Radio World

Rep. Greg Walden, Republican from Oregon, knew the question was coming before it was asked. After all, as soon as he’d announced that he would not seek another term in 2020, people had begun to wonder if the former radio owner might not have his eye on eventually becoming leader of the National Association of Broadcasters. 

“There was all this speculation that Gordon Smith was resigning and that was why I was stepping aside,” said Walden with a chuckle, referring to the current president/CEO of NAB. 

“No. It’s none of the above. Look, I love broadcasting. It’s in my veins. It shows on my soldering iron-burned hands. I grew up in broadcasting and it’s a great industry.”

Walden, 62, will leave Congress in January 2021. He came to the Hill in 1998 and most recently has been the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which maintains principal responsibility for legislative oversight relating to telecommunications. That means Walden is intimately aware of the issues facing the broadcast industry.

SAVVY AND SERIOUS

Much of the media coverage of Walden’s decision focused on the outlook for the GOP in next year’s elections. 

Politico put it this way in late October: “The Oregon congressman is the 19th House Republican to announce they are retiring at the end of this Congress, a sign of how difficult it will be for the GOP to win back the majority in what’s already shaping up as a tough 2020 election. Having President Donald Trump’s name at the top of the ticket will ensure turnout among his supporters, yet it’s also expected to bring Democrats out in huge numbers as well.”

Politico characterized Rep. Walden as “well-respected by colleagues from both sides of the aisle, who describe him as both a savvy politician and serious legislator who likes to dig into the nitty-gritty policy details.” It noted that he is a former chief of the House GOP’s campaign arm who “earned a reputation for party loyalty over his past two decades in Congress” but said he “has been quietly picking and choosing his battles with Trump this year, fueling speculation he might be eyeing the exits.”

Specifically, it reported, Walden “rebuked the president over the hugely controversial border wall project, backed Russia sanctions over Trump’s objection, voted with Democrats to end the historic 35-day government shutdown and has been vocal about addressing climate change. But Walden also has stood by Trump throughout the Ukraine scandal and fallen in line on other key issues.”

WHERE’S WALDEN?

NAB released a statement regarding Walden’s retirement from Smith, a former U.S. senator: “I was lucky to have served with Greg Walden in both the Oregon legislature and in Congress, and can honestly say he is one of the finest public servants I’ve ever known. Greg’s career has been defined by success — as a committed local broadcaster, as a bipartisan political bridge builder and as a brilliant legislator,” he said.

“Congress is a better place because of Greg Walden, and I’m certain he will make a positive difference in whatever path his future may hold.”

Rep. Greg Walden and wife Mylene arrive for a formal dinner at the State Department, honoring recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.
Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images

Walden and his wife Mylene owned and operated a group of radio stations for more than two decades in Hood River, Ore., until 1998. The town is in the Columbia River Gorge. Earlier, Walden worked at stations his parents owned. His duties included working on air, doing traffic and even a little engineering. Walden also is a licensed amateur radio operator (W7EQI).

In his role on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Walden worked to “pass legislation to grow American jobs by expanding access to wireless broadband, spur new U.S. technology and innovation and protect the Internet from government control,” according to his official bio.  

Speaking with Radio World, Walden reflected on his time in Washington and the current regulatory environment. Some replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Radio World: How did your radio background give you unique perspective on items that came before the  House Energy and Commerce Committee? 

Rep. Greg Walden: As a community broadcaster who owned radio stations for 20 years and who grew up in a family of broadcasters. In fact my father was a broadcaster going back to the 1930s, so you really learn about listening and learning about people in your community. It’s about localism. All of those things that broadcasters do so well. Those principles and the engrained institutionalized service to community really served me well when I came to Washington.

As a broadcaster I did sales calls. I wrote ads. I did news. All of those things helped me because it taught me how to be in touch with the community. That helped me politically. And did give me an insight into the issues broadcasters still face today.

Walden at work with legislative assistant Ted. The sign on the desk says “Pull Up Yer Big Boy Boxers & Git ‘er Dun.”

RW: What are your views on the state of government regulation in the lives of broadcasters?

Walden: There is a place for regulation. We don’t want pirate radio stations crashing on top of licensed radio stations. I think under this FCC and the leadership of [Chairman] Ajit Pai and [Commissioner] Mike O’Rielly, they have really recognized the need to get rid of unnecessary regulation. 

I’ve talked to Chairman Pai about our experience as broadcasters and the things we needed to do and the unnecessary parts. We had a public file that no one looked at except for the occasional FCC inspector. It’s important that we get to the things that matter, and not burden local broadcasters with things that no one cares about in today’s age.

RW: What is your position on performance royalties? Should radio be paying artists to play their songs?

Walden: I think artists benefit terrifically by broadcasters getting their music out to listeners. We already — and I say “we” because I still talk in the broadcaster’s vein — we are already paying a lot of money to the record companies. My preference is to have them figure it out amongst themselves.

RW: NAB is on record as saying they would prefer the Department of Justice defer to Congress to determine any material changes needed to the music licensing structure. Could that happen?

Walden: I can’t say. I know the pressure seems to have grown on radio broadcasters since online music services began paying performance royalties. Right now it’s in the DOJ’s hands.

RW: What do you think about the pending deregulation proposals before the FCC?

Walden: I watched what happened after the 1996 Communications Act and I think it really helped provide the market share that was necessary to allow for stations to group up. That happened in our case. We went from two, then three and finally five radio stations. The ones we purchased were not doing that well. And by the time we were done we had a synergy to allow for a more competitive group. 

We have a hugely competitive marketplace these days, and I want broadcasting to be able to grow and flourish and serve their local communities. There has been a lot of debate about national caps and such. So there is much to be discussed, but we have to make sure we maintain the viability of broadcasting. We don’t want to go the way of newspapers. It’s important there is competition and not have monopolies, but we want competition designed in this era and not the 1940s and 1950s era.

RW: You’ve said you’ve been watching spectrum issues and especially the battle over dividing up the C-Band. Are you worried about the damage that could be done to established downlinks for broadcast?

Walden: Yes, absolutely. In fact we have had subcommittee hearings over which way to go and how much to divide up. We are having a vibrant debate about which direction to go and how much spectrum should be freed up. We need to stay ahead of the 5G rollout in this country to make sure it works. 

I think there is a way to accommodate that and still make sure broadcasters using the mid-band spectrum can continue to get the programming they need without interference. There are different options to make that happen.

I met with the head of the Congressional Budget Office recently on this very topic. They are looking at whether an auction performs better for taxpayers or a private sale. [FCC Chairman Ajit Pai subsequently signaled that he plans to seek a public auction of C-band spectrum. — Ed.] 

We are working our way through it. I’m still in the information-gathering mode. I know I don’t want rural areas of America to go under-served all of a sudden because you don’t have the bandwidth anymore. I don’t want interference. Some of it could be replaced by fiber but not all of it. I represent some very rural areas where fiber just wouldn’t work for broadcasters to continue receiving programming. 

Walden at work. “It’s important there is competition and not have monopolies, but we want competition designed in this era and not the 1940s and 1950s era.”

RW: You’ve been critical of the FCC in the past when it was under different leadership, saying it was not transparent enough. Has that aspect of FCC operations under Chairman Pai improved?

Walden: Oh yes. There were periods under previous leadership when the FCC was antagonistic and almost hostile toward broadcasters. I think that has changed greatly. That’s very encouraging. True, the FCC is the cop on the beat, and if you are a licensee you have certain obligations that have to be met. But my experience as a former broadcaster and as former president of the Oregon Broadcasters Association years ago, I think this commission recognizes the amount of community service radio provides.

RW: Another FCC question. They have been criticized by some as being slow to move on AM revitalization. Is the FCC doing enough to help AM radio?

Walden: I was the owner of two AM stations. One was a former daytime that we were eventually allowed to drop to about 13 watts to remain on the air 24/7. Another was a 1,000 kW AM. I want to see AM survive and thrive. It’s especially important for new entrants into broadcasting, the diversity of programming. 

It certainly has been slow-moving, but it has been an initiative of Chairman Pai to get it done. It is one of those things on my bucket list to try and get it into a better place.

RW: What do you hear from the White House? And what is their view on broadcast industry priorities?

Walden: I think it is pretty positive. I have several former staffers in the White House working on communication issues. They understand the importance of having a vibrant broadcast community. We are all looking at what is next. They are aware of the C-band spectrum issues. 

As for radio, this is an administration and a president that is a big fan of broadcast in general. 

RW: You were chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Republicans held the majority in the House. Can you reflect on issues broadcast you tackled?                  

Walden: I think we had a good run of it. On the TV side, the digital transition, we were able to go back and get another $1 billion to help cover the transition costs. We really dug in to make sure that with changes in the tax laws that we didn’t lose the deductibility of advertising. That was a big threat to broadcast and other industries that depend on advertising.

I think I’ve been helpful in efforts to enact good public policy that has been a positive for the broadcast industry.

RW: You were a vocal supporter of getting FM chips into cell phones. Could you have pushed any harder on that, short of a mandate?

Walden: Well, that was the nuclear weapon, mandating something, especially a new technology. We haven’t done that in other areas. When you begin putting in federal mandates, especially on technology, it can create a whole bunch of unintended consequences and legacies. And I don’t think we could have passed that through Congress anyway.  

