Radio World

Tom Hartnett is the technical director for Comrex.

This article appeared in Radio World’s “Trends in Codecs and STLs for 2020” ebook.

Despite being around for decades, FM broadcasting remains the most popular audio media around. A lot of the reason FM thrives, despite the attempts to create a “better” digital alternative, is technical. FM was defined with technical standards that deliver a low noise signal that allows for easy reception in most environments. But more than that, FM was defined as having deviation standards that allow for an audio bandwidth that covers the majority of the hearing spectrum. Sure, modern audio media bests FM in frequency response and signal-to-noise, but the fidelity of FM remains “good enough” for the vast majority of listeners. So much more than features like stereo imaging and dynamic range optimization, it’s the fidelity of FM that keeps listeners engaged. The ability to hear the funky bass line along with the high-hat cymbal, or the ability to derive the emotional nuances of a speaker’s voice is what makes FM radio shine.

But any broadcast airchain is only as strong as its weakest link. With digital recording and production, it’s relatively easy to make a great-sounding in-studio product. But generating live, remote audio has always come with its own set of challenges and costs. Too many times, broadcasters have been willing to compromise on the fidelity of remote feeds for the sake of cost and convenience, airing live audio from telephones. Telephone systems, by design, convey only the fraction of audio spectrum required for intelligibility. They filter out lows to avoid noise pickup, and they filter out highs for reasons having to do with the dated economics of 20th century digital telephony.

[Check Out More of Radio World’s Ebooks Here]

Comrex has built a company, and I’ve built a career, finding alternatives to live telephone audio for radio broadcasters. It doesn’t take any scientific studies or high-priced consultants to know that telephone audio is grungy, thin, and fatiguing to listen to at length. If the competitive challenge is to avoid listeners hitting the “next station” button, then maintaining listenable audio throughout your programming should be the primary goal. At the same time, it’s incredibly important that stations engage in their community (and monetize their brand) with remote broadcasting. Technology has helped combine these goals.

I’ll spare the reader a detailed history of this science, but a list of recent technology is helpful. Dedicated loops (when telephone tariffs reigned supreme), RPU radios, frequency extenders (maturing to multiphone line models), ISDN and POTS codecs each saw their era of popularity and utility wax, and each waned for their own reasons. Something new was always available that was more cost-effective or easier to procure. But the main objective — fidelity — was always either equaled or improved.

We all use IP pretty much exclusively for live out-of-studio audio these days, due to ubiquity and cost. And luckily, IP makes carrying higher fidelity audio feeds easy. Audio coding science has come a long way and implementations are now cheaper and lower power. Wireless IP has made the remote broadcaster’s dream a reality. It’s now possible to carry a handheld, battery powered device into the field, and generate programs that rival the sound of in-studio sources.

So game over, right? What could possibly come next? Problems remain to be solved. We still air telephone audio from listeners. Setting up a remote broadcast can still be a challenge for the nontechnical. And specialized audio encoding gear has significant cost.

Meanwhile, nonbroadcast industries have discovered that offering “toll quality” audio for communication isn’t good enough. Like broadcast, a competitive edge can be had by offering an experience with higher audio fidelity. The recent boom in video chat apps proves this point.

While audio challenges exist in that world with regard to echo cancellation and delay, fidelity has never been an issue. Developers saw early on that high-quality audio needs to be part of any system from the ground up. Facetime, Skype, Zoom, Teams, Messenger and Duo all use high-fidelity audio encoders.

Voice-over-IP systems, now common in office environments, aren’t constrained by the legacy telephone system within their borders. They can by default deliver high-fidelity audio encoders when talking exclusively over their LANs. Even on a relatively poor audio system like a telephone handset the difference between an in-office call and out-of-office call can be startling.

This is because calls outside the LAN must convert the fidelity of the audio to the “lowest common denominator,” which is the legacy phone system.

Mobile phone audio quality is a long-time frustration for broadcast. For programming with listener call-ins, there’s been a routine need to disconnect callers who are unintelligible. This makes programs suffer and wastes valuable airtime. But even here, we see that the industry has realized there’s not always a need to stick with legacy low-fidelity audio.

As mobile phones and networks mature, it’s becoming increasingly common to experience high-fidelity “HD Voice” calls between mobile callers. Modern audio encoders like G.722, AMR-WB and EVS are integrated into late model phones, and the voice-over-LTE networks that support this traffic are quickly replacing the legacy networks. Several carriers are able to cross-connect high-fidelity calls between them, expanding the number of users who experience HD Voice on calls.

On VoIP and mobile networks the existing challenge is the same: there’s no easy way to “bridge the gap” and bring this high-fidelity audio into a broadcast studio reliably. So even when calls originate from these advanced networks, the caller audio is converted into the thin fatiguing sound we all know, in order to be compatible with legacy “bridging” systems.

So the next step in the evolution of high-fidelity remote audio for broadcast clearly involves finding a way to leverage existing systems into the studio. While that work is underway, there’s already one existing tool that can be used today to improve telephone audio: WebRTC.

When I first introduced this concept to broadcasters several years ago, it was a hard sell as it was difficult to describe in a concise sentence. But don’t be afraid of the scary technical-sounding name. WebRTC is essentially a video chat app that’s built into virtually every web browser, whether desktop or mobile. It’s an open standard and allows anyone to create a video chat service without requiring any software installation on the participant’s system. That’s because the critical pieces are already in the browser, waiting to be “woken up.”

Like other video conferencing apps, WebRTC uses a high-fidelity audio encoder by default. This encoder is called Opus, and it’s becoming the de facto standard for live web conferencing.

Because WebRTC doesn’t require the video part of a call, every web browser, both desktop and mobile, can now be considered a high-fidelity audio encoder using Opus.

Using WebRTC can be as simple as subscribing to an audio-only service provider like ipDTL, Cleanfeed, or SourceConnect Now. This will require a pro-grade audio-ready computer at each end of the link. The Comrex Opal provides a pro-grade hardware solution that handles all the complexity within its server box.

Either way, by using WebRTC you’re leveraging the power of developments that were never intended to be used for broadcast. This is the way things have been done for decades — from POTS codecs, ISDN to IP, broadcast always finds a way to leverage new developments for their unique requirements.

We’ll continue to do that as existing “HD Voice” networks converge and interoperate. Maybe someday soon the goal of banishing telephones from the radio will come to pass.

The post As Remote Audio Evolves, Fidelity Reigns appeared first on Radio World.

Audio equipment maker TASCAM has added to its USB audio interface line with the US-HR series. These are high-resolution audio versions, 24-bit/192 kHz sample rate compared to the 24-bit/96 kHz of the current US line of USB audio interfaces.

The new kids match also out with the US line in its I/O complement with the US-1x2HR, US-2x2HR and US-4x4HR.

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

The core of the US-HR line is the Ultra-HDDA mic preamplifiers with +48V phantom power. Naturally, the line is compatible with Mac and Windows systems.

The US-1x2HR has XLR and 1/4-inch inputs; the US-2x2HR and US-4x4HR offers XLR-1/4-inch combo inputs along with MIDI I/O.

TASCAM says that bundled free software includes Steinberg Cubase LE/Cubasis LE 3, IK Multimedia SampleTank 4 SE, and a free, three-month subscription to Auto-Tune Unlimited.

The maker also points to the physical build of the line: “[the] aluminum honeycomb structure on the side panels with [has] a slight upward tilt. This design not only provides a sleek, eye catching design, it also provides just the right amount of weight so the interface won’t move when cables are connected or disconnected. Equally important, the upward tilt provides the ergonomic benefit of being angled in such a way as to make these interfaces easy to work with.”

Info: www.tascam.com

 

The post TASCAM Adds to USB Interface Offerings appeared first on Radio World.

I’d like to kick this column off with a heartfelt thank you to all of the Workbench readers and friends who sent congratulatory words on reaching the 30-year Workbench milestone. It’s been great reconnecting with you, and I am truly blessed by each of you. Thanks for your support as we start year 31!

Not all wipes are created equal

One of those messages came from Pennsylvania’s Tim Portzline.

Fig. 1: Cleaning wipes may be conductive, posing a risk to electronic parts.

Tim has been reading the column since it first appeared, and he included his first submission with his latest note! He is now an engineer with the Pennsylvania House of Representatives while also doing contract work for several radio stations.

Tim notes that sanitizing wipes are a popular way to clean desks, countertops, doorknobs, etc., especially when trying to stop the spread of COVID-19. However, don’t forget that not all sanitizing wipes are safe for electronics.

He recently got a call from a radio clients about a PR&E BMX console that had failed after being cleaned with wipes that were not intended for use around electronics.

In fairness to the staffer involved, the product labeling didn’t mention anything about sensitive devices. But the liquid in the wipes apparently leaked between the modules and ran down the printed circuit boards below the console’s surface. Channels began turning on and off on their own, and the problem made operating the board impossible for a short time.

By the time Tim arrived at the studio, most of the solution had evaporated so the board was beginning to return to normal. But as a precaution, Tim removed the modules and cleaned them with isopropyl alcohol to eliminate any possible residue that remained.

Fig. 2: Note the resistance of a towel soaked in isopropyl alcohol.

After he finished working on the board, Tim got curious about whether the fluid in the wipes had any measurable resistance.

Ideally, the resistance should have been infinite. However, Tim measured as little as 28K-ohms across a small area with a digital multi-meter, as shown in Fig. 1.

The resistance was certainly low enough to interfere with normal circuit operation of the board, akin to dropping hundreds of stray resistors across the traces of the printed circuit board.

Taking the experiment a step further, Tim tested a paper towel saturated with 91% isopropyl alcohol, shown in Fig. 2.

Here the resistance was infinite, or at least greater than the 2M-ohm maximum resistance of the DMM, making it high enough not to interfere with most low voltage circuits.

So, Tim’s tip: Don’t assume that cleaning wipes are non-conductive! Check them first.

[Related: “Radio Equipment Pandemic Cleaning 101”]

Down the drain

ELWA Ministries Association is a U.S.-based nonprofit, nondenominational Christian ministry providing spiritual and physical aid to the West African country of Liberia.

In addition to a hospital and dental clinic, the organization runs ELWA Radio (Eternal Love Winning Africa), and we welcome their readership.

ELWA engineer Alan Shea writes about condensate drains, which we discussed in Workbench in October. Alan’s tip originates with his dad, who was also a broadcast engineer and was Alan’s first mentor.

To keep the drains clear, especially the trap where water can sit, take a piece of bare #12 solid copper wire and snake it through into the trap where it can sit. The copper leaches out into the trap water and helps kill algae by binding to it, which damages the algae cells, causing them to leak and die.

Another point while we’re on the subject of drains: If you have multiple air handlers, make sure that the condensate drain for each is plumbed individually outdoors, or to a larger drain.

Sometimes, to save time and installation cost, drains are tied together in a manifold-type arrangement. When the tech blows out one drain with compressed air, any algae plugs are simply blown into another A/C unit because of the manifold. Separate drains make more sense.

Alan also had an interesting experience with washing equipment. He encountered a piece of gear with a primary power supply toroid transformer that was a single piece of coiled-up steel. It was running hot, and constantly blowing the input fuse.

Alan realized that the steel laminations had too much eddy currents running through them.

He soaked it in a saltwater solution for an hour, then allowed it to air dry for a day. This created enough rust “insulation” between the laminations to cut down the eddy currents so that the toroid ran cool and no longer blew the input fuse.

Sometimes rust can be a good thing!

Down at the Shack

Any engineers with a little gray on the sides of their heads will remember the ubiquity of RadioShack. I and hundreds of other engineers used their parts more than once, in emergencies, to keep a critical function working.

RadioShack is a shadow of its former self. As a recent AP Business story put it, the company “was unable to capitalize on the PC boom that began in the mid-eighties … it also found itself largely on the outside of the portable device revolution of the aughts and drifting toward irrelevancy. It booked its last profit in 2011.” The brand has been through two bankruptcies in recent years.

Longtime Workbench contributor Dan Slentz dropped us a neat note about an online revival of RadioShack. According to business news reports, the new majority owner Retail Commerce Ventures is a retail acquisition group whose strategy is to buy well-known brands that can benefit from its e-commerce expertise. They previously bought Modell’s Sporting Goods and Pier 1 Imports out of bankruptcy.

The new RadioShack will be online, selling from its own website and via an Amazon storefront. Let us know of any experiences you have with it.

The existing 400 or so brick-and-mortar RadioShacks operate independently and remain open.

What’s hard to believe is that the brand will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2021.

E-commerce sites

Speaking of the internet, Frank Hertel, a consultant with Newman-Kees and another longtime Workbench contributor, was intrigued by the online store Ali Express, which is part of the Alibaba Group based in China that you may have read about. The site is www.aliexpress.com. It offers a most varied selection of “things” — wall-mounted stands, brackets, cables and even gaming accessories.

Have you had experiences good or bad with that e-commerce site or any other alternatives to Amazon, in shopping for things to help you in your engineering work? Drop us a note and let us hear about them.

John Bisset has spent over 50 years in the broadcasting industry. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance. He holds CPBE certification with the Society of Broadcast Engineers and is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award. Workbench submissions are encouraged, qualify for SBE recertification and can be emailed to johnpbisset@gmail.com.

The post Workbench: Germicidals May Kill Your Electronics appeared first on Radio World.

Younger listeners play music and shows online and from digital personal collections. My research finds that this music is distributed almost entirely in its original, unprocessed form (Getty Images/JGI/Jamie Grill)

The author is senior engineer with Cavell Mertz & Associates Inc.

Audio processing has reached a level of performance where audio content can have high loudness without the traditional artifacts of audible clipping, pumping, intermodulation distortion, etc.

Of course, audio processing in a broadcast medium is justifiable for over-modulation protection and combatting noisy listening environments.

Due to freedom from distortion in processors and loudness wars, however, much of radio has reached a state of hyper-compression, where already-compressed popular music is fed to multiband compressors and limiters that aggressively reprocess the audio.

This situation is hard to reverse in broadcast, where competitive loudness remains a concern, but I believe minimal processing may be the right direction for online radio media.

I hate to be nostalgic, but FM was once considered a “high fidelity” medium (I’m old enough to remember!).

Consumers used to buy exquisite, expensive tuners to get the best FM sound for their living room systems. Today a number of my non-technical friends don’t even hook up the antenna on their multimedia receivers.

What happened to that reputation, and is it connected to FM’s gradual loss of listeners to online media?

A look at the General Electric transmitter two-page ad in a 1940s issue of Broadcasting Magazine says a lot about FM’s change. (You can see it in detail by clicking the image.)

Click to enlarge.

The signal-to-noise ratio of the new FM system promised to deliver “double the Dynamic Range” of AM and remove “the unreality of artificially controlled sound levels that compress a fortissimo.”

Using an ingenious size comparison between AM and FM (using a photo of an all-woman orchestra during World War II) GE touted the “contrasts of sound intensities … in all its glorious realism.”

Along the way, years ago, FM radio got the idea that dynamic range had no value, and louder was better.

The development of stronger and stronger FM audio processors began. That seemed to work for FM for many years — after all, it was a portable and in-car medium with lower noise and wider frequency response than AM, as well as stereo.

However, the 2000s brought a newer medium: online digital audio that could be delivered to smart phones as well as home computers.

Is less more?

While FM’s decline of listeners may be due to a combination of causes, online audio (streams, podcasts and on-demand playout) have flourished.

Online audio is a 16-bit digital system having a dynamic range greater than 90 decibels, regardless of the bit rate, and lossy compression codecs have continued to improve in sound quality.

Younger listeners play music and shows online and from digital personal collections. My research finds that this music is distributed almost entirely in its original, unprocessed form.

This is true of major on-demand music services, and some are now are offering high-fidelity channels with higher bit rates and even “lossless” coding. The tracks are simply normalized (gain offset) to a common loudness target, without touching the dynamic range of the content.

In a recent project for a major radio group, I found that some online distributors of live station audio are using substantially less processing than their on-air broadcasts. Perhaps some are learning that “artificially controlled sound levels” are not preferred by listeners.

Similarly, podcasts — the fastest growing segment of online audio — are produced and delivered with little or no audio processing.

The target loudness of the online industry is changing to a lower value to permit greater dynamic range.

Rethinking the target

I have the privilege of chairing a drafting committee at the Audio Engineering Society, which is writing a new technical document for online audio parameters.

These interim specifications will evolve to a profile with even wider dynamic range to match audio-for-video standards — and we know how much dynamic range video services deliver!

Broadcasters are now faced with another choice if they adopt “hybrid radio,” which provides a streaming alternative to radio reception as listeners drive outside the broadcast coverage.

FM stations could choose to match the audio processing of their stream to the (hyper-compressed) broadcast audio, to avoid changes as the dashboard receiver switches between off-air and stream.

Or should they? Perhaps radio should reconsider what it broadcasts and move with the audio industry and away from heavy compression.

When hyper-compressed audio is normalized to the same integrated loudness as lightly-processed audio, a heavily-compressed stream sounds weak and flat by comparison. Compressing a stream to sound like air can’t compete with natural, dynamic sound.

Considering this, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the FM stations, too, returned their own air audio to a high-fidelity condition, as FM promised 75 years ago?

A free Radio World ebook explores trends in processing for radio, including the management of over-the-air and streamed signals. Find it at radioworld.com/ebooks.

The post Is It Time for Radio to Restore Dynamic Range? appeared first on Radio World.

Minnesota broadcaster Greg Borgen died in December. He was 64.

According to his obituary, he died unexpectedly on Dec. 21.

He was owner and president of Borgen Broadcasting, licensee of Twin City-area stations WDGY(AM) and WREY(AM) and several associated FM translators; and he has been a member of the board of the Minnesota Broadcasters Association.

“Greg was a second-generation radio broadcaster who was known, loved and admired throughout Minnesota, western Wisconsin and beyond,” the obituary read. “He was a true family man, who did everything and more for his family that he loved so dearly.”

 

The post Greg Borgen Dies, Age 64 appeared first on Radio World.

Jon Laing has been promoted to vice president and market manager for Cumulus Cincinnati, succeeding Dave Crowl, who is retiring.

Laing has been VP of sales for the five-station cluster for the past five years; before that he has held sales management positions for Cumulus and Clear Channel/iHeartMedia.

The announcement was made by Dave Milner, executive VP of operations for Cumulus Media, who was quoted in the announcement saying that Laing “has his finger on the pulse of Cincinnati.”

The stations in the cluster are classic rocker WOFX(FM), country station WNNF(FM), rock outlet WFTK(FM), adult contemporary WRRM(FM) and classic hits WGRR(FM).

Send information for People News to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Cumulus Promotes Laing in Cincy appeared first on Radio World.

The following was excerpted from “Maintaining Audio Quality in the Broadcast and Netcast Facility.” In this segment, the authors deal with the many-faceted and often misunderstood subject of quality in digital audio chains.

In digital signal processing devices, the lowest number of bits per word necessary to achieve professional quality is 24 bits. There are several reasons for this.

Digital audio workstations need headroom to accommodate gain adjustments and mixing of several sources. Moreover, there are a number of common DSP operations (like infinite-impulse-response filtering) that substantially increase the digital noise floor, and 24 bits allows enough headroom to accommodate this without audibly losing quality. (This assumes that the designer is sophisticated enough to use appropriate measures to control noise when particularly difficult filters are used.) If floating-point arithmetic is used, the lowest acceptable word length for professional quality is 32 bits (24-bit mantissa and 8-bit exponent; sometimes called “single-precision”).

In digital distribution systems, 20-bit words (120 dB dynamic range) are usually adequate to represent the signal accurately. Twenty bits can retain the full quality of a 16-bit source even after as much as 24 dB attenuation by a mixer. There are almost no A/D converters that can achieve more than 20 bits of real accuracy, and many “24-bit” converters have accuracy considerably below the 20-bit level. “Marketing bits” in A/D converters are outrageously abused to deceive customers, and, if these A/D converters were consumer products, these bogus claims would be actionable by the Federal Trade Commission.

Sample rate controversy

There is considerable disagreement about the audible benefits (if any) of raising the sample rate above 44.1 kHz.

An extensive double-blind test using 554 trials showed that inserting a CD-quality A/D/A loop into the output of a high-resolution (SACD) player was undetectable at normal-to-loud listening levels by any of the subjects, on any of four playback systems. The noise of the CD-quality loop was audible only at very elevated levels.

This is at KTBI(AM) 810 in Ephrata, Wash., one of three AM stations owned by American Christian Network. Running 50 kW daytime, it covers Spokane over 100 miles away.

Moreover, there has been at least one rigorous test comparing 48 kHz and 96 kHz sample rates. This test concluded that there is no audible difference between these two sample rates if the 48 kHz rate’s anti-aliasing filter is designed appropriately.

However, in 2016, a controversial “meta-analysis” of existing tests comparing high-resolution and CD-quality audio was published in the AES Journal.

According to the author, “Eighteen published experiments for which sufficient data could be obtained were included, providing a meta-analysis that combined over 400 participants in more than 12,500 trials.

“Results showed a small but statistically significant ability of test subjects to discriminate high resolution content, and this effect increased dramatically when test subjects received extensive training. This result was verified by a sensitivity analysis exploring different choices for the chosen studies and different analysis approaches.

“Potential biases in studies, effect of test methodology, experimental design, and choice of stimuli were also investigated. The overall conclusion is that the perceived fidelity of an audio recording and playback chain can be affected by operating beyond conventional resolution.”

Assuming perfect hardware, it can be shown that this debate comes down entirely to the audibility of a given anti-aliasing filter design, as is discussed below.

Far before the publication of the 2016 meta-analysis, in a marketing-driven push the record industry attempted to change the consumer standard from 44.1 kHz to a higher sampling frequency via DVD-A and SACD, neither of which succeeded in the mass marketplace. The industry is trying again with Blu-ray audio, and it remains to be seen if they will be more successful than they were with DVD-A or SACD.

FM stereo

Regardless of whether scientifically accurate testing eventually proves that this is audibly beneficial, sampling rates higher than 44.1 kHz have no benefit in FM stereo because the effective sampling rate of FM stereo is 38 kHz, so the signal must eventually be lowpass-filtered to 17 kHz or less to prevent aliasing. It is beneficial in DAB, which typically has 20 kHz audio bandwidth, but offers no benefit at all in AM, whose bandwidth is no greater than 10 kHz in any country and is often 4.5 kHz.

Some A/D converters have built-in soft clippers that start to act when the input signal is 3–6 dB below full scale. While these can be useful in mastering work, they have no place in transferring previously mastered recordings (like commercial CDs). If the soft clipper in an A/D converter cannot be defeated, that A/D should not be used for transfer work.

Dither

Dither is random noise that is added to the signal at approximately the level of the least significant bit. It should be added to the analog signal before the A/D converter, and to any digital signal before its word length is shortened. Its purpose is to linearize the digital system by changing what is, in essence, “crossover distortion” into audibly innocuous random noise.

Without dither, any signal falling below the level of the least significant bit will disappear altogether. Dither will randomly move this signal through the threshold of the LSB, rendering it audible (though noisy). Whenever any DSP operation is performed on the signal (particularly decreasing gain), the resulting signal must be re-dithered before the word length is truncated back to the length of the input words.

Ordinarily, correct dither is added in the A/D stage of any competent commercial product performing the conversion. However, some products allow the user to turn the dither on or off when truncating the length of a word in the digital domain. If the user chooses to omit adding dither, this should be because the signal in question already contained enough dither noise to make it unnecessary to add more.

Many computer software volume controls do not add dither when they attenuate the signal, thereby introducing low-level truncation distortion. It is wise to bypass computer volume controls wherever possible, and if this is not possible, to maintain unity gain through the volume control. Microsoft Windows Media Player and Adobe Flash Players should be operated at 100% (0 dBFS) at all times, and level control should be done either at the amplifier volume control or console fader.

In the absence of “noise shaping,” the spectrum of the usual “triangular-probability-function (TPF)” dither is white (that is, each arithmetic frequency increment contains the same energy). However, noise shaping can change this noise spectrum to concentrate most of the dither energy into the frequency range where the ear is least sensitive. In practice, this means reducing the energy around 4 kHz and raising it above 9 kHz. Doing this can increase the effective resolution of a 16-bit system to almost 19 bits in the crucial midrange area, and is standard in CD mastering. There are many proprietary curves used by various manufacturers for noise shaping, and each has a slightly different sound.

It has been shown that passing noise shaped dither through most classes of signal processing and/or a D/A converter with non-monotonic behavior will destroy the advantages of the noise shaping by “filling in” the frequency areas where the original noise-shaped signal had little energy. The result is usually poorer than if no noise shaping had been used.

For this reason, Orban has adopted a conservative approach to noise shaping, recommending so-called “first-order highpass” noise shaping and implementing this in Orban products that allow dither to be added to their digital output streams. First-order highpass noise shaping provides a substantial improvement in resolution over simple white TPF dither, but its total noise power is only 3 dB higher than white TPF dither. Therefore, if it is passed through additional signal processing and/or an imperfect D/A converter, there will be little noise penalty by comparison to more aggressive noise shaping schemes.

One of the great benefits of the digitization of the signal path in broadcasting is this: Once in digital form, the signal is far less subject to subtle degradation than it would be if it were in analog form, although in fixed point form it is still subject to clipping. Short of being clipped or becoming entirely un-decodable, the worst that can happen to the signal is deterioration of noise-shaped dither, and/or added jitter.

Jitter

Jitter is a time-base error. The only jitter than cannot be removed from the signal is jitter that was added in the original analog-to-digital conversion process. All subsequent jitter can be completely removed in a sort of “time-base correction” operation, accurately recovering the original signal. The only limitation is the performance of the “time-base correction” circuitry, which requires sophisticated design to reduce added jitter below audibility. This “time-base correction” usually occurs in the digital input receiver, although further stages can be used downstream.

Sample rate converters can introduce jitter in the digital domain because they resample the signal, much like A/D converters. Maintaining lowest jitter in a system requires synchronizing all devices in the audio chain to a common word clock or AES11 signal. This eliminates the need to perform cascaded sample rate conversions on the signals flowing through the facility. Good word clock generators have very low jitter (also known as “phase noise”) and allow the cascaded devices to perform at their best.

Busting the myths

There are several pervasive myths regarding digital audio.

One myth is that long reconstruction filters smear the transient response of digital audio, and that there is thus an advantage to using a reconstruction filter with a short impulse response, even if this means rolling off frequencies above 10 kHz. Several commercial high-end D-to-A converters operate on exactly this mistaken assumption. This is one area of digital audio where intuition is particularly deceptive.

The sole purpose of a reconstruction filter is to fill in the missing pieces between the digital samples. These days, symmetrical finite-impulse-response filters are typically used for this task because they have no phase distortion. The output of such a filter is a weighted sum of the digital samples symmetrically surrounding the point being reconstructed. The more samples that are used, the better and more accurate the result, even if this means that the filter is very long.

It’s easiest to justify this assertion in the frequency domain. Provided that the frequencies in the passband and the transition region of the original anti-aliasing filter are entirely within the passband of the reconstruction filter, then the reconstruction filter will act only as a delay line and will pass the audio without distortion. Of course, all practical reconstruction filters have slight frequency response ripples in their passbands, and these can affect the sound by making the amplitude response (but not the phase response) of the “delay line” slightly imperfect. But typically, these ripples are in the order of a few thousandths of a dB in high-quality equipment and are very unlikely to be audible.

The authors have proved this experimentally by simulating such a system and subtracting the output of the reconstruction filter from its input to determine what errors the reconstruction filter introduces. Of course, you have to add a time delay to the input to compensate for the reconstruction filter’s delay. The source signal was random noise, applied to a very sharp filter that band-limited the white noise so that its energy was entirely within the passband of the reconstruction filter. We used a very high-quality linear-phase FIR reconstruction filter and ran the simulation in double-precision floating-point arithmetic. The resulting error signal was a minimum of 125 dB below full scale on a sample-by-sample basis, which was comparable to the stopband depth in the experimental reconstruction filter.

We therefore have the paradoxical result that, in a properly designed digital audio system, the frequency response of the system and its sound is determined by the anti-aliasing filter and not by the reconstruction filter. Provided that they are realized with high-precision arithmetic, longer reconstruction filters are always better.

This means that a rigorous way to test the assumption that high sample rates sound better than low sample rates is to set up a high-sample rate system. Then, without changing any other variable, introduce a filter in the digital domain with the same frequency response as a high-quality anti-aliasing filter that would be required for the lower sample rate. If you cannot detect the presence of this filter in a double-blind test, then you have just proved that the higher sample rate has no intrinsic audible advantage, because you can always make the reconstruction filter audibly transparent.

KTWO(AM) 1030 in Casper, Wyo., a Townsquare Media station. With 50 kW daytime omnidirectional and 50 kW directional night, it covers 75% of the state of Wyoming.

Another myth is that digital audio cannot resolve time differences smaller than one sample period and therefore damages the stereo image. People who believe this like to imagine an analog step moving in time between two sample points. They argue that there will be no change in the output of the A/D converter until the step crosses one sample point and therefore the time resolution is limited to one sample.

The problem with this argument is that there is no such thing as an infinite-risetime step function in the digital domain. To be properly represented, such a function has to first be applied to an anti-aliasing filter. This filter turns the step into an exponential ramp, which typically has equal pre-and post-ringing. This ramp can be moved far less than one sample period in time and still cause the sample points to change value.

In fact, assuming no jitter and correct dithering, the time resolution of a digital system is the same as an analog system having the same bandwidth and noise floor. Ultimately, the time resolution is determined by the sampling frequency and by the noise floor of the system. As you try to get finer and finer resolution, the measurements will become more and more uncertain due to dither noise. Finally, you will get to the point where noise obscures the signal and your measurement cannot get any finer. However, this point is orders of magnitude smaller in time than one sample period and is the same as in an analog system with the same bandwidth.

A final myth is that upsampling digital audio to a higher sample frequency will increase audio quality or resolution. In fact, the original recording at the original sample rate contains all of the information obtainable from that recording. The only thing that raising the sample frequency does is to add ultrasonic images of the original audio around the new sample frequency. In any correctly designed sample rate converter, these are reduced (but never entirely eliminated) by a filter following the upsampler. People who claim to hear differences between “upsampled” audio and the original are either imagining things or hearing coloration caused by the added image frequencies or the frequency response of the upsampler’s filter. They are not hearing a more accurate reproduction of the original recording.

This also applies to the sample rate conversion that often occurs in a digital facility. It is quite possible to create a sample rate converter whose filters are poor enough to make images audible. One should test any sample rate converter, hardware or software, intended for use in professional audio by converting the highest frequency sinewave in the bandpass of the audio being converted, which is typically about 0.45 times the sample frequency.

Observe the output of the SRC on a spectrum analyzer or with software containing an FFT analyzer (like Adobe Audition). In a professional-quality SRC, images will be at least 90 dB below the desired signal, and, in SRC’s designed to accommodate long word lengths (like 24 bit), images will often be –120 dB or lower, assuming a 24-bit path (which is capable of representing low-level energy down to –144 dBFS).Taking full advantage of high-performance sample rate conversion is another reason to use 24-bit audio for production and to reduce the bit depth (if necessary for applications like burning audio CDs) only as the final step, using appropriate dither.

A good reference on sample rate conversion performance can be found at http://src.infinitewave.ca/.

Less is more!

And finally, some truisms regarding loudness and quality: Every radio is equipped with a volume control, and every listener knows how to use it. If the listener has access to the volume control, he or she will adjust it to his or her preferred loudness. After said listener does this, the only thing left distinguishing the “sound” of the radio station is its texture, which will be either clean or degraded, depending on the source quality and the audio processing.

Any program director who boasts of his station’s $20,000 worth of “enhancement” equipment should be first taken to a physician who can clean the wax from his ears, then forced to swear that he is not under the influence of any suspicious substances, and finally placed gently but firmly in front of a high-quality monitor system for a demonstration of the degradation that $20,000 worth of “enhancement” causes! Always remember that less is more.

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

The post Maintaining Quality in Digital Audio Chains appeared first on Radio World.

The annual WorldDAB General Assembly took place in cyberspace in November. Approximately 300 people joined to hear 35 speakers describe the state of DAB+ digital audio broadcasting around the planet.

Videos of the sessions are available on the WorldDAB YouTube Channel. A sampling:

Gaining ground

In an opening address titled “Strong Progress in Troubled Times,” WorldDAB President Patrick Hannon said 2020 was a good year for DAB+.

WorldDAB President Patrick Hannon described progress for the technology and set out priorities including further placement in cars and adoption in new markets.

In the UK, DAB listening has overtaken FM for the first time; almost 60% of all listening is digital and 70% of that listening is done using DAB/DAB+ receivers. This trend has prompted the British government to launch a review to help assess consumer habits and support radio in the wider audio market.

In Germany, he said, a second national DAB+ multiplex, launched recently, reaches 83% of the country’s population. In the Czech Republic, existing DAB+ signals now reach 95% of all potential listeners, and Czech Radio revealed plans to start switching off analog services in 2021.

France will launch national DAB+ services in 2021, while Switzerland has confirmed its plans to start switching off analog broadcasts in 2022. In Italy, DAB+ consumer sales almost tripled in the first half of 2020, helped by a regulation requiring all receivers sold from January onwards to include digital capabilities.

Hannon said significant developments were occurring in other parts of Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Tunisia and Algeria recently launched DAB+ services. A draft regulation for the licensing of digital radio is expected to be published in South Africa by March 2021.

Automotive progress

DAB’s progress in penetrating automobiles was the subject of several sessions. To date, the technology has been successful in staking out space in European automotive dashboards. For instance, in “Norway, Switzerland, the UK and Italy … over 90% of new cars all have digital radios as standard,” said Hannon.

The implementation of the European Union’s European Electronics Communications Code in December, enforced by national laws in EU member countries, will improve matters further. All new car radios sold in the EU will be required to receive DAB+, whether an EU member country has digital radio terrestrial services on air or not.

“COVID-related delays are possible,” Hannon observed, “but critically there’s no major issue … By the end of 2021, the vast majority of new cars in Europe will have DAB+ as standard.”

A map from Patrick Hannon’s presentation

Radio’s place in the car and the competition for in-car listenership were tackled by Roger Lanctot, director of Automotive Connected Mobility with Strategy Analytics.

He said connectivity is the way of the future for automotive infotainment.

“In 2020, for the first time, more than half of all (new) cars will come in with built-in modems,” he said. This is enabling all kinds of in-car listening options including streaming media and hybrid radio, in which a receiver tunes to terrestrial broadcast but switches to the streamed version when the car is out of range.

Now being offered by Audi, with other automakers and equipment manufacturers looking to follow suit, in-car hybrid radio also allows users to search online for their favorite artists/songs and find them on terrestrial radio.

“The key that’s enabling this is the backend metadata infrastructure that’s being provided by multiple suppliers,” said Lanctot. “It’s stitching together that metadata from digital radio that makes radio searchable.”

Looking ahead, Lanctot sees great advertising revenue potential in harvesting in-car listener data. “Companies like Drive Time Metrics are working with automakers to help them understand how to gain insights into the listening behavior of customers in their cars,” he told attendees. “This is a very powerful value preposition that can potentially transform the broadcast industry if we can get at these insights.”

In another session, Guru Nagarajan, lead automotive manager for Google’s Android Automotive, spoke with Xperi SVP of Broadcast Radio Joe D’Angelo about some of the challenges Google is facing in developing the company’s Android Automotive operating system.

“We are learning,” Nagarajan told attendees. “We’ve had 200 automotive OS platform releases now behind us … With every release, we continue to innovate on the platform, expand the interfaces (and) make it more modular.”

According to Nagarajan, radio still accounts for the majority of in-car listening in all circumstances, and will remain important.

“Whether it be a network-constrained scenario in a connected car or (where) you have full connectivity, radio’s continuing to play a key role, and the data is reflecting that,” he said.

Visual experience

But to retain its share of in-car listening via modern infotainment systems, radio broadcasting may need to move beyond audio.

“We all know that radio needs to be a really rich visual experience in cars of the future with bigger dashboard screens,” said Laurence Harrison, chair of the WorldDAB Automotive Working Group. “Metadata is the thing that’s going to power that. Metadata is the visual and textual information about your station that brings your bands alive.”

It is up to broadcasters to provision this metadata to car dashboards. This is why WorldDAB has launched a campaign to encourage broadcasters to provide richer visual and textual data to in-car displays, to attract/retain drivers and passengers as they tune across DAB+ stations.

In doing so, radio can compete against streaming services and music apps that already use striking in-car visuals to lure listeners to their services. This will particularly matter when self-driving cars take over and drivers will be able to enjoy content on large in-car displays rather than watch the road.

Also discussed during WorldDAB’s automotive sessions were “service following” strategies, as listeners move between FM and DAB+ to stay tuned to their preferred radio programs; a RadioDNS open source project that allows broadcasters to track and measure in-car listening across different platforms; and “quickfire” topics in which WorldDAB’s Rosie Smith asked experts for predictions on the future of audio in the car. All can be accessed through the WorldDAB YouTube Channel.

Boosting receiver sales

In a session about “Marketing DAB+” creative ways to build listenership and receiver sales were profiled.

In Germany, DAB+ radio manufacturer TechniSat teamed with Digitalradio Büro Deutschland to sponsor a “Design Your Own Radio” contest. People who logged in at meinradio.dabplus.de/ could use free online graphic tools to customize the case of a TechniSat DAB+ receiver. The best design was adopted for a limited edition radio, with the winner receiving one of these radios.

To maximize DAB+ marketing success in general, “collaboration is key,” said Jacqueline Bierhorst, chair of the WorldDAB Marketing Group.

Bierhorst said promotions by European public and private broadcasters are vital to DAB+’s success in the region. As an example she cited the Netherlands’ recent DAB+ video campaign, which was joined by more than 60 DAB+ channels, with “the most famous deejays and presenters embodying the switch from FM to DAB+” in their TV commercials. Since this campaign launched, DAB+ listening in Holland has gone up 27 percent.

In terms of actual radios sold, DAB+ sales are holding steady across 12 European countries, with 3.78 million DAB+ receivers sold annually in 2019 and 2020.

“Portable radios make up the lion’s share of sales,” said Max Templeman, insight director for consumer electronics with research organization GFK. Portables accounted for about half of all DAB+ radio sales during these two years, with the rest coming from sales of car radios, clock radios, tuners and radio boomboxes; among others.

COVID-19 had an impact on DAB+ radio sales. Thanks to the lockdowns across Europe, online sales’ share of total consumer purchases went from 26% in January 2020 to 60.9% in April 2020. As outlined by Hannon at the start of the General Assembly, ensuring all receivers are equipped with DAB+ as standard is a priority.

The post DAB Advocates Celebrated Growth in 2020 appeared first on Radio World.

Some recent letters to the editor of Radio World:

 

Talk of AM Digital Is Futile

Re “AM Advocates Watch and Worry”: 

The topic of all-digital on the AM band has been rehashed and disposed of over so many years now, I’m surprised Radio World gives it space anymore. So once again:  

Akin to the flurry of interest in AM stereo and quadraphonic now long gone, there is no consumer demand for digital AM, and virtually no digital AM radio receivers commonly available to receive it, save for new car dashboards. 

New car penetration alone will not substantiate the argument for wholesale conversion from analog to digital AM transmission and transmitter plant conversions. The discussion is futile and moot. 

— from James B. Potter, Cutting Edge Engineering, Kimberling City, Mo.

 

How About an FM Translator Window?

Re “FM NCE Fiing Window Coming in 2021”:

It’s been more than a decade since the last NCE FM filing window, but I can’t even recall when was the last time the FCC allowed applications for translators in the reserved band. 

Once this round of NCE FM and LPFM apps are filed, shouldn’t the FCC consider a translator window as well? Isn’t the notion of decades between filing windows for any service absurd?

— from Harry Kozlowski

 

About Static Dissipaters

Mr. Persons, I’m writing regarding your article of regarding the lightning strike to KJRM’s broadcast facility (“What Happens When Lightning Hits”:

Nott Static Dissipator as shown in the earlier article

While I’m always fascinated by the effects of lightning strikes and enjoyed the article, I was concerned by your comments on static dissipaters. While these devices are sold in the North American market by several firms, they have no code support in either the U.S. or Canada, and have not been shown in the field to reduce the incidence of lightning strike.

There is no known method of consistently preventing lightning from striking, and static dissipaters of the kind you mention act no differently than a conventional lightning rod. As such, these devices are not approved for use on government or military facilities, and do not enjoy wider industry support in North America.

I’d be happy to pass along links to scientific studies, or put you in touch with expert scientists in the lightning protection field. Thanks for your consideration. 

— from Simon Larter, Dobbyn Lightning Protection, Calgary, Alberta

Mark Persons replies:

Dobbyn lightning terminals/lightning rods are Benjamin Franklin technology from 250 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, they are a good way to conduct lightning strikes to the ground. I prefer static dissipaters, which are multiple sharp points to “bleed off” static charges so the voltage between the sky and ground is less. That results in no lightning strike or a strike with less intensity. Static dissipaters are the same as having one hundred or more air terminals, not just the one that a tower traditionally has next to a top beacon. 

A station I did contract engineering work for years ago would be hit by lightning every summer with frequent damage to transmitters and other equipment at the base of their 380-foot tower. I was able to convince a new owner to spend a few thousand dollars to install static dissipaters the next time tower lights were changed. Fifteen years later, there hasn’t been one instance of lightning damage. Likely they’ve had a few strikes of lower intensity.

The post Letters: AM Digital, FM Translators, Lightning Dissipation appeared first on Radio World.

The technology of audio over IP makes possible things that prior broadcasters could only dream about. Radio World’s new ebook explores how AoIP is being used in new facilities today.

We asked expert users at Cumulus, EMF, Corus Radio, SiriusXM, Radio Zürisee and other organizations large and small to tell us about their use of AoIP for studio, remote and interconnection infrastructure, and what kinds of capabilities they’ve achieved with it.

We also invited manufacturers to tell us what they view as the most important trends to watch for in AoIP in the coming year. And we asked an expert installer to share his ideas and insights into technical terminologies.

Read it here.

The post The Real World of AoIP: A Radio World Ebook appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Manuel Breva Colmeiro

In the summer of 1983, I was working as the chief (and only) engineer of a startup UHF TV station in the panhandle of Texas.

It was a shoestring operation, a spinoff of a more established TV station in a nearby market. The transmitter was a 1970s-vintage RCA, installed in the room adjacent to master control and visible through the large window separating master control from the transmitter room.

Just about everything that aired on that station was on 3/4-inch U-Matic videotape; as I recall, Panasonic machines were used for playout of recorded material.

The transmitter was interesting in that the aural AFC did not work for some reason, and a frequency counter was kept on top of the transmitter cabinet showing the aural carrier frequency.

Several times a day, the operator on duty would have to go in the transmitter room and tweak the aural exciter while watching that counter to keep the frequency within the FCC tolerance.

Guess what we’re doing today

There was, however, a much bigger problem at the station.

From time to time, RFI would cause the videotape machines to behave unpredictably. An operator walking through master control would sometimes put the playout machine into fast-forward. That played havoc with the program schedule and occasionally resulted in missed or botched spots.

The director of engineering and his sidekick from the other market had spent a lot of time trying to cure the problem before I came aboard. Their efforts included covering the roof of the building with copper screen in an effort to create a Faraday cage of sorts. I think the effort actually made things worse, as we’ll see.

Much of my effort in my short tenure there was spent shielding the videotape machines themselves, lining the cabinets with foil and taking other RFI mitigation measures. While this did help, marginally, it didn’t cure the problem, much to my frustration.

One Friday morning, I got to the station to find a handyman, someone the owner used for site maintenance, framing in the garage door. I asked what he was doing, and he told me that we were moving master control into the garage that weekend.

What!? Nobody had said a word to me about it, and I had not done any planning for such a project. Anyone who knows anything about NTSC television knows that it takes a lot of BNC connectors, video cable, audio cable, audio connectors and planning to relocate an entire master control facility, at least if you expect it to work right. And we had none of that.

I called the director of engineering and got confirmation of the project, asking him how we were going to do this. The answer was that we were just going to wing it.

That did not sit well with me. I could see disaster coming and I wanted no part of it.

We had a parting of the ways that day. I have no idea what happened with the master control move or whether it happened at all that weekend.

(The cause of the RFI, by the way, was very likely cabinet leakage from the transmitter, which was just a few feet through the glass from the videotape machines and switcher in master control. By screening the roof, the issue was made worse by reflecting RF back into the building.)

Do your thinking ahead of time

The point of this story is that even as young and inexperienced as I was at the time, I knew that embarking on a big technical project without a good plan was a recipe for disaster.

I’m glad I didn’t stick around. I’m sure I would have been at least partially blamed for the inevitable outcome.

Prior to that episode and following, I was involved in all kinds of projects, from simple studio builds or rebuilds to construction of huge towers and antenna sites, and in each case, there was a plan in place.

With each project, I learned something, usually the hard way. Some omission or something forgotten or not accounted for would result in delays. Something not thought through carefully required a last-minute revision of the plan.

It was always something. And with each completed project, I got a little bit better at planning and thinking things through.

In my company, there is no shortage of projects underway at any given time. As I write this, in the last quarter of 2020, we have several omnibus studio projects in the late planning stages, with equipment scheduled to be on site very shortly.

These projects will be challenging, as we’re replacing cluster infrastructure while having to keep all the stations on the air and generating revenue … at one of the busiest times of the year! (We’re doing this now because we were delayed by several months by the pandemic.)

As I was discussing these projects with our CFO, he made the observation that it sounded like we were going to be changing the tires on a car while it’s moving. Exactly! So how will we pull it off without affecting the on-air product and revenue?

The answer, if you hadn’t guessed already, is to have a very detailed plan that will take us through the entire project.

The plan accounts for every piece of equipment, every wire and every signal in the facility. It really takes all the thinking out of the actual work.

Throughout the decades of my career, that’s the one of the most important things I have learned about project work: do the thinking ahead of time and avoid having to figure things out on the fly.

It’s much harder to think under pressure, and it’s especially hard when you’re tired. A good, well-thought-out plan takes all that out of the equation and makes the project much more of a “paint-by-number” affair.

Such a plan makes a project, big or small, a much more relaxed endeavor. It takes off a lot of the pressure, and while it cannot absolutely guarantee a good outcome, it does greatly increase the likelihood of such.

Stuff happens

So what’s the recipe for a good plan?

I start with a spreadsheet — a workbook, really, with multiple tabs for different parts of the project. In a studio project, every input and output (or source and destination in AoIP parlance) is accounted for and assigned.

All the tools for a project plan: stacks of spreadsheets, a wire labeler, Ethernet switches all configured up, and good coffee.

Self-laminating wire labels are printed and ready to install. IP addresses are printed on labels to be affixed to equipment as it is installed. Signal names are defined, and default routing is mapped out.

The layout of every equipment rack is planned, and port assignments on Ethernet switches are made. Nothing is left to be decided on the fly.

In a transmitter project, it’s much the same, although in addition to Ethernet and AES cables, there will be coaxial cables to deal with, both high-power and low, and there will undoubtedly be remote control connections as well, hopefully SNMP but maybe discrete control, status and telemetry signals. Think it all through, plan it out and label everything.

After the project, post your accurate documentation in a handy place for easy reference.

Obviously, the time to do all this planning is not on the eve of the actual project. It should be done far enough in advance that the time pressures of the project deadline don’t factor in.

Make allowances for material order and shipment, which means that you should check stock and delivery time on equipment, connectors, wire, etc. very early on and make adjustments as needed.

As with any project, build in contingencies. Stuff happens (with amazing regularity), and you have to be prepared for that.

Prussian Field Marshal Helmut Von Moltke is credited with saying, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” There is truth to that, but by controlling as many variables as possible, your plan has a much greater chance of success, and that means making allowances for the variables you cannot control.

In my experience, project work is one of the most enjoyable aspects of broadcast engineering — that is, if the pressures and stress are reduced. The way to do that is with thorough planning.

W.C. “Cris” Alexander, CPBE, AMD, DRB, is director of engineering for Crawford Broadcasting and tech editor of RW Engineering Extra.

The post A Good Plan Is Key to a Successful Project appeared first on Radio World.

The Dec. 23, 2020 issue includes Dan Slentz and John Bisset with tips about cleaning equipment in a pandemic. The RadioDNS Technical Group leads an effort to measure consumption across devices. WorldDAB advocates celebrate growth. Buyer’s Guide looks at antennas, RF support and power protection.

All this and our Excellence in Engineering Award recipient!

Read it here.

The post Inside the Dec. 23 2020 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

The idea of a broadcast engineer totally retiring does not seem to be working out for me.

I tell everyone I am semi-retired. The theory is to be able to find a few small side jobs to just make a little “mad money” using the skills acquired through a decades-long career. 

But the last few months have demonstrated how this theory never seems to quite work out. 

I live in rural Colorado, about 15 minutes from a four-station FM transmitter site. For them, the nearest unretired engineer is over an hour away.

I’ve just finished installing two transmitters there for K-LOVE/Air1. In the process I learned that fluid-cooled transmitters are not just for huge markets and installed on skyscrapers. This was one of the most complex installs that I have worked on, and the finished project seems like a new level of quality — 35 kW and 10 kW, so clean and quiet they seem unreal.

Just as I was completing the transmitter project and thinking of relaxing again, I got a text from the manager of a college radio station where I have a support contract. Turns out they got funding and had taken delivery of two Wheatstone control surfaces, blades and Cisco switches.

My experience is with small stations that owned good control boards, but nothing IP-based. So it looks like have some learning to do, as this next project gets underway.

If I really wanted to enjoy being semi-retired I guess I should have just gone back and taken a part-time job where I worked in college. Too bad there aren’t many RadioShacks left; that would have been the retirement job for me. 

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

The post Letter: This Is Retirement? appeared first on Radio World.

The author is Colorado field engineer for Educational Media Foundation.

PUEBLO, Colo. — Educational Media Foundation is most often identified with its growing K-LOVE and Air1 brands, which today represent the largest contemporary Christian music radio networks in the United States.

EMF has provided a presence for both networks in Colorado through the acquisitions of KLCX(FM) and KWRY(FM), serving the Pueblo market and surrounding regions.

The acquisitions happened at different times, but both stations have long been combined into a common antenna. That antenna originally was designed to accommodate 104.9 and 107.9 MHz. KLCX broadcasts K-LOVE on 106.9 MHz, and KWRY carries the Air1 format on 104.9. Unfortunately, 106.9 MHz was not in the frequency range of the original design.

There were other concerns with the existing antenna, including its lack of protection against icing and other weather. The transmitter site is about 30 miles southwest of Pueblo in a mountainous area, so ice would often detune the antenna and raise VSWR levels, reducing coverage.

Following a severe system failure, we reached out to Dielectric for help, which led to the purchase and installation of a Dielectric DCR-M antenna and two-station combiner. In the months since installation of the antenna, combiner and two new transmitters, the new RF systems have eliminated all existing problems while strengthening our signal coverage.

The DCR-M model is a center-fed, eight-bay antenna with an omnidirectional pattern. The antenna design has unique attributes to meet the weight and wind load limitations of our tower. A typical two-station antenna uses half-wavelength bay spacing, which would have required 16 bays to produce the appropriate antenna gain and 100 kW ERP with a 30 kW transmitter. The 16-bay antenna loading would not have been a solution for the current tower without significant tower modifications.

Dielectric solved this problem by spacing the antenna bays at an approximate 0.92 wavelength, which allows the 100 kW ERP to be produced with a lighter eight-bay design.

Dielectric’s “funky elbow” design maintains the full-wavelength electrical spacing between the antenna bays while allowing the physical spacing to be reduced, resulting in near full-wavelength bay spacing antenna gain. It also simultaneously reduces the RF radiation on the ground, which was a concern given the tower’s proximity to walking trails, campsites and wildlife.

The antenna also includes a “fine matcher,” which allowed for easy adjustments of the antenna system’s input impedance upon installation on the tower.

Galvanized Endeavors of Colorado Springs handled the DCR-M installation, as well as removal of the old antenna and damaged transmission line. The new antenna mount and transmission line were put into place, and the antenna was installed on the tower with its center of radiation positioned at 163 feet above ground level.

Given that the site elevation is at 8,350 feet above sea level, the antenna is prone to very heavy winds (often above 100 mph) and a consistent 20-to-30-inch snowpack in the colder months.

These weather conditions truly require antenna protection, and Dielectric’s antenna radome design has already delivered. We experienced a hefty snowstorm in October, which left several inches of ice and snow on all surrounding structures. The antenna was white from top to bottom, yet the radomes offered full protection from the wintry conditions. The antenna remained in tune, and with no change to VWSR levels, which remained steady between 1:05 and 1:08 across both station frequencies.

Inside the transmitter building, the Dielectric two-station combiner is properly matched to both the transmission frequencies and the transmitter power output. This means the combined signals are sent to the antenna with the right amount of power with minimal loss and a proper safety margin — all while meeting the mask requirements. The combiner properly prevents intermodulation issues from the two signals mixing along the path.

Even though the transmitter site’s mountain elevation required the RF components to be derated for altitude, Dielectric’s modern combiner design is compact, and the new system opens up a great deal of interior building space.

As this is a shared space, floor space is at a premium. The new combiner fits comfortably in the building, which allows us to make the most efficient rigid transmission line run possible — a perfect convergence point with the antenna feedline coming into the building. The location of the combiner means I can access the rear of my transmitters and audio racks comfortably to perform maintenance.

Two months in, the new Dielectric system has exceeded our expectations performance-wise, while providing a robust and reliable solution which has simplified our lives in engineering.

Radio World User Reports are testimonial articles intended to help readers understand why a colleague chose a particular product to solve a technical situation.

For information about this product, contact Jay Martin (United States) at +1-207-655-8138 or John Macdonald (international) at Dielectric at 1-239-272-5962 or visit www.dielectric.com.

 

The post User Report: Dielectric Innovates for EMF Colorado appeared first on Radio World.

Look closely. A cleaning product has damaged this after-market shockmount.

Allowing employees to work from home is an excellent way to keep them safe and healthy in a pandemic, but it’s not always possible. So keeping radio studios clean is more important than ever.

Best practice, of course, starts with training staff in proper hand washing and the use of hand sanitizers. And hopefully you have issued individual microphone windscreens to your air talent.

But what about cleaning your specialized radio equipment?

Let’s share some recommendations from manufacturers. The information should not be taken as a final say but as supplemental to national guidelines and what organizations like the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization recommend.

Knobs become globs

The components of popular cleaning products can cause unexpected problems when used on broadcast equipment.

Jim Gray of Optimized Media Group has a client whose staff started bringing in household cleaners when the pandemic struck. These included 409, Clorox, Windex, Lysol and a few other familiar brands.

But many such cleaners contain ammonia, which can be very harmful to rubbers and plastics. Whether from one particular cleaner or a combination of them, the gear at the station reacted badly. Equipment knobs became soft and deformed. Automation screens became cloudy. Mic shock mounts had to be replaced.

Rubber-coated keycaps can turn to “jelly” after frequent cleaning with non-approved cleaners, such as products with ammonia.

Jim estimated the cost of the damage at around $2,000. Since making the necessary repairs, he has purchased disinfectants that are electronics-safe. He is using 70% isopropyl alcohol as his cleaner but encourages others to do their own research for their needs.

The CDC doesn’t have radio-specific guidelines, but for electronics it suggests using covers that can be wiped down when possible. Of course this is not practical for devices that are in constant use.

Follow manufacturer instructions for cleaning and disinfecting; if no guidance is available, use alcohol-based wipes or sprays containing at least 70% alcohol. Apply it to a clean cloth, not directly to the surface. Then dry the surfaces thoroughly.

For convenient cleaning, Jim Gray cut a roll of heavy paper towels in three and put them in a disposable Rubbermaid food container with 70% isopropyl alcohol.

The CDC has a detailed information page about disinfecting facilities, including sections on soft surfaces, electronics, laundry, outside areas and other problem spots.

Ask the makers

As the CDC points out, manufacturers are a key source of information on how to clean and disinfect specialty equipment.

For instance, at Telos Alliance, Support Engineer Johnny Goldsmith and Marketing Coordinator Bryan Shay note that some parts on Axia products have rubber coatings, so home cleaners may cause problems.

They recommend 70% isopropyl alcohol applied with a dampened soft cloth; allow it to sit on the equipment for 30 second or more, then thoroughly dry with another soft cloth.

Telos Alliance reminds us to wipe with 70% alcohol solution, let sit, then dry.

They say you should avoid using Clorox brand or similar wipes on consoles and similar equipment because it may cause fading of printing. They advise against spraying disinfectant or cleaner directly on a surface, because liquid can cause great problems if it penetrates the electronics.

On Telos VSet phones, the handset may be cleaned with Clorox wipes, but the company still suggests isopropyl alcohol, to be sure to not get liquid into the earpiece or mouthpiece holes.

Goldsmith says check out the company page “Recommendations for Cleaning and Sanitizing Consoles and Equipment.”

At Wheatstone, Support Technician Dick Webb says look for disinfectant wipes that are labeled specifically as suitable for use on electronic devices. Check the ingredients and avoid anything corrosive.

Dick recommends you test a cleaning product on an inconspicuous area to make sure it doesn’t hurt the surface. Also, in addition to not spraying gear directly, he notes that a cloth can also cause damage if it is sopping wet, dripping liquid onto and into the electronics.

Mic care

Microphones are an obvious area of concern. Where windscreens are in use, each user should be issued their own.

For cleaning, Audio-Technica’s Audio Solutions department says you can remove a windscreen and spray it lightly with a disinfectant. Foam windscreen and headphone coverings can be washed by hand with mild soap in a sink, but carefully wring them out and dry thoroughly before using them.

For mics, arms, booms and headphones, dampen a wipe with 70% alcohol and wipe the surfaces. It should be wet enough to show moisture on the surface being cleaned, but never so much that it saturates the internal workings.

Most microphones have metal grilles as well as foam or other material to cut wind/pop noise. The grilles can allow bits of food as well as viruses and other germs to get in. Some manufacturers suggest spraying a mic very lightly with a “mist,” but Audio-Technica specifically advises against that.

“If a microphone has a removable metal grille, as most handheld microphones do, unscrew the grille and clean it while it is separated from the diaphragm and electronics of the microphone,” it states on a support page. “Internal windscreens should likewise be removed from the grille and cleaned separately.”

Though cleaners with ammonia or chlorine may be effective for viruses, I’d be very concerned about their use on microphones as both can destroy soft materials quickly; and they can leave a pretty foul smell for someone putting their face a few inches from a mic.

For a useful and detailed discussion, see “How Do I Clean My Audio-Technica Microphones?” For other brands, try a similar search or consult the manufacturer.

The folks at ElectroVoice add that if the mic has a removable threaded-on grille, it can be removed and soaked with the inner foam components in hot soapy water. The grille and foam components should air-dry before you put them back together and use the mic. For fixed grilles, a clean, soft-bristle toothbrush can be used to clean between the strands of grille wire. Visit https://electrovoice.com/support/troubleshooting/.

Cabinetry

Of course, regularly clean surfaces that people touch a lot such as light switches and doorknobs. Cleaners like Brillianize, used with microfiber cloths, can kill 99% of bacteria, according to a study from University of California, Davis, which the company notes on its website.

Studio furniture is one such surface. David Holland, chief design officer of Omnirax, says the company builds its countertops using Wilsonart high-pressure laminate, a very durable material. On these you can use more robust cleaners than with electronics.

Omnirax builds products with durable Wilsonart HPL. It suggests getting in the habit of trying any cleaner in an inconspicuous area first.

Wilsonart suggests cleaning first with dish soap, warm water and a soft cloth, then apply a SARS-CoV-2 approved disinfectant. In the absence of that, use a diluted bleach solution based on CDC guidelines (remember to test the cleaner first on an inconspicuous area):

Wilsonart has a helpful nine-page guide that includes discussion of specific brands; find it at https://tinyurl.com/rw-wilsonart.

You never want to forget your remote gear. Not only is it in contact with people, it’s also out in the field.

Jacob Daniluck of Tieline echoes the advice to never spray directly onto your gear and to use a clean soft rag dampened with 70% isopropyl alcohol.

Tieline and other manufacturers say don’t spray your gear; instead use a cloth that is dampened but not sopping wet. A solution of 70% isopropyl alcohol can be used.

A final note is that OSHA requires businesses to keep Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for all chemicals and cleaners; keep this in mind when dealing with chemicals at your station. Should someone be “spritzed” in the eyes or inhale a cleaner, you’ll need to know how to treat them. You should consult OSHA regulations and/or your safety managers.

To summarize, manufacturers want us to be smart and well informed about cleaning. The real experts are doctors and scientists, so the manufacturers I spoke with all said that you should refer to CDC guidelines when it comes to protecting the health of your employees.

While this pandemic will eventually be overcome, colds and flus will not. Maintaining our best cleaning practices will help minimize sick staff and downtime in the future and keep your equipment and studios safe.

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

 

The post Radio Equipment Pandemic Cleaning 101 appeared first on Radio World.

RadioDNS pulls unique station identifiers from RDS. It rewrites these into a format that looks like a domain name. This gets passed to the nearest DNS server. The receiver then makes a direct connection to a station’s stream using the IP address.

Hybrid radio is just around the corner. Is your station ready?

Audi and BMW are selling vehicles with hybrid radios in the United States and Canada. This technology enables both over-the-air and internet radio reception in cars.

Impressive as that is, these receivers will also be able to display a station’s logo as well as station information such as “now playing” and other metadata from the web stream as part of a vehicle’s on-screen station guide.

A small web icon for KITS at the right indicates that the station, along with its associated metadata, is being received via the web stream rather than over the air.

Additionally, the Audi radios will offer service following, which means they will be able to switch from the FM signal to streaming audio when radio reception becomes iffy, effectively extending your station’s coverage area.

The receiver will enable the most seamless transition possible, matching timing and levels between the two signals, so long as the time difference is 30 seconds or less.

Audi radios offer “service following,” and the driver is given the option of switching to a station’s stream when the FM signal becomes marginal.

In order for stations to reap the benefits of hybrid radio, they must first create an XML file with station information, host it on a publicly-accessible web server, create some DNS records and register with RadioDNS.

Any number of service providers can do this for you, but in these challenging economic times, you can save some cash by doing it yourself. It’s not difficult, but like most things, it takes some study, advance planning and organization to ensure a happy outcome.

Founded in October 2009, RadioDNS is a non-profit organization based in the U.K. that promotes the global use of open technology standards to enable hybrid radio. In addition to HD Radio, the standard supports VHF/FM, DAB, DRM and AMSS. RadioDNS manages the internet-based technologies that can connect hybrid radios to radio stations providing internet content like streaming audio URLs.

DIY

To assist the do-it-yourselfers, NAB PILOT offers a free on-demand webinar that walks you through the process. It’s hosted by David Layer, vice president, advanced engineering in NAB’s Technology Department. Panelists include Christian Winter, development engineer, radio, media at Audi AG; Nick Piggott, project director and co-founder RadioDNS Hybrid Radio; and Andy Buckingham, creative technologist at Togglebit.

Help is also available on the RadioDNS website. There you can find step-by-step guides to implementing RadioDNS functionality, as well as presentations from technical conferences explaining how to manage RadioDNS hybrid radio application systems. There are also discussion boards where you can post your questions.

This fall’s Radio Show virtual event, co-produced by NAB and RAB, featured a session on “How Radio Broadcasters Can Support RadioDNS.” It was hosted by Layer with panelists Piggott; Jason Ornellas, regional director of engineering, Bonneville International; and Mark McConnell, system administrator and digital content manager, Bonneville International.

Layer began the Radio Show session by noting a September press release from Audi, announcing a collaboration with iHeart Radio, which is making more than 600 of its radio stations hybrid radio capable during its initial integration phase.

The release, according to Layer, underscored an important point. “Auto manufacturers are going to great lengths to introduce hybrid radio-equipped cars, and now the onus is on radio broadcasters to do their part by making their stations capable of utilizing this new service.”

Layer adds that no fees are collected for registering your station with RadioDNS; it is a free service. However, there are costs involved in setting up radio stations to make use of RadioDNS technology.

RadioDNS is supported financially by its members worldwide, of whom NAB is one, as are several broadcast groups in the U.S. Broadcasters who want to help move this technology forward should consider joining RadioDNS.

The XML file with station information previously mentioned is called the Service Information (SI) file, and is the main resource for conveying basic information about radio stations to the hybrid radio receiver.  To create this, you’ll need a database containing the station metadata from all stations being supported. For each station that should include call sign, name, description, genre, logo URLs and audio stream URL. Also needed is information on the station’s RDS PI code (for analog FM stations) or the facility ID (for HD Radio stations).

NAB PILOT has created a way to automate the collection of the PI code/facility ID and other “bearer” information. It’s called the “Radio Call-signs API.” For more information, contact David Layer via nabpilot.org. Station logos as well as a web hosting service to put the SI and logo files on are also required.

Next, you’ll need to create the XML file to make it all work. Most of the examples on the NAB webinar are created using the PHP scripting language, but other languages can also be used.

Preparation is key

The first step is to collect all the station information from the database. Next, all the images need to be prepared.

RadioDNS specified five different resolutions to support different receiver display resolutions, including 32 X 32 PX, 112 X 32 PX, 128 X 128 PX, 320 X 240 PX, and 600 X 600 PX. This step is really a matter of converting your one large image file into these smaller sizes. Then, you’ll need to ping the Radio Call-signs API to get back your broadcast station details. Finally, you must build the SI file document and save it.

After the coding is complete, you need to register your station with RadioDNS. A bit of preparation is necessary. You’ll need to gather some information about the parameters in your signal. In order to get into the RadioDNS hybrid radio registry, analog FM stations must be transmitting RDS, including the PI (Program Identifier) code.

It is further recommended that you transmit the ECC (Extended Country Code). This can help improve the accuracy of locating your DNS entry. For the United States, the ECC is A0.

The DNS utilizes a GCC (Global Country Code), which comprises the first digit of your RDS PI code followed by your ECC code. For U.S. stations, PI codes begin with A, B, D and E, so valid GCCs would be AA0, BA0, DA0 or EA0.

When you register, RadioDNS will create a DNS entry for each of your frequencies. If your group has numerous channels, you may be able to register with a wildcard (*) entry, and you won’t need to list them all. Otherwise, frequencies need to be entered as a five-digit number, i.e. 08850 for 88.5 MHz, or 10790 for 107.9 MHz.

In summary, each FM channel will information entered in the form frequency.pi.gcc, for example 08850.pi.BA0.

If you’re operating with HD Radio, you need to be transmitting your FCC Facility Identifier (ID) in hexadecimal format, padding with leading 0s to create a five-digit number. This should be followed by the country identifier (CC), which is 292 for the USA. And if you’re transmitting multicast, all of this needs to be preceded by MC.

An example of a multicast HD Radio entry would be MC.id.cc, for example MC.10C21.292.

Completed applications should be e-mailed to registrations@radiodns.org. These should include your fully qualified domain name (FQDN) and your broadcast parameters for FM and HD for each station being registered, your .zone file as an attachment (if you have created one), your name and telephone contact number, the registered name of the radio station(s), and finally the name of the authority that issued the broadcast license(s). RadioDNS will acknowledge the change request via email, within 48 working hours. New and changed entries take up to 24 hours to propagate through the Domain Name Service.

On the air

Some stations have already taken the plunge into this new technology.

As soon as Ornellas and McConnell heard about hybrid radio, they knew they wanted to make Bonneville International an early adopter in the six markets the company serves. Their journey took them to places they never expected.

Ornellas said, “Initially, we just wanted to be a part of it. Then Mark began looking online and realized we can do so much more than just have an online presence. The Capital FM example inspired us to put all the extra information out there for our listeners.”

McConnell adds, “The two big things that jumped out for us were their use of the PI content code, as well as their use of an electronic program guide which had links to their social media. But the entire structure is XML-based, so there’s a lot of flexibility to add what you want.”

The second big discovery for Ornellas and McConnell was how much data could be gleaned once the server logs are combined with owner data from car dealers.

“These can be used to create some powerful real-time analytics,” says Ornellas. “The age and sex of the driver, for example, can be combined with where and when they tune in, how long they listen, and what station they eventually switch to.

“There’s probably more to be discovered. The challenge for us is to take this wealth of data, which is already parsed out by station, and create a dashboard where it can be easily accessed and understood by sales, promotion and management.”

McConnell began the process by using a PI code look-up tool, which obtained the PI codes necessary for analog FM stations. A few things were left to be added by hand, including the ETSI content CS codes and electronic program guide links, including social media, website and studio line links.

The result was the overarching framework for the Bonneville station’s SI files, and it was left to station engineers to fill it in, using the Sacramento station as an example. All of the completed files reside in the Bonneville International corporate server.

Piggott said getting hybrid radio to work involves teamwork.

“The implementation of hybrid radio brings people from two sides of the business together. It’s the intersection of broadcast engineering skills, such as making sure PI codes are being transmitted on RDS encoders, but also knowledge of how to set up DNS records and put files on web servers.”

Ornellas added, “You need to have that collaboration with digital and engineering to really streamline this, especially the artwork and stream URLs. Some engineers have access to that, others rely on the digital folks. We’re unique at Bonneville in that we already work together so closely that this was a seamless process. Moving forward, I believe digital and engineering are going to become very integrated, and hybrid radio is a perfect example.”

Radio never stands still, nor should your SI file. Stations change logos, formats, call signs and even ownership, often with little advance notice. It’s best to think of creating the SI file, as well as your other digital assets as a process rather than a one-time event. This may be another reason to learn how to create and manage them yourself, rather than relying on a service provider.

The solution at Bonneville is a virtual machine located at company headquarters. When new logos or other graphics are created, they are immediately uploaded. Station engineers also keep backups of their SI files and other engineering data there.

Tom Vernon is a longtime contributor to Radio World.

The post Power Up Hybrid Radio With RadioDNS appeared first on Radio World.

The author is co-founder of consulting firm P1 Media Group.

The year 2020 was like no other, a year we’d all rather forget. Coronavirus turned our world upside down.

But rather than dwelling on how COVID-19 decimated radio listening, revenue and personnel, we want to close out the year by sharing some of the amazing and extraordinary ways radio worldwide responded to the pandemic.

In mid-March when the lockdowns began, P1 Media Group felt compelled to do something, someway, somehow, to help radio. We knew there was no programming playbook for COVID-19, yet listeners all around the world were depending on us to keep them informed and entertained during this unimaginable time.

Smiles online

With P1’s global footprint we were beginning to see some very interesting ideas stations were executing in different parts of the world and had a feeling that if we could create a hub for stations to share and exchange these ideas, those ideas would spark more ideas and inspire more stations, and radio listeners everywhere would benefit.

It was our desire to use radio’s collective brainpower to help us through the pandemic that led us to the formation of the Facebook group “Coronavirus Radio Ideas.”

Thanks to the support of Benztown and Radio Days Europe, the Coronavirus Radio Ideas Facebook group took off like a rocket.

It quickly attracted several thousand members representing radio in more than 80 countries spanning six continents. Over 300 ideas were shared in the first months, covering everything from programming to podcasting, promotion to marketing, sales to social media and much, much more.

 

A laugh and a smile can be just what a listener needs to cope during challenging times and radio delivered its share of smiles both on air and online.

“The Kyle and Jackie O Show” from KIIS in Sydney, Australia created several amusing social media videos. One featured show producer Pete demonstrating social distancing on the sidewalks of Sydney with a homemade contraption that kept him six feet apart.

Another video revealed how parents could teach kids simple fractions while drinking wine.

CFOX in Vancouver, Canada produced a clever video — based on BBC nature series including an impeccable impersonation of the one and only Sir David Attenborough — called “Humans Are Emerging.”

“Intern Pete,” aka Pete Deppeler, shows off his homemade social distancing system for “The Kyle and Jackie O Show” in Sydney.

ACE Radio Network in Australia created wonderful theater of the mind with an extremely well-written and -produced call of a fictitious horse of race, naturally called “The COVID Cup.”

Songs parodies also provided fun topical ways to cope with life during a  pandemic.

Retired morning man and Twisted Tunes genius, Bob Rivers, changed the Beatles classic “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “You Gotta Wash Your Hands.”

FFN radio in Germany changed Camila Cabello’s hit from “Havana” to “Corona.” And in Seattle, the Fitz morning on show on 98.7 The Bull, transformed 90s Hip Hop song “O.P.P.”  to “We’ve got no TP” to promote their toilet paper giveaway.

Music at home

COVID 19 closed the curtain on live concerts, so radio created new ways to bring live performances to listeners safely.

NRJ Radio in France held the “NRJ Music Tour at Home” while in Spain Europe FM showcased live performance through its “Home Festival.” And NRG Radio Kenya produced a massive one day fundraiser “We are One Africa Concert.”

Radio 7 in Hannover and the Local Media San Diego cluster produced drive-in concerts, where listeners were treated to live performances from the safety of their cars.

Some stations went to extraordinary lengths to honor our heroes on the frontlines.

Power 96.1 Atlanta arranged a salute to essential workers that included a massive heart over downtown.

Hospital workers in Cyprus were quarantined at hotels between long and grueling shifts at local hospitals. Mix radio threw those heroes a massive rave. iHeartMedia station Power 96.1 Atlanta took their nightly salutes for essential workers to the skies one evening, with skywriters creating a massive heart over downtown Atlanta. Z100 New York and Elvis Duran held nightly light shows set to music on the Empire State Building.

Yet stations didn’t recognize only the frontline heroes; the BBC in the UK staged weekly on-air sing-a-longs across their stations to raise the spirits of an entire nation.

Affirming

Revenues were decimated due to COVID-19 and radio had to become more resourceful than ever to retain its advertisers.

There were stations offering one week of free ads or “run your schedule now and pay when you can” promotions, while others bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars in free airtime for clients and charities that needed it most.

In Dallas, Texas, iHeartradio called on the help of local billionaire Mark Cuban to provide insights and encouragement in a special five-station simulcast aimed at helping businesses.

Despite all the challenges we faced in 2020, radio found many ways to positively impact their local communities.

The NENT Radio Group in Sweden started “Listener Help,” a program that connected listeners in need with listeners willing to help. Listeners brought food, medicine and a smiling face to those who needed it most.

The Rolling Stones came to the aide of Fabulous 103 in Pattaya, Thailand, where the once-thriving tourist town was devastated by COVID-19, donating the proceeds from the song “Living in a Ghost Town” to feed the impoverished unemployed tourism workers.

Our global response to COVID 19 reaffirms radio is an amazing and remarkable medium with talented and creative content producers all over the world. Radio delivered the laughs and smiles, the essential information and the hope and reassurance we needed when we needed it most.

Get inspired and join the group at www.facebook.com/groups/coronavirusradioideas. View winners from the recent Global Coronavirus Radio Awards at https://p1mediagroup.com and click on Coronavirus Radio Ideas Winners.

The post Radio’s Global Response to COVID-19 appeared first on Radio World.

Outgoing Chairman Ajit Pai will use his last FCC meeting on Jan. 13 to showcase the commission’s work over four years.

“Serving as chairman of the FCC has been the honor of a lifetime,” Pai wrote in a blog post. “And soon, my time in this position will conclude.” He departs on Jan. 20 as the new Democratic presidential administration comes in.

“The FCC’s monthly meetings showcase the agency’s highest-profile work. And by any metric, we have been more productive, more collaborative, and more transparent since January 2017 than at any time in recent history,” Pai wrote.

“At the 48 meetings held under my leadership, we’ve voted on a total of 286 items at our monthly meetings — an average of six (5.96, to be precise) items per meeting. That compares to a recent historical average of well under three. Of the votes on those 286 items, 205 (71.7%) featured no dissents and 253 (88.5%) were bipartisan. These figures are far higher than comparable figures from the four preceding years.”

Pai expressed pride in his efforts to increase transparency, for the agency to “show its work” by sharing ahead of time what the FCC would be voting on.

“It’s now routine for the agency to publish the exact text of commission meeting items three weeks in advance of any votes being cast; to include a one-page fact sheet describing in plain English what each item does; and to post a monthly blog from yours truly introducing the agenda in a hopefully-engaging way.”

And for the January meeting, Pai said he has invited FCC bureaus, offices, and task forces to prepare presentations highlighting their accomplishments over four years.

“Three weeks hence, the spotlight properly should shine on them.”

 

The post FCC Teams Will Summarize Work on Jan. 13 appeared first on Radio World.

Radio is part of the content pitch that Sinclair Broadcast Group is using as it highlights a new TV service in Seattle based on the NextGen TV standard.

Sinclair’s One Media 3.0 subsidiary described the benefits for viewers in that market: “Consumers can now begin receiving both television and radio programming in the new format,” it stated in a press release.

The “radio” content is online audio, but the company also indicated it plans to integrate OTA radio soon.

“Using radio content from its over-the-top internet service STIRR, the audio channels will be available for free immediately to anyone with a NextGen television set connected to the Web,” it said Wednesday.

“Included among the radio channels will be Stingray Hits List, Stingray Hot Country, Stingray Latin Hits and a dozen others.  The new service coincides with the launch of seven television stations using the new digital standard.”

Sinclair has been a big advocate of the ATSC 3.0 standard, highlighting its video quality as well as mobile delivery and the ability to combine wireless broadcast content with content from online. One Media 3.0 developed its broadcast app to take advantage of that.

“Piloted by One Media 3.0 in Nashville, NextGen radio services, branded as STIRR XT, are now available in Seattle,” the company said.

“The new technology brings a new ‘age of radio’ into the listening environment of NextGen viewers by utilizing NextGen-enabled TVs and mobile devices to expand the reach of audio services. Combining these internet audio services with over-the-air radio is next on the horizon for the Seattle market.”

It quoted VP of Technology Strategy Michael Bouchard saying the technology “lays the groundwork for our future plans of enhancing the reception of terrestrial over-the-air radio services throughout the country, as NextGen TV is deployed by broadcasters everywhere.”

The STIRR radio channels and some STIRR video channels are available to anyone with a NextGen TV connected to the internet.

 

The post One Media 3.0 Highlights Radio in NextGen TV appeared first on Radio World.

From our Who’s Buying What page:

DHD Audio highlighted several uses of its technology in 2020. The company said it saw “an accelerating transition to IP technology throughout the broadcast audio business sector” this year.

It participated with Thum + Mahr in the integration of a DHD Audio platform into the new Cardiff headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales, and said the system is being used across the radio division. “The DHD environment comprises four independent audio clusters, serving as an adaptable infrastructure. Every area of the studio is able to broadcast autonomously.”

It said Radio Cottbus in Germany relocated to digital studios in August after 18 years at its former site. It is now one of Germany’s most modern media centers. The main control console is equipped with three DHD SX2 fader modules; audio signals are transmitted via Dante Audio over IP.

The DHD Assist app running alongside an RX2 audio mixer.

French language public broadcaster RTBF opened new studios in January at its regional center in Mons; the radio infrastructure is based on a DHD XC2 platform.

VRT regional channel Radio 2 Antwerpen inaugurated studios based on a modular structure in an open office environment, with a DHD 52/XC2 core serving the main on-air studio. And it said Studio Hamburg MCI chose DHD mixing consoles for Germany public radio station NDR Kultur.

DHD also announced a firmware update for broadcast audio mixing consoles, routers and control interfaces. “The latest firmware additions expand the capabilities of version 9.1 which we announced in Q1,” said International Sales Manager Christoph Gottert.

“That update included support for Unicode character sets such as Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Korean, Snapshots app and Labels app, enhanced log-in, hot configuration and refinements to the DHD REST API. We have now introduced two additional web apps — the Assist app and System app — plus an advanced SNMP interface.”

The post DHD Notes Recent AoIP Projects appeared first on Radio World.