a good idea to periodically disable your MDCL and check your power output. It’s possible that your MDCL operation could be masking issues that may be coming into play.

AUDIO ISSUES

The biggest problem I found with audio was that the audio processor’s input levels were set incorrectly and as a result the processor’s AGC wasn’t operating optimally. This causes the AGC gating to misbehave, resulting in “pumping” and “breathing.” Check your specific audio processor manual for proper AGC setup.

In almost all cases, you want the AGC to be operating in its “mid-range” with nominal program levels. On current Orban processors, that is about 10 dB of AGC.

Proper input levels and AGC setup are key elements in good station sound.

Also check the gate level settings. At one station I ran into a processor that was showing that the gate was on all the time and I thought the processor was broken. Tech Support found that the gate level had been set 6 dB higher than where it should have been set. It had been misadjusted in an attempt to compensate for improper input level. The fix was to adjust the input sensitivity to drive the AGC to mid-range (which was an 8 dB increase) and reset the AGC gate to its nominal -30 dB setting. Recalling a factory preset would have also reset the gate to its normal level. It was a revelation to hear how much better the station sounded once the AGC and gate had been set up correctly.

Make sure you’re using the correct processing settings. Over time, the formats of many stations have changed, car radios have changed and the AM band’s noise floor has increased. What worked for processing when the station was running “Urban” 20 years ago won’t work for today’s talk format — you’re going to need a different processing preset on the processor.

I was recently working with an AM that just didn’t sound all that great, and we decided to start fresh with a factory stock preset. We used the “Music Medium” on their processor and added 2 dB of “brilliance” and the station sounded spectacular.

As part of our testing and adjustments, we listened to radios in both my rental car and the CE’s car, while the PD was driving around town in his vehicle. Sometimes a fresh start goes a long ways to making things sound better.

AM transmitters often sound subtly different from each other because many have levels of nonlinear distortion (THD and IM) that are large enough to be audible. So in terms of processing adjustments, one size does not fit all, and you may have to back off processing (mainly clipping) if the transmitter has higher levels of distortion than a modern transmitter.

The Nautel NX3, for example, specifies 0.8% THD and 0.5% SMPTE IM at 99% negative modulation. For its Flexiva 3D, GatesAir specifies typical THD of 0.3% and 0.4% SMPTE IM at 95% modulation.

Additionally, older receivers with diode envelope detectors produce significantly increased distortion when negative modulation exceeds 90%. This is not true of modern DSP-based receivers, however.

With proper modulation and processing, even older AM facilities can sound really good.

Take a critical listen to your station. Do the announcers sound “crunchy” with elongated, raspy sibilance? If so, it’s probably beating your Time Spent Listening (TSL) numbers to death. If you turn down the clipping, it will help considerably. Also, consider buying a newer processor. An early 1990s AM processor set to “Chernobyl” to try and get over today’s high noise floor environment isn’t going to cut it. And with all due respect, old analog processors just can’t be competitive any longer in most markets.

And then there is the PPM enhancer which many have set way too high — I call that setting “max rock crusher.” At that level, those tend to sound like a steel bowl being scraped with a whisk. A bit of a deft touch is in order to not sound like a Mixmaster with a bad bearing.

If you’re an engineer having problems sorting out your processing or arguing with the PD over proper processing settings, I’d be happy to personally chat with you or your PD. Email me at processing@orban.com.

My opinion is that with proper modulation and processing, AM stations can sound great and can run more efficiently (which will save your station some money!). It wouldn’t hurt to run a quick reality check the next time you’re at the transmitter or adjusting the processing.

Comment on this or any story. Email rweetech@gmail.com.

The post AM Notes From the Field appeared first on Radio World.

Alan Hughes

The author is a broadcast consultant based in Hamersley, West Australia.

I wish to reply to Frank Karkota’s list of comments in his article “No to Digital AM.”

1. You compared a crystal set and a digital radio. A crystal set consists of an aerial, a tuned circuit for station selection consisting of an inductor and a capacitor, and diode demodulator, perhaps another capacitor and a pair of headphones. By comparison a software-designed radio consists of a much smaller aerial, a filter containing an inductor, and the capacitor is on board on a DSP chip specifically designed for digital radio. The DSP chip is doing all the tasks required of digital to produce an audio signal, just like the diode in the crystal set. I suppose you could attach a pair of tuning switches and plug a pair of headphones into the analog output, although the high-impedance headphones of the past are now not available. The main difference between the two is that the digital radio has stereo sound, and the distance to the transmitter can be considerably greater for everyday reception.

1. As for the availability of parts, have you gone to a store and tried to buy a new variable tuning capacitor or a germanium diode? The silicon types used in power supplies are commonly available but unsuitable. SiliconLabs is in Austin, Texas, and has 1,500 employees. The parts suppliers who make the chips are not only in China but South Korea, Taiwan and India. The receiver complexity is in one DSP designed radio chip, which replaces the germanium diode. So if it fails you replace the chip as you would have if the diode had failed. They are both “black boxes.” This article shows how to make a modern AM/FM/DAB+ radio. The signal processing in DAB+ is very similar to DRM except for the tuning bands.

1. Infotainment systems in new cars use DSP so it is easy to add digital reception of DRM, DAB+ and HD Radio (with a license fee). This ability is in the radio DSPs already. DAB+ and DRM radios are tuned by station name, not frequency. There is already a DRM radio that contains a Bluetooth hotspot so the radio is tuned by a mobile phone and a box containing the receiver is connected to the antenna and puts out USB or FM stereo. Hybrid radio is pushing the sending of the station logo sent to the radio via mobile broadband, which is not necessary in DAB+. DRM can already do this. The HD Radio receiver will switch to mobile broadband instead of AM or FM when the digital signal contains too many errors.

1. DRM sound quality has been upgraded through the use of a new compression algorithm called xHE AAC. Listen to this on a good pair of stereo headphones. The Dream software has only recently been able to decompress xHE-AAC signals.

1. As the signal quality deteriorates, the AM signal becomes noisy but the stereo DRM signal continues until the AM is unlistenable, then it will start muting on errors. It is also good at rejecting adjacent-channel interference. As you point out, it removes the phasing effects caused by multiple reflections from the ionosphere due to error correction.

1. You can keep your car for 10 years if you wish and buy an adaptor to connect between the aerial and the existing car radio. You may need a mobile phone or a clip on a dash-mounted controller to tell the adaptor what program to listen to. Norway now has no AM/FM broadcasts by major networks, only DAB+. Ratings have returned to normal since conversion..

I would like to add the following comments of my own:

1. In Europe, AM has been disappearing, so much that many radios are either DAB+ digital and FM, or FM only.

1. I would like to suggest that in the Americas, that the virtually deserted TV Channels 2 to 6 could be used for DRM. There are enough channels available for all AM and FM broadcasters; and because there are no overlapping channels, high power can be used to give larger coverage areas than FM.

1. AM started broadcasting 100 years ago and is very inefficient compared to DRM, where the electricity consumption is reduced by >67 % because it has no carrier.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

[Related: “BBC’s Fry: Digital on AM Is the Way Forward”]

 

The post Letter: Don’t Shrug Off Benefits of AM Band in Digital appeared first on Radio World.

Console maker Lawo has released the Mix Kitchen, a console remote control system.

The Mix Kitchen uses the Mackie HUI control surface protocol to provide the ability to remotely control Lawo mc2 console systems via any Mackie HUI-compatible control surface. Besides physical fader control, Mix Kitchen provides access to other things such as processing, bus control, presets, etc. It is both Windows- and Mac-compatible.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

Lawo Senior Product Manager Audio Production Christian Struck said, “The Mix Kitchen setup works almost out of the box: no additional Lawo hardware, retrofits or upgrades are required. Audio engineers can work with an inexpensive fader panel that supports Mackie HUI, e.g.Icon Platform X, Behringer X-Touch, their laptop, a mouse and a tablet.”

Info: www.lawo.com

 

The post Lawo Adds Remote Console Operation appeared first on Radio World.

It appears that despite its appeals, Florida Community Radio won’t able to get the noncommercial station that it had planned to build in Horseshoe Beach, Fla.

This is a case at the Federal Communications Commission that involves the legal concept of “tolling.” FCC rules specify time limits on construction permits but also provide for them to be “tolled,” meaning extended, in certain circumstances like natural disasters.

In 2015 the FCC issued a CP for a new FM to be called WRDB, with a three-year deadline. Shortly before it expired in 2018, the applicant Florida Community Radio asked the Media Bureau for a delay, citing the effects of Hurricane Irma and the FCC’s decision to eliminate the main studio rule, which meant it needed to do more engineering analysis for an STL. The bureau gave a six-month extension, but only for the second reason.

[Related: “Radio Eyes Advantages of Deregulation”]

Then in October 2018, Hurricane Michael hit. FCR requested another delay based on the impact of that hurricane on its ability to construct the station; this too was granted.

Shortly before that extension ran out, FCR submitted another tolling request so it could perform an analysis of whether station power lines should be underground rather than on a pole and to do a structural analysis of the potential impact of a future Category 5 storm on its antenna. At this juncture the Media Bureau said it asked for specific information explaining how Hurricane Michael had prevented FCR from meeting its latest deadline but that FCR did not provide it.

The bureau denied the extension request, saying the studies involved could have been done within the extended construction term. This would mean no new station.

The applicant asked for reconsideration but the FCC denied it late last year. FCR, still hopeful, then came back with an application for review by the full commission, asking it to overturn what the Media Bureau had decided.

It said the CP deserved further postponement because the tower that FCR wanted to use is in a FEMA-designated floodplain area, and that the FCC is required to evaluate the effects of proposals in floodplains, “especially when such alternative steps being proposed … are meant to reduce or mitigate the risk of damage in anticipation of an act of God.” It raised other objections to the bureau’s earlier actions.

Now the commission has turned down this appeal. It said the latest argument tried to raise new matters that its staff never had the opportunity to address (but would have rejected anyway). It also said the appeal tried to reintroduce an issue it had already decided when it denied tolling after the earlier hurricane. And, among further reasons, it said FCR has not shown impediments caused by Hurricane Michael “but instead now predicates its argument on potential future acts of God.”

In short, the commission has dismissed or denied all the arguments in the application for review; so barring further actions, there’ll be no CP for Florida Community Radio, and WRDB’s call letters now bear the dreaded “D” prefix for deleted.

 

 

The post FCC Rejects Appeal From Florida FM Applicant appeared first on Radio World.

Talk about a product fit for our times. Riedel Communications has come out with a “distance monitoring device” called DisTag that you stick in a pocket or wear around your neck.

It says media professionals are among those who could benefit from it.

“DisTag is a reliable and precise instrument that immediately alerts its wearer via haptic, visual and acoustic signals whenever the mandatory minimum distance to other people is about to be breached,” states the German company. (We wonder if the gizmo can be made to shout “Danger, Will Robinson”…)

An image from the DisTag brochure. Riedel says media applications are among those where the DisTag will find use.

You can set the proximity limits per your local situation and regulations for social distance. Battery life is 10 to 12 hours before recharge via micro USB. We asked the company for its price and will post it here when confirmed.

Riedel says possible users include those who work in “media and event production, industrial operations, retailers, medical facilities, public and cultural institutions, and schools and universities.”

The company makes various types of audio, video and data gear for specialty markets, including intercom systems.

 

The post Come No Closer: Riedel DisTag Keeps You at a Distance appeared first on Radio World.

Jacquie Gales Webb

One of the more notable jobs in the U.S. public radio sector is that of VP radio at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington. CPB now has named Jacquie Gales Webb to fill that role.

She succeeds Erika Pulley-Hayes, who in January became the president/CEO of WMFE/WMFV in central Florida.

The VP radio is responsible for CPB strategies to “strengthen the ability of public radio stations to create high-quality, multi-platform content and to grow their audiences.”

Gales Webb is not a stranger to prominent projects. She has managed grants on a number of familiar ones including the StoryCorps Mobile Booth and One Small Step projects, WGBH’s World Channel, the Urban Alternative music format, radio station engagement for the PBS series “Country Music” and NPR’s international coverage.

“She has been integral to the development of projects to help minority and rural stations increase content production, community engagement and revenue capacity,” CPB stated in the announcement. She also helped shape the Texas Station Collaborative, now the NPR Texas Hub, and managed other journalism collaborations.

The announcement was made by CPB Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Levy, who praised Gales Webb’s earlier work as an award-winning producer as well as her accomplishments with CPB.

She’s also the longtime host of a gospel music show on WHUR in Washington; CPB said she is recognized as a national authority on gospel music.

The post Jacquie Gales Webb Is New VP for Radio at CPB appeared first on Radio World.

Broadcast software developer ENCO has announced the appointment of Shane Finch as sales director for the broadcast and pro AV markets.

[Read: Gene Novacek, Founder of ENCO, Dies]

Finch previously worked at software developer MusicMaster where he liaised with ENCO in product development and distribution as vice president, business relations. He has also worked as an on-air broadcaster and in radio station management.

ENCO President Ken Frommert said, “Shane’s experience with sales management and customer relations, along with his direct familiarity with ENCO’s technology and business culture, makes him a natural fit for this important role in ENCO’s continued global growth.”

 

The post ENCO Appoints Finch appeared first on Radio World.

In what it is calling a “new chapter,” the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has announced its SMPTE 2020 Annual Technical Conference will take place as a “remote experience” when it gets underway in November.

“We are thrilled to deliver an immersive, world-class experience to our community around the world and we encourage each of you to think of this as YOUR SMPTE 2020 — regardless of where you live,” the announcement reads.

SMPTE continues that the remote experience is eliminating the traditional barriers of travel, accommodations and scheduling conflicts, while also offering an interactive experience with learning and networking opportunities for a “broadly accessible and truly global conference.”

This is another major conference that has opted to go the virtual route in place of a traditional physical conference this year, following in the footsteps of NAB — for both its spring Las Vegas show and fall New York event — as well as IBC and more. SMPTE made no mention of the coronavirus pandemic in its official announcement, but SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange mentioned it during a video on the remote experience; the other conferences cited the pandemic as a key reason to go virtual.

SMPTE did share what they will be offering during this remote experience. The theme for this year’s conference is “Game On,” and a full day will be focused on the convergence of esports/gaming and media technology.

The virtual environment that attendees will have access to is expected to include a main conference hub, meeting rooms, theater space for sessions and an exhibition hall with private meeting space. Attendees can create their schedule based on their interests and schedules, SMPTE says.

The SMPTE 2020 Annual Technical Conference will be held from Nov. 10–12.

The post SMPTE 2020 Says “Game On” to Remote Experience appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is automotive partnerships director for Radioplayer.

Audi and the VW Group recently renewed their partnership with Radioplayer to continue supporting their brilliant hybrid radio (FM, DAB and IP seamlessly working together with no need for users to choose platforms) and to collaborate on the development of future in-vehicle radio experiences — ensuring Audis, VWs, Porsches and Lamborghinis will all continue to have the best radio experience in their dashboards.

The new deal builds on a successful collaboration that’s been in place since 2017 and lays the foundation for a longer-term relationship. It’s a great example of Radioplayer’s partnership model with the automotive industry — providing a high-value, low-cost partnership direct with broadcasters to develop world class radio experiences in the car.

To do this Radioplayer provides official broadcast metadata direct from thousands of radio stations, technology development support and user-interface design consultation, all free-of-charge wherever possible.

In return, we ask to collaborate on development of the future radio experience. Collaboration with car manufacturers and technology suppliers is essential if radio is to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded dashboard.

We believe that hybrid radio offers the best radio experience today and that’s where our focus is. To ensure continual improvement of radio’s dashboard experience we need constant discussion between car manufacturers and broadcasters to agree and deliver a joint roadmap that keeps pace with both listener expectations and in-car technology. Radio broadcasters must be at the heart of these discussions spanning metadata, technology and the user-interface (UI).

Our official broadcast metadata is of vital importance to a good user experience and as more countries and broadcasters join Radioplayer it will keep on improving. We’ve seen too many instances where unofficial metadata from third parties is either wrong (station logos) or altered (broadcast streams), leading to a poor user experience, so we make it as easy as possible for broadcasters to get their official metadata to us. We’re also proud and active members of WorldDAB and we’re supporting their forthcoming campaign to raise awareness among broadcasters of the importance of making metadata available for car dashboards.

Laurence Harrison

We are technology/platform neutral, and are big supporters of open standards such as RadioDNS and DAB+. We closely monitor technological developments and intervene when we feel radios prime position in the car could be impacted.

One current example is Google’s Android Automotive Operating System, which is starting to grow in importance as it’s adopted by more car manufacturers. We began work in late 2019 on a project to ensure hybrid radio is technologically possible in Android Automotive and the capability is baked into the core source code (known as AOSP) and available to everyone. It’s a complex, emerging area but we’re leading on behalf of our broadcasters and are open to wider collaboration, hopefully including Google, as it could have huge benefits for the radio experience.

We’ve also seen that the standard broadcast radio user interface in Android Automotive is currently poor, a list of FM frequencies, no station names, no station logos, no now-playing information. So at the same time as working on the hybrid capability we’ve also developed a great user interface within Google’s template guidelines which we hope will demonstrate what can be done. Our UI designs are based on the WorldDAB Automotive User Experience Guidelines which we ask all our car manufacturer partners to respect.

In the future there will be other UI design challenges as we merge on-demand and podcast content with live radio and create a personalized experience for listeners. We intend to be at the center of that to help our broadcasters and automotive partners benefit from each other’s expertise. To get it right we’ll need to work together.

As the broadcast and automotive sectors emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic into a difficult economic climate, we believe that deeper collaboration offers a win-win that will undoubtedly improve the radio experience in connected cars. We also want to help ensure radio development projects, particularly on hybrid radio, remain on-track and unaffected.

Of course, we know the pandemic is likely to impact wider automotive trends. Understanding these trends and the implications on longer-term planning for the in-car experience is an important part of how we intend to work to foster collaboration with car manufacturers and keep broadcasters at the heart of radio’s dashboard development.

[Related: “Hybrid Radio Picks Up Momentum”]

The post Broadcasters Must Be at the Heart of Radio’s Dashboard Development appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is director distribution of the BBC World Service.

Nigel Fry

In response to Frank Karkota’s commentary “No to Digital AM”:

The AM radio band represents a very valuable resource to society and to broadcasters. It offers the opportunity to transmit programs over large areas and well beyond line of sight.

In the present age, digital technologies present a threat and an opportunity for radio broadcasters. Digital technologies generate radio frequency noise that degrades the audio performance of analog AM services (drive past an ATM listening to AM radio and you’ll know what I mean) but also an opportunity to transform the quality of service delivered in the AM band.

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) supports such a transformation. It not only makes the transmitted signal more resilient but allows much lower power level to be used to cover the same area as an analog service. At the same time it delivers additional information to the listener enhancing the service that can be offered and making services accessible by brand and not just frequency.

Broadcasters can achieve reduced operating costs and deliver higher value services to their audience, which remain free to consume (this is important in many markets where the population cannot afford to access internet services). Commercial receiver solutions are being worked on and being improved all the time. There is an effective aftermarket solution (to retrofit in existing vehicles), and the latest information can be found at drm.org/receivers.

We have recently presented improvements to the open source DREAM software that allow it to work with the readily available Raspberry Pi device. As such it provides an entry-level receiver ideally suited to the hobbyist.

We live in a digital world, and kids today are equipping themselves with the skills and tools needed to live in it and shape it. Broadcasters can take many benefits from that same technology, and we owe it to society to continue to use frequency bands that support audiences remote from or not linked to other forms of connectivity and not allow populations to be constrained by line-of-sight services. DRM digital transmissions in the AM band are the way forward.

[Read more articles and commentaries about digital radio trends and technologies.]

The post BBC’s Fry: Digital in the AM Band Is the Way Forward appeared first on Radio World.

Kudos for the story of pre-vacuum tube transmitters [“When Brute Force Transmitters Ruled the Air,” RWEE, April 22]. In reading this item, there was one statement that has been bugging me: “True to Ohm’s law, when the voltage flowing through an ordinary resistor increases …”

What?

Later in the same paragraph: “increasing voltage results in lowered current flow …” Huh?

I’ll admit that I’ve been out of school for many years; however, I don’t believe the behavior of the elements of Ohm’s Law have changed very much.

Voltage does not “flow,” current does.

Voltage is a difference of potential that causes current to flow.

Did I miss something here?

Author James O’Neal replies to the above letter:

Thanks Clay for catching the slip-up. Apparently, my fingers weren’t fully engaged with my brain when I typed that.

I should have written: “True to Ohm’s law, when the voltage across an ordinary resistor increases, the current flowing through it increases proportionally (I=E/R).”

Please forgive this transgression. I sentence myself accordingly to 60 seconds of being in close proximity to the stench that results from attempting to pass an excessive amount of current through a carbon resistor!

I do defend my statement in the next sentence that in the case of a negative resistance, an increase in voltage results in a reduction in current flow. As I tried to make clear in the article, this (negative resistance) is a special case and does not apply to ordinary resistive circuit elements.

 

The post Letter to the Editor: A Difference of Potential appeared first on Radio World.

Citing links to the Chinese government, the Federal Communications Commission has said no, at least for now, to an application to deliver Mandarin Chinese content from a studio in California to a radio station in Mexico for rebroadcast back into the United States. And it ordered a halt to the arrangement within 48 hours.

This is the latest twist in a story that has been making headlines for a couple of years. The setup — allowed under a previous special temporary authority — has been the subject of complaints from a low-power FM station that serves the Chinese-American community and, more prominently, from critics like Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who are worried about national security.

The LPFM station has argued that the cross-border deal was “unlawful,” that one of the companies involved is a front for the People’s Republic of China and that the programming is propaganda targeting the large Mandarin-speaking population in the Los Angeles area — allegations that the companies have denied. Meanwhile Sen. Cruz has pushed for legislation to flatly block cross-border broadcasts by entities associated with the Chinese government.

In dismissing the application to deliver content from Irwindale, Calif., to AM station XEWW in the Tijuana/Rosarito area, the FCC did not comment on the content of the programming, and it left the door open to reviewing the situation once it knows more about the companies involved. But it did use the phrase “California studio with links to Chinese government.”

The original application came from GLR Southern California and its parent H&H Group USA, which took an ownership stake in the Mexican AM station two years ago. “The application was dismissed because the parties failed to include in their application a key participant, Phoenix Radio, which produces the Mandarin programming in its studio,” the commission said in a press release highlighting its decision.

“Phoenix Radio is partially owned by two entities with Chinese government ownership, Extra Steps Investment Limited and China Wise International Limited … Phoenix Radio’s known activities at this broadcast programming studio are such that, without reviewing its role as an applicant, the FCC could not evaluate the proposed service.”

The applicants in early 2019 did file an extensive document replying to FCC questions about its business arrangements that included some descriptions of the role of Phoenix. The bureau says now that if a revised application is filed that includes Phoenix Radio, the commission “would review it under applicable law.”

GLR Southern California and H&H Group USA told the commission in 2018 that this arrangement is “not a front” for the Chinese government, and that even if the commission evaluated content, “it would find the programming leaves no room for propaganda.” They have said that the FCC has reviewed “countless programming arrangements that are legally and functionally indistinguishable” from this one.

In that same filing, they said that the LPFM that objected to the arrangement “bases its arguments on wholly unsupported allegations of improper influence in a self-serving effort to protect itself from competition to the Southern California Chinese-speaking American audience. There is a history, and always a danger, that in times of insecurity citizens and the government will make harmful generalizations about race, language and ethnic heritage. … The facts are that the station is carrying programming produced by a publicly traded company that provides Chinese-language programming around the world, including throughout the United States to major TV distributors.” But those arguments have not sufficed to convince the FCC to allow the arrangement to continue, at least for now.

The post FCC Says No to Cross-Border Mandarin Chinese Setup appeared first on Radio World.

Attendees at the National Student Electronic Media Convention in 2018 celebrate an award for KTSW(FM) in Texas in an image from the CBI Twitter feed.

Add another to the list of industry events going virtual this year: the National Student Electronic Media Convention, which had been planned for Baltimore in late October.

It will be online-only instead. The convention is scheduled to go to Orlando in 2021 and return to Baltimore in 2022.

College Broadcasters Inc., which produces the gathering, said its board has been weighing the matter for some time.

“To ensure that our decision was made with the greatest possible amount of data and transparency, we surveyed our membership multiple times and convened several focus groups.”

[Related: “College Radio: After the Shock, Resistance”]

But it cited “the uncertain budgetary situation” faced by many members, institutional travel freezes, a predicted spike in cases in the fall “and the reality that many people are understandably uncomfortable traveling or gathering in groups right now.”

For a current list of events and cancellations, see the Radio World events calendar at https://www.radioworld.com/calendar.

The post College Media Convention Will Be Virtual-Only appeared first on Radio World.

There will be no national IPAWS test this year in the United States. So radio stations, you won’t have to fill out those ETRS forms for awhile.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the next one will be pushed to 2021 because of the impact that the COVID-19 emergency has had on broadcasters and cable operators.

The agency must test the system at least once every three years.

“FEMA is moving the next national test of the system to 2021 out of consideration for the unusual circumstances and working conditions for those in the broadcast and cable industry,” it stated in the announcement.

“Although systems remain in place for rapid automatic transmission of the test message by broadcast and cable operators, the follow-on reporting activities associated with a national test place additional burdens on technical staff that are already quite busy maintaining as close to normal operation as possible.”

FEMA conducted its fifth nationwide test, focused on the Emergency Alert System, in August 2019. The national Wireless Emergency Alert capability was most recently tested in conjunction with EAS the year before that.

[Read about the results of the 2019 EAS test.]

IPAWS, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, sends emergency alerts and information to the public through EAS and through cell phones and the internet using WEA. The system has been getting use during the pandemic; according to FEMA, officials around the country have sent more than 360 safety messages about the health crisis via WEA and EAS.

[Learn about nationwide alerting tests.]

The post FEMA Says No National Alert Test This Year appeared first on Radio World.

Like a lot of projects, this one started with a need.

One of the Chicago stations that Salem owns has separate sites for day and night modes. One site needs to go off and the other comes on simultaneously. Both sites have older remote controls with system clocks that drift. Plus, Daylight Saving Time is hard to account for because of the limited number of events that can be programmed in the remote control.

A previous engineer had installed two of the Broadcast Tools GPS event controllers, and all was well for a number of years. Then one failed.

The symptom was erratic command execution at random times. The night facility might suddenly pop on in the middle of the day. The fault was easy to see, too. One of the segments of the LED time display, representing one bit of the CPU output, flickered erratically every once in a while.

Because the design has a single data buss running everything from display to commands on a time-multiplexed basis, those flickers occasionally hit the contact closure drivers and strange things happened at the site.

I thought the fix would be straightforward, since I knew which data bit was misbehaving. Broadcast Tools cheerfully provided a schematic and I began diagnosis.

This meant lifting the IC lead associated with that data bit on every item the data buss serves, then waiting for the misbehavior. I had to set up a relay trap to catch the behavior, since days might pass between episodes. At some point, I abandoned the process and declared the Broadcast Tools GPS to be a goner. So that’s where the need arose.

Broadcast Tools doesn’t make that device anymore, probably because more modern remote controls support Network Time Protocol (NTP) and have highly accurate clocks. Not for the first time, I was a technology orphan.

SOLVING THE PROBLEM

Enter the Raspberry Pi. What I needed was a generic GPS-referenced time server that I could use to issue commands with basic relay dry contact closures as the interface. This is one way to do that.

Case open, showing Pi (upper layer) and GPS hat (lower layer). SMA connector leads to an active GPS antenna. Disk shaped object right is a Chronodot, temperature-compensated real-time clock, as backup if GPS and internet fail.

This project uses the Raspberry Pi 3B and assumes you have installed a Linux operating system on your Pi.

Jessie Lite is the distribution I have used for this. There are a hundred sites that explain this, so I won’t do that here.

I will suggest that loading a Linux image with all the graphical user interfaces is probably a waste. In addition, I have found that code writing and compilation for the Pi is best done on the Pi itself and using the command line. Fancy IDEs just take too long to get working right. Use the little editor nano that is installed with Linux. Just my opinion.

Starting with the time part of the project, the Raspberry Pi has a system clock, required for OS operation. I haven’t measured it, but the reports I’ve seen put Pi system clock drift at 15 seconds a day. This isn’t useful for my purpose without help. But the Pi can sync itself using NTP and the vast array of available internet time servers, providing it maintains an internet connection. That might be all that’s needed for many applications.

In my case, I can’t be assured that there will always be a reliable time reference. So I bought a Uputronics GPS Expansion Board that mates with the Raspberry Pi I/O header. They sold me an antenna as well. The board uses the serial UART pins on the Pi and issues a pulse every second when locked. In turn, these pulses trigger a CPU interrupt that “trains” the system clock.

Typical display when timedatectl command is invoked at the command prompt. Shows time is synchronized.

Because the system clock is part of the OS and has no provision for an external sync pulse, the first significant undertaking was recompiling the Linux kernel to add that capability. (To obtain these instructions, just email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Please send me the McCoy instructions.”)

If successful, you’ll have built a Stratum 1 NTP server. This implies accuracy of just one or two milliseconds.

Read up a little on Linux ntpq, the time query language behind NTP. The command ntpq  – p will report the success of timesync. That and the blinking green light on the GPS receiver card are excellent comfort monitors.

Typical display when ntpq -p is invoked from the command prompt. The first line is the pulse-per-second GPS receiver. Small ‘o’ far left is indication that all is well with GPS. Remaining entries are other Stratum 1 servers with calculated adjustments.

In my case, I worried that the GPS signal might become impaired. And if the Pi was headed to a place without internet, a one-second pulse really won’t help unless the Pi gets the right time set initially. Travel to the installation site might be enough to screw things up. So I added a real time clock.

This is a Chronodot, with battery backup (eight years, they say) and 5 seconds per month precision. If I sync the Pi and the Chronodot to the time server here at the studio, the drive to the transmitter shouldn’t introduce meaningful error. And the Chronodot can be set to the system clock — synced by the GPS pulses — on a regular basis, as insurance against simultaneous internet disconnection and GPS reference loss.

EBAY HELPS OUT

Next up is the I/O to allow actions to be initiated by the Pi. The Raspberry Pi CPU is a 3.3 Volt device with not much current handling capability. I decided not to try to find out just how much.

On eBay, I found a batch of fifty 5-volt SPDT printed circuit relays for about 50 cents each and bought them. Like lots of eBay parts, these were a little weird and didn’t exactly fit on a .100 hole spacing kludge board (see photos), but with a little hole reaming and folding over the wiper contact, they would solder. I put eight on the board.

Paranoia about semiconductor failures drove me to install a diode in series with each logic lead from the Pi. Microprocessors don’t like to have their I/O pins dragged outside the CPU supply rails, and the relays need 5 volts. Another diode in the emitter lead guarantees the surplus 2N2222s turn off reliably. I bought a bag of 500 of them in the TO-18 (metal) case about seven years ago and still have a couple hundred left. (Later, I found this pre-assembled relay array complete with driver FETs.)

For ease of testing, I put an LED for each relay alongside the transistors and wired the logic to the 40-pin header on my Pi. A more elegant solution would have been to install a header and use ribbon. Instead, I found some cable with the EIA color conductors inside, stripped the jacket and tacked them to the solder side of the Pi header for connections to 5 volts, ground and the CPU’s GPIO outputs. Having a known working IO device on the Pi makes debugging easier.

There is a protocol and development environment including C language code headers for GPIO compilation at wiringPi.com. Follow the instructions for installation. Get the sample code “blink” to work. It’s the “Hello World” of GPIO. Then you’ll have proofed your compilation process.

After that, the compiled program I wrote takes arguments from the command line used to call it. All that is needed is which relay number, whether pulse (and duration), latch or release. I use the inbuilt scheduler CRON to issue the commands. CRON executes shell scripts (.sh) for each needed function. The scripts have readable names like TxOn.sh. These scripts, in turn, call my program with the appropriate command line arguments.

I noticed right away that CRON alone wasn’t precise enough, time-wise, for some commands. Scheduling with CRON is only precise to the nearest minute. Typically, commands experience a latency of about 2 to 3 seconds from the CRON scheduled time. For a mode change between sites, this just wouldn’t work. So I added some code that, upon program launch, loops while checking the system clock seconds value for a match, actuates the relay, then exits. In my case, a time with seconds = 00 meant the program had to be called by CRON and the script in the previous minute. So for 5:00:00 a.m., the command executes at 4:59 and loops until the system clock seconds equals 00, executes the relay action, then exits.

System is housed in a generic clamshell plastic case. Relay board is generic eBay stuff. Thumb boot drive can be seen lower right.

This whole process could be designed as a program that runs continuously, perhaps reading a text file at launch for the actual schedule of command events. But I like CRON. It might be the oldest remaining component in UNIX and is highly reliable. And using a simple program that performs and exits nearly immediately means the operating system and time functions have unfettered access to the CPU.

Even if you don’t need commands performed but just need a bulletproof NTP time server, this will serve well. Your port 123 needs will be millisecond-accurately served.

Got a project article in mind? Email us to suggest: rweetech@gmail.com.

Read another project by Frank McCoy, “Receivers in a Box on the Roof,” from December 2019.

 

The post Using a Pi to Synchronize Timed Events appeared first on Radio World.

The nice letter from Mr. Vanhooser in the April 22 edition of RW Engineering Extra [“Elevated Counterpoise,” page 8] responding to my earlier article in the Feb. 12 edition was slightly off-point. So I thought I’d reply to his comment.

Ben Dawson’s original article appeared in the Feb. 12 issue of RWEE

The elevated radial system works very well, since, of course, the primary purpose of the “ground” system for a vertical monopole is to provide a return path for the displacement currents. And this was shown clearly in Al Christman’s work that led to the acceptance and use of this system.

But it is not a technique for minimizing the necessity of an extensive “ground” system, merely a different technique, but one which may require as much or nearly as much real estate as a conventional buried radial system.

The same thing is true of two low-profile antennas in common use, the heavily top-loaded “Kinstar” antenna and the inductance loaded electrically short Valcom antenna. Both also excellent solutions to some situations.

And the point of the paper was to describe situations with minimum “ground” systems.

An interesting point about the use of elevated radials in directional arrays is that the return currents aren’t uniformly radial as they are in a single monopole. But numerical analysis techniques can also be used to modify the geometry and perhaps area of above ground systems as well. The currents in a conventional ground system for a directional array were described and discussed in an excellent paper by the late Oggie Prestholdt 30 or 40 years ago.

Regards, and stay safe!

Radio World welcomes letters to the editor at radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Letter to the Editor: Elevated Concerns appeared first on Radio World.

Equipment manufacturer AEQ shared photos of a recent audio over IP installation project in Spain; view them below.

Radio station À Punt Radio is part of Valencian Media Corp. (Corporació Valenciana de Mitjans de Comunicació). In this project the station has been equipped with AEQ Forum IP Split consoles and visual radio systems.

“In the Central Control room, routing is performed by a BC-2000 digital audio matrix with TDM technology, IP connected with Dante to the studios, whose main element is a Forum Split IP digital mixer,” according to a project summary from AEQ.

[Related: Read the Radio World ebook “AoIP for 2020”]

“Four radio studios were installed around a Forum IP Split digital mixer with 16 faders and a separate audio engine, which relied on the Forum Screen software application to help with control.” Two of these studios also have an automated video camera system.

A Capitol IP mixing console assists assist journalists in recording radio and television broadcast signals.

The work was done by the AEQ System Engineering Department under Bernardo Saiz, supervised by Francisco Calabuig and the À Punt Radio engineering team.

Send news and photos of your radio facility project to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

Above, the central control room.

 

Four radio studios were installed around a Forum IP Split broadcast digital mixer, with 16 faders and a separate audio engine. The Forum Screen software application helps with control. The console communicates via
Dante with the Central Control Room, Netbox interfaces and other AoIP devices. It features analog microphone, line and headphone inputs/outputs and AES/EBU I/O.

 

Francisco Calabuig, engineer at Corporació Valenciana de Mitjans de Comunicació.

 

Closeup of a guest position. Two studios are equipped with camera automation to produce visual radio by means of data command through the mixer’s Ethernet interface.

 

Communications management, including VoIP telephony and IP/ISDN audio codecs, is performed using their respective control software packages. A Systel IP management application was installed on a PC with touchscreen. Audio codecs are controlled using dedicated Control Phoenix software.

 

The post A Look Inside Valencia’s À Punt Radio appeared first on Radio World.

As director of operations for Holy Spirit Radio, which operates two non-profit 5,000-watt AM radio stations in the Philadelphia market, I often fixate on achieving quality sound at a low cost.

The author records in the Holy Spirit Radio Production Studio.

My best friend since age 3, Jason Lee Sklar, is a DJ at the top-rated Philadelphia Entercom station B101. As you can imagine, there are some major differences in our small AM stations compared to a commercially successful FM like B101. One of the major differences which sounds silly to many but makes a huge difference is the microphones.

Each week, prior to going on the air, Jason shares a selfie on social media. What did I notice? Often not Jason but the shiny Neumann microphone. Top stations, such as B101 or NPR, use the reliable and crisp Neumanns. These microphones are fantastic but often out of the price range for small radio operators such as ours.

Holy Spirit Radio has, like many, used the Shure SM7 and/or Electro-Voice RE20 microphones. These have for many years been standards in the broadcast industry, especially on the AM band. The RE20 was introduced in 1968. The Shure SM7 was introduced in 1972. These are great microphones and they last a long time. I can’t help but wonder if the ones we own are from those original years. More on that in a moment.

These microphones have been perfect for the sound on the AM band, but are we truly AM broadcasters anymore?

Listening has evolved in recent years as younger individuals utilize other methods to listen to their favorite radio content. Many like myself often forgo the typical radio dial and jump to streaming audio via their phones or other devices. Streaming can offer a crisp digital sound compared to the interference that often happens on the AM band.

AFFORDABLE ALTERNATIVE

Two years ago, before some extensive equipment upgrades, I found our sound during live broadcasts to be a little muffled. This was especially noticeable while listening to our live stream. I found it frustrating, but I could not pinpoint the exact cause.

The main studio at Holy Spirit Radio.

One day, we had extensive noise in our production room, and the cause was some microphone cables. This was not a new occurrence. In the past, we would add filters to fix it, but I wanted a more permanent fix. I decided to run to our local Guitar Center to purchase a few cables in an attempt to clear up the noise.

The plan was to hit Guitar Center, buy the cables and get back out. So often, that is my plan when shopping. But as I walked past the display case of microphones, the salesperson observed me salivating over the Neumann TLM 49. It was similar to the microphone I would see Jason share each week on Facebook.

As the salesman asked if I wanted to check it out, I said, “I would love to, but it’s way out of my price range” (over $1,600). As any good salesperson would do, he asked a few questions, such as, “What is your use?” I think I surprised him when I answered, “Radio station studio.” I answered the question, but was not planning to buy a microphone. He suggested that I look at the Aston Origin microphone, which cost $299.

[Related: “How Should I Disinfect My Microphone”]

The microphone has a very industrial look. Not something you would expect in a radio station studio. I checked it out but resisted the impulse to purchase it and got on with the purpose for my visit.

When I got home, I started to Google the Aston Origin and began reading reviews and understanding more about the microphone itself. The microphone was designed and built in the United Kingdom. The designers wanted to build a microphone that had a unique design, was affordable and built in the UK.

They wanted something that could be unique in the market, yet competitive against the microphones built in places like China. Even some of the best and longest-lasting microphones are now built in cheaper places, such as China.

As soon as the Aston microphone hit the market in 2016, it was a hit, especially with UK bands. As word spread, the brand also became a hit in many other parts of the globe. As I continued to search, reviews started popping up, and comparisons to the Neumann were prevalent on the web.

Many people like to review specs, so here are the specs of the Aston Origin:

• Transducer Type: Condenser
• Acoustic Operating Principle: Pressure Gradient
• Directional Polar Pattern: Cardioid
• Frequency Response: 20 Hz–20 kHz (+/-3dB)
• Equivalent Noise Level: 18 dB A-Weighted
• Sensitivity at 1 kHz into 1 kohm: 23.7 mV/Pa
• Maximum SPL for THD 0.5%: 127 dB
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (rel. 94dB SPL): 76 dB A-Weighted
• Pad Switch: -10 dB

I am personally not a big fan of all the specs or listing of awards on websites. But what struck me was the awe people had for the natural sound of speech.

Around the same time as I discovered the Aston microphone, I was obsessed with the sound of some of the best content producers. I heard a podcast called “The Pub” (episode #17) that featured NPR engineer Shawn Fox discussing the unique sound of their programs. In the podcast, the engineer credited the Neumann U87 microphone ($3,500). One of the features that Shawn discussed was the bass rolloff switch, cutting off some lower frequencies.

The Aston Origin microphone

This was important because of the way listeners often hear the radio with background noise, such as with a window down in a car. He made the point that it is not about fixing the noise levels for studio environment, but instead for the listening environment.

As I reviewed the Aston Origin, I noticed that it also has a bass rolloff switch. They also have a higher-end microphone called the Aston Spirit ($449) which, similar to the Neumann U87, also has a second switch to change the polar pattern.

As I connected all this information, it became inevitable that I would soon be trying out these Aston microphones.

QUICK RESULTS

It seems that every time I go to a store like Guitar Center, I get so caught up in looking around and invariably leave without purchasing one of the items on my list and have to make a return trip to the store. On this occasion, since I was going back to the store anyway, I decided to give the Aston Origin a shot, so I bought a microphone.

The next morning, I set up the mic in our production room. It was simply easier to set it up there since the board could provide phantom power easily. At the time (2017), we had a much older board in our main studio.

Then I asked one of our live hosts to cut over to me in the production room during the show. I wanted to see if anyone noticed a difference, but I would also later check out the recording to see if I could hear a difference.

To my shock, people did notice a difference, including an immediate phone call from the head of the station asking why I sounded so much better than the others on the air. I then told him about the experiment. Needless to say, by the end of that day we bought the total supply out of the three area Guitar Center stores. We replaced all our mics.

Just to be clear, there is good reason the Shure SM7B and Electro-Voice RE20 have been standards for so long. It became evident after I replaced our mics that our older mics may have been from one of those early years. We took the time to take them apart, and we found the entire insides to be disintegrated. Based on what we found under the hood, I am shocked they sounded as good as they did. In many ways, I am amazed that they even worked.

Up until about two years ago, we often did not replace older equipment but instead patched it up to keep it running. This microphone replacement kicked off many upgrades, and today, our sound is outstanding over the air and on the streams. Just like these microphones, we attempt to keep costs low, but we also weigh the cost with listener experience as well as ongoing maintenance and longevity. The Aston Origin was very helpful in positioning us with this mindset and well worth the investment we made.

In life and in radio broadcasting, it is easy to be jealous of what others have, but at the end of the day, with the help of others, you can find things that are just as cool but cost far less with very similar and, in some cases, even better results.

[Also by this author: “Be Smart When Thinking About UPS”]

The post Guitar Center, a Broken Cable & Facebook Jealousy appeared first on Radio World.