I did use my bully pulpit the best I could to nudge these companies into adopting the FM chip. Even with my limited engineering experience, I was able to push back on their weak arguments. We made some progress. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get it into the iPhone. I never understood why (Apple) didn’t go down that path.

RW: You’re 62 years old. What will you do next when your term expires early 2021?

Walden: I’ve enjoyed the 30 years of public service, counting my time in the state legislature in Oregon. But my wife and I, while we have enjoyed it, we are ready to close the chapter on public life. I’d like to do something else, but I don’t know what that will be. I’m ready to take on a new challenge.   

RW: And there is nothing to the NAB rumors?

Walden: Gordon Smith is a dear friend. He’s a fellow Oregonian. We served together in the state legislature and in Washington. His contract runs through I think 2023, so he has a long time to serve yet in that role.

RW: Will you remain in the Washington area or live year round in Oregon?

Walden: Oregon is home. We still live in Hood River in the same house we bought in 1987, about five blocks from the radio stations we owned. It’s a great home. I don’t know the career path that is out there, but Oregon will always be home.  

RW: Any thoughts about a return to broadcasting once you walk away from public service? 

Walden: You know, I was speaking with Jeff Smulyan [founder and CEO of Emmis Communications] recently, and I asked him if there was an overnight shift somewhere, where I could work the board. He told me I could have a shift on the hip-hop station in New York City. I don’t see that happening!

The post Greg Walden Prepares to Close a Chapter appeared first on Radio World.

KJR founder Vincent Kraft’s first microphone was a “Wonderphone,” originally developed for the Dubilier Wireless Telephone. From the collection of Sonny Clutter.

The question of which station was the first broadcaster in the United States has been debated for most of the past century. KDKA in Pittsburgh historically has received this honor, due principally to the untiring early efforts of the Westinghouse promotions department. But there is overwhelming evidence that a handful of other broadcasters in fact preceded KDKA.

One reason for the controversy has been disagreement on the criteria that should determine who was “first.”  Additionally, we must distinguish between the “oldest” and “first” station. Evidence of rudimentary broadcasting exists as far back as far as 1912, but all these activities came to a halt during World War I when all non-government broadcast stations were ordered off the air. After the order was finally lifted by the Navy on April 15, 1919, broadcasting gradually resumed in several cities, but these operations were sparse and sporadic until the big “radio boom” of 1922 when hundreds of new stations debuted almost overnight. Most of these early broadcasters did not survive radio’s first decade. 

Additionally, it took some time for the Department of Commerce, which regulated radio activity in those days, to recognize broadcasting as a separate class of station and create a specific license for it.

[2020 Radio History Calendar Available Now]

It wasn’t until Dec. 1, 1921 that regulations were created to define broadcasting as a distinct class of radio station, and by that time there were already dozens of stations on the air. Those first pioneer broadcasters operated under several classes of license: Amateur, Experimental or Limited Commercial. (The first station to receive an actual “Broadcast License” was WBZ in Boston late in 1921). Nonetheless, most of these early stations were broadcasting in the true sense of the word, as they were sending out voice programs of information and entertainment on a regular schedule to a public audience.

Another factor that has made it difficult to clearly identify who was first is that, although some well-known pioneer broadcasters such as KDKA and WWJ had clearly defined “start dates,” there were others that began as amateur or experimental stations with irregular schedules and then gradually transitioned into serious broadcasting activities. 

Such is the case of KJR in Seattle. Its exact starting date in 1919 is not recorded, and it appears to have made a gradual transition from a personal hobby station to a serious broadcast operation over the course of a two-year period.

7XC

The first entry for KJR in the Department of Commerce records is dated April 1, 1922: “KJR, Commercial Land Station, 360 and 485 meters, Vincent I. Kraft.” Although we can consider this to be the official starting date for the station, the pre-history of KJR was documented in a letter written by station founder Vincent Kraft in 1962. He wrote: 

Vincent I. Kraft was Seattle’s first broadcaster. He created a local sensation in 1919 by playing phonograph records over his station 7XC. In July, 1920, he broadcast the results of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight for the local audience. By 1922, Kraft’s station had become KJR.

Shortly after World War I, in late 1918 or early 1919, amateur stations closed during the war were allowed to re-open. These re-opened stations immediately reflected the advances made during the war, and installed equipment for transmitting voice and music, whereas prior to the war they had all been dot-and-dash code stations. Among these re-opened stations was my own, with the new call letters 7AC. There were several “wireless telephone” stations under amateur licenses. I received an experimental license with the call letters 7XC for developing this phone equipment. It was on the air with voice and music from 1919 on, as were several other amateur stations. 

In 1921, the Department of Commerce, then the sole licensing authority for the government, created a new class of stations and named them “Broadcast Stations.” I immediately applied for a new broadcast license for the equipment which had been operating for a couple of years under the call letters of 7XC. At the same time that these new broadcasting station licenses were created, a new regulation went into effect prohibiting amateur stations from transmitting music. 

[WTMA Celebrates 80 Years in Charleston] KJR began broadcasting as 7XC from this modest home in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood in 1919. Kraft broadcast phonograph concerts for 45 minutes each evening from his 10-watt transmitter.

At first, Kraft’s little 10-watt station broadcast from his home in the Ravenna District of Seattle, and later from his downtown radio parts store. But by 1924, KJR was broadcasting daily with 1,000 watts from the prestigious Terminal Sales Building in downtown Seattle.

Kraft then built three other prominent West Coast stations — KEX in Portland, KGA in Spokane and KYA in San Francisco — and tied all four stations together with telephone lines to create one of the country’s first radio networks.

In 1928, he sold his interests in his four stations and network, but he went on to build KXA in Seattle and several stations in Alaska. 

THE CENTURY MARK

As for KJR, it went on to have a colorful history. The station’s second owner built it into a huge operation before bankrupting the station and going to jail for embezzlement. It was then acquired by NBC, which later sold to the operators of KOMO, and the two stations operated together as the Seattle affiliates of the NBC Red and Blue networks until 1945. 

The station again gained prominence in the 1950s as one of the country’s premier top 40 stations, managed by Lester Smith with celebrity partners Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra. Today, KJR is a 50 kW sport-formatted station operated on 950 kHz by iHeartMedia.

KJR’s 1,000 watt transmitter is shown in the Terminal Sales Building in 1924. The transmitter was custom built by Kraft’s Northwest Radio Service Company.

Next year, Radio World will celebrate broadcasting’s official centennial, recognizing the birth of WWJ, KDKA and other pioneer broadcast stations in 1920. Before then, during what can be considered to be broadcasting’s “pre-history,” there was a smattering of experimental activity in a few locations around the country. 

It is well documented that Charles Herrold in San Jose was making weekly voice and music broadcasts as early as 1912. Lee de Forest was broadcasting over his station 2XG in New York City both before and after the war, and 1XE, the AMRAD station near Boston, was also experimenting with voice and music during those same years. 9XM in Madison, Wis., a predecessor to WHA, had been broadcasting weather and market reports in Morse code as early as 1916, although it didn’t begin voice broadcasting until November, 1920. 

The custom-built 5,000 watt transmitter in Lake Forest Park, 1927. Chief Engineer Clarence Clark is at right in this photo.

So while KJR in Seattle was certainly not the first station to broadcast, it may be the oldest station to operate continuously from its amateur radio beginnings in 1919 up until the present day. 

[Read about Graham McNamee, radio’s first superstar announcer]

In future “Roots of Radio” articles, we plan to salute a number of pioneer broadcasters as each reaches its own centennial date. As has been often said: Stay tuned.

John Schneider is a lifetime radio historian, author of two books and dozens of articles on the subject, and is a Fellow of the California Historical Radio Society. Find more history articles at the Roots of Radio page.

The post The 100th Anniversary of KJR Seattle, 1919 to 2019 appeared first on Radio World.

Planning a new studio project? Whether upgrading a studio or building one from scratch, there are a number of points radio broadcasters should keep in mind — right from the planning phase — to ensure the successful execution of their project.

“Designing the Ideal Radio Studio” guides you on your journey toward your perfect radio facilities. It offers examples of different studio builds; provides tips from industry experts on how to meet your goals; where to begin; questions to consider; how to select the right gear for your needs; and more.

This latest ebook includes articles from Clark Novak, radio-marketing specialist for Lawo, who gives advice on what station managers need to know before building an IP studio and 2wcom Sales and Marketing Manager Anke Schneider, who shares insight on cross-media adoption.

In addition, Gary Kline of Kline Consulting discusses key points radio broadcasters should consider when designing or renovating a studio, and we offer an in-depth look at innovative radio complexes around the world.

Read it free here!

The post Designing the Ideal Radio Studio appeared first on Radio World.

Schematic for THAT Thing, a do-it-yourself preamp/electronics project by Curt Yengst, featured in the Jan. 8, 2020 issue of Radio World.

The post THAT Thing Supplemental Material appeared first on Radio World.

The author is membership program director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at www.radioworld.com.

For much of community radio, the holiday period is a time for stations to do a bit of regrouping. Fall pledge drives are long gone. Giving Tuesday is over. And our year-end campaigns are already in flight. Our listeners and donors are occupied with the hustle of the holidays. Even some of our staff and volunteers are taking a needed and deserved break.

During the holidays, what is an earnest community radio person still at the station to do? The list is longer than we may care to recall!

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Generation Shift]

Studio maintenance is an excellent task to handle during this season. An engineer at my old station simply loved to use the holiday period to open up sound boards and dust, check loose wires, redo the tape that had worn down from people touching mixers, and recalibrate turntables and sundry equipment in master control. If your volunteers are gone, the Christmas and New Year breaks are perfect to flip on your automation system and roll up your sleeves to fix up the little things we neglected during the year.

Not to shame you, but how about cleaning up that desk, or other things around here? It is very easy to let clutter take over our spaces. I spent plenty of dead time during the holidays replacing light bulbs, vacuuming floors, filing papers, and taking down faded fliers from bulletin boards. If the calls are not coming in too much and email has slowed too, this is as wonderful a time as any to tackle the pickup you meant to do during the dog days of summer.

Oh, shoot! Did you forget to do that filing?! You would be surprised how often stations blank on doing their electronic submissions with the Federal Communications Commission, whether it was a quarterly issues report, a biennial ownership filing or — Uh, Oh — Form Two and Three from that Emergency Alert System test all those months ago.

Having conversed with many good folks at the FCC and other agencies, I can tell you the last thing they’re focused in on is dinging you with a hefty fine. However, they do need to ensure the public that you are meeting your obligations in using the airwaves and in service to the noncommercial educational mission to which you are devoted. This next two weeks is an excellent time to dig out the calendar and make sure your station has done its required filings this year. The last headache you ever want is to have your station’s license renewal period reveal missed filing dates.

Holidays make soaking in media a tempting proposition. Especially now, the news cycle could easily suck you in to reading impeachment analyses literally 24 hours a day. However, with the elections ramping up next year, fundraising is likely to be tougher come your spring campaign. How about using the holidays to craft your fundraising messages? Whether your station provided gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Representatives’ deliberations or just a welcome respite from the rancor in the public square, your station has a story to tell. Why are you relevant? How do you enhance your community? Why should people donate to your station over the scores of candidates, nonprofits and interest groups vying for funds in 2020? These are complicated questions that the holidays may give you a little head space to flesh out.

Earlier in the month, I suggested that enterprising people like you might consider creating your New Year’s resolutions. There are also lots of innovations to try out locally. One station formed a book club to engage listeners. And that’s only the beginning. We’re in an era of ambitious ideas. Now is the time to put some on your list for things to do at your community radio station in 2020.

Regardless of how you utilize these holiday weeks, we at Radio World, NFCB and beyond hope your break is restful and recharges you for a fabulous New Year.

The post Community Broadcaster: The Last 2019 To-Dos appeared first on Radio World.

Fig. 1: Damage to your tower fencing is a serious concern — and tower sections do not correct the safety violation.

So when a vandal cuts through your tower fence, Fig. 1 (at right) is an example of how not to prevent further break-ins or correct the safety issue.

Yep, those are tower sections placed along the cut fencing. No names here, to protect the contract engineer who found this; it was not his work.

The FCC takes a harsh view on safety violations like this. An unsecured fence is certainly a safety issue. This is a good reminder to inspect all your station towers and fencing periodically.

Fig. 2: Plastic muffin or mini-cupcake holders are useful in the shop. * * *

Brian Urban was in the audience for a recent episode of Kirk Harnack’s “This Week In Radio Tech” (TWIRT). I was a guest on the program, in which Kirk and I related a number of neat tips for engineers.

One of the tips was to use an aluminum muffin tin to hold small parts as you disassemble equipment. The depressions in the tin keeps parts organized, so they all get reinstalled in the proper order. 

Fig. 3: The small indentations hold parts; the hinged top keeps everything secure. (Co-workers also will enjoy the baked goods that come with the plastic container.)

Brian, who is the coordinator for the Television Studio Lab at Austin Community College, had another suggestion: Grab your phone and take pictures as you disassemble things. Those pictures can be invaluable in showing how a complex assembly goes back together.

Don’t have a muffin tin available? Before you raid your kitchen, treat your staff to some of those grocery store-prepared muffins or mini-cupcakes (Fig. 2). They are sold in flexible plastic containers, usually with a hinged lid. Store the parts in the indentations in the plastic as shown in Fig. 3 and save the muffin tin for baking.

* * * 

We so depend on the eagle-eyed readers of this column! 

An example is California’s Robert Lilley, who pointed out that in our discussion about Windows 7 “not genuine” in November, the correct address is www.itechfever.com (the letter “i” was missing!) However, Googling “How to Fix Windows 7 not genuine error” will get you to the itech site, along with hundreds of others. Bob notes that this obviously is a popular subject!  

Robert is still a consultant but these days he consults for radio-navigation systems. Still, he has collected a pretty good toolbox over the years, and it helps him keep the dishwasher running! 

Robert has put together a couple of pages showcasing his on-air career in the late 1950s in West Virginia. We’ve bookmarked them for you at https://tinyurl.com/rw-lilley and https://tinyurl.com/rw-lilley2. You’ll enjoy the sites, especially if you like pictures of vintage studios and equipment.

* * *  Fig. 4: Another example of an EAS receive loop antenna, using PVC tubing.

Lance Jackson is a technology engineer in the Communications Department of Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. Lance enjoyed reading Ken Beckwith’s “how to” article on constructing a PVC EAS Receive Antenna in our Workbench column in late September. 

Lance writes that he built something similar, pictured in Fig. 4, for the university’s station KSUU. In Lance’s iteration, he used 3/4-inch PVC pipe to form a simple square, two feet on each side. Like Ken, he used Cat-5e cable for the wire, looping it through the PVC pipe three or four turns. Since Cat-5e has four pairs of wires, fewer turns were required. Plus, since the Cat-5e cable pairs are already jacketed, you don’t have the problem of trying to snake multiple individual cables through the PVC tubing.  

The wires were soldered the same way Ken did, and the antenna has been in service for 2 1/2 years now and works very well. Lance is one of many engineers who wrote and called, saying how useful these technical how-to articles are. We plan to bring you more (and we want your good ideas)!

See how easy it is to help other engineers? Where else can you earn recertification credit when you share a tip published in Workbench? Thank you for sharing your tips and high-resolution photos by sending them to johnpbisset@gmail.com.

John Bisset has spent 50 years in the broadcasting industry and is still learning. 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.

The post How NOT to Repair Tower Fencing appeared first on Radio World.

When approached about a media project, I start by jumping to the end: “How are we going to measure success?” One would think that as measurement has become more sophisticated, accurate and granular, the reply would simple and direct. Wrong! 

If anything, expected positive outcomes are rarely fully considered before an approach is selected. Once they’ve committed to it, advertising agencies, clients and even stations tend to focus on media efficiencies. Yes, there’s a lot to unpack here!

BAD “IMPRESSIONS”

Ever since ratings were conceived, cost per point (or per thousand) has been touted as the holy grail. Defining success as spending the least to deliver the largest possible audience is perhaps the most misleading way to prove to advertisers that the person placing the campaign is a brilliant champion, looking after the client’s best interests.

The appeal to everyone involved in this oversimplification is that it can be devised with little effort, described as the best use of investment and delivered as a sure means of success.

First off, it is natural to figure that media efficiencies improved with the arrival of digital media in the 1990s. 

In my view, it actually got worse, because the media industry expanded the use of the term “impression” and adopted it as a key metric. 

Advertising had used “impressions” prior to digital, but it was mostly a guess. With websites, the definition was expanded to measure every time a banner ad loaded on page. If there were five banner ads that loaded, that became five impressions. Holy moley — the ad industry could generate thousands, even millions of impressions!! Man, that’s gotta sound great to any client.

The obvious difficulty is that impressions are meaningless if nobody actually notices them or takes action. Even when a user clicks, they don’t spend more than a second or two looking at whatever they’re now viewing because it doesn’t match their expectations. 

In terms of broadcasting, I hope you will agree that not every listener hears every single advertisement. I know this can be painful to admit, but we must look in the mirror. 

[Promo Power: Set Expectations With Advertisers]

I am not advocating that we never use media efficiencies; but we must understand that this one-trick pony does not measure the most crucial component of advertising, which is effectiveness! If one of your salespeople devises a schedule solely based on efficiency and the client’s cash register doesn’t ka-ching, would you say that the campaign was a success?

Advertising — like content creation — is an art, not a science. We measure it because clients expect us to do so and it’s encouraging to have apparent evidence in front of us. However, we must always remember that advertising’s center should be about creativity, relevance and innovation. Advertising that’s written and produced with entertainment, facts and special offers has a much better chance of motivating purchase decisions. 

Haters of my rant against media efficiency dynamics may site the successful utilization of big data in driving results. While big data is beginning to produce results, it is not about media efficiencies, and I’ve yet to encounter anyone in broadcasting manipulating huge databases, so we’ll save that topic for another day.  

AGREE ON EXPECTATIONS

So how do we measure success? 

This starts by having an open discussion with the client to agree on expectations. For example, a client may express that they expect their sales will go up by a certain percentage during and directly after the campaign airs. It’s then up to you to find out how or why they believe this to be an achievable result so you can expand their understanding. If you’re dealing with a client’s agency and they pick a media efficiency goal, you likely have no choice but to comply. It would still be worth trying to dig deeper to understand what the true expected outcome is so you might be able to adjust the creative or scheduling. You might also remind them that nobody ever wins awards based on media efficiency.

Mark Lapidus is a multiplatform media, content and marketing executive, and longtime Radio World contributor. Email mark.lapidus1@gmail.com.

The post Media Efficiency Versus Effectiveness appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Ponsulak.Kunsub

The article “Fires, Your Station and You” by Buc Fitch was a great reminder to take a look around and introduce some common sense into planning for something we hope never happens — a fire.

As the chief of a volunteer fire department, I see lots of foolish and sometimes even borderline criminal things. Our mantra, unfortunately, is “You can’t fix stupid.”

Here are a couple of quick items to add to the sensible fire safety suggestions in that article:

1. All of that wiring and plastic in your station gives off nasty gases when it burns; and though the smoke from plenum rated cable is supposed to be “less toxic,” they stop short of calling it “non-toxic.” Even if the smoke is not obscuring your vision, there’s a good chance you are breathing stuff that your life insurance carrier would prefer you do not. If you can’t knock down a fire quickly with a single extinguisher, consider backing out; and make sure you close the door to limit the oxygen supply to the fire. That last part is very important. As you plan your fire escape strategy with staff, make sure they understand that exiting the building and leaving every door wide open is a great way to provide all the oxygen that a fire needs to spread.
2. Call the fire department — not when your station is already on fire, but before anything happens. Most fire departments are happy to do a “pre-plan” walk-through with you, which may also buy you some good will when they point out that you have code violations. Keep in mind that should those violations be discovered after you have a fire and someone is seriously hurt, the consequences will be significantly more unpleasant than the embarrassment of discovering them as you walk through with the fire department.
3. A pre-plan will not only be informative for you and management but will also give the fire department an opportunity to see the layout of your facility and identify any hazards that might lurk there when they do respond with your building full of smoke and time is of the essence.
4. Fire extinguishers need to be checked and recharged. Since you are going to pay someone to do so, consider having your staff practice with them as part of your ongoing maintenance cycle. The time to learn how to use one correctly is NOT when you actually need to use one.

While on the subject of not learning things when you need to use them, consider bringing in a CPR instructor to do a class for your staff. One of your fellow employees might save your life, and they will certainly be grateful if they save a family member using training you forced them to take.

Ron Kumetz N1WT

Director of Engineering, Broadcast Devices Inc.

Alburgh, Vt.

The post You Can’t Fix Stoopid: Fire Safety Suggestions for Radio appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that IPAWS-OPEN release 3.10 went live on Dec. 18, offering several new enhancements, including support for 360-character alerts.

WEA, or Wireless Emergency Alerts, is used to send warnings about dangerous weather, missing children and other emergency situations to the public via their wireless phones and mobile devices.

The latest version of WEA also supports Spanish-language alerts, the ability to reach 100% of a targeted area without an overshoot of more than 1/10 of a mile as well as enhancements to the WEA test and public safety categories.

However, leveraging the enhancements requires more than an update to IPAWS, FEMA said. Wireless provides will need to update their networks nationwide, their customers’ phones and the software authorities rely upon to send alerts.

While the IPAWS Program Management Office (PMO) has tested and confirmed wireless providers can receive enhanced WEA messages from IPAWS, it will take time for wireless customers around the country to receive enhanced WEA on their phones, FEMA said.

IPAWS PMO also has confirmed that most of the software used by alerting authorities around the country has been upgraded and tested by FEMA; however, it is possible that not all of the alerting authorities are ready to write alerts taking advantage of the new WEA enhancements, FEMA said.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai issued his own statement about the WEA update:

“One of my key public safety priorities has been to ensure that America’s emergency alerting system meets the needs of public safety officials and the communities they serve. With these improvements, Wireless Emergency Alerts are now an even more powerful tool for emergency managers to warn and protect the public. These improvements respond to input we’ve received from the public safety community and will help save lives.”

This is expansion of mobile services is part of the architecture for delivery information during emergencies that broadcasters also take part in.

More information is available by emailing FEMA IPAWS PMO.

 

The post Latest Enhancements For Wireless Emergency Alerts Go Live appeared first on Radio World.

An important note for all TV and radio broadcasters — if you aren’t keeping up your online public file, penalties may be headed your way.

In March 2018, radio and television stations were required to transition their public inspection files to an online public inspection file system, or OPIF. The Federal Communications Commission told the National Association of Broadcasters that not only have some broadcasters failed to keep their files up to date but some broadcasters have not even started the process by activating their online public file.

While the FCC has apparently emailed warning notices to some stations, the NAB is strongly advising stations to take action now by confirming that they are correctly complying with current public file rules, according to a blog post by the Alabama Broadcasters Association.

[Read: AM Station Hit with $15,000 Forfeiture After Public File Lapse]

According to the ABA, FCC staff are now in the process of reviewing the online public file system for those still lacking an online public file, checking for dormant online public files, and looking for required items that are missing or late-filed.

It’s important to note that materials entered into the OPIF system are time- and date-stamped, so timely filing is essential. According to ABA, those out of compliance should expect to incur a fine.

“Significantly, the license renewal cycle is well underway for radio stations, and failure to properly maintain the public file takes on additional importance because stations must certify that their public file has been complete and up-to-date at all times during the license term, or disclose violations,” the ABA said in a newsletter to its member stations. “The FCC considers a lack of candor in renewal applications an extremely serious violation.”

In addition to fines, an incomplete online public file can lead to delays in the license renewal process.

Broadcasters should also closely focus on uploading their Quarterly Issues/Program lists, which show exactly how a station has addressed the needs and interests of its community. These lists must track issues and programs starting with the very first year in a station’s typical eight-year license term. “Failure to comply can be extremely costly,” the ABA said.

Stations should also promptly upload other required materials including their annual EEO Public File Reports and children’s television reports.

Keep in mind too that attempting to avoid enforcement by uploading the lists after their due date — without disclosure this the FCC — may increase the enforcement liability. The public can track online which stations have most recently uploaded public files on the FCC’s database.

The first place to start if you don’t know where to begin? Talk to your station’s legal counsel.

 

The post Out-of-Date Online Files Being Investigated by FCC appeared first on Radio World.

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based Synthax has hired Michael Descoteau to serve in the new broadcast sales manager position, effective Jan. 2. He will report to Managing Director Mathias von Heydekampf.

Prior to this role, Descoteau served as director of broadcast sales for Dale Pro Audio. He focused on developing and implementing IP networking, including Dante, AoIP and VoIP.

Von Heydekampf called Descoteau’s appointment “opportune” in a press release, as the company works to scale up its broadcast offerings. He said, “Michael brings an impressive set of capabilities and experience to his new role having worked in top sales capacities as well as alongside systems integrators and others in the broadcasting field.”

In the announcement, Descoteau said, “The broadcast market is already highly dependent on IP technology. Synthax’s diverse lineup of products are able to help companies accelerate their success in a range of broadcast verticals, including sports, entertainment, government and more.”

Synthax currently distributes RME, Ferrofish, myMix, Appsys Pro Audio and Digigram products.

 

The post Synthax Hires Michael Descoteau appeared first on Radio World.

If you’re not feeling festive, the performance space at Bonneville International’s Sacramento cluster will definitely put you in the holiday spirit.

Director of Engineering Jason Ornellas and his engineering and IT teams set up a Christmas display that would be the envy of any engineer and might even get you craving some eggnog and cookies, along with Christmas carols.

Ornellas shared photos of the decorations on LinkedIn, where he wrote that the “Engineering & IT Department got into the holiday spirit with our throwback tree with a fog machine and all. I get to work with the best team everyday and looking forward to what 2020 brings us.”

According to Ornellas, the tree is outfitted with “mic flags, inner transmission line bullet, heliax cable with N connector, Serial cable, Cat 6 cable, surge protector, CDs, terminal strips” and more. Nearby, they set up “a fog machine feeding into the JBL speaker so smokes comes through the tweeter,” he added. 

[Read about another unconventional — but awesome — radio station decoration]

If your station’s decorated for the holiday season, we’d love to see photos and may even feature them on our website or social media. Send pics to radioworld@futurenet.com or DM us via @radioworld_news on Twitter and @RadioWorldMagazine on Facebook.

The post Check Out How Bonneville Sacramento Celebrates Christmas appeared first on Radio World.

As a loyal Radio World reader you are entitled to something more than the mere rantings of a third-tier ex-disc jockey. Thus I’m going to share with you the coolest Christmas event we ever ran during my so-called radio career. Feel free to steal it!

Today, many stations might be tempted to tie this promotion in with some politically correct charity such as the free shoes program for underprivileged Albanians. Some stations will try to share it with the other 300 stations in their chain and together give away one trip to watch Leonardo DiCaprio’s jet spew carbon emissions all over the world. None of that is necessary. The beauty of this idea is its simplicity.

In the ’60s and ’70s you may remember an inexpensive device called a color organ. You could buy one in kit form from Radio Shack for about $12. The basic part was a frequency splitter, though it was often installed inside a speaker-like box with a fogged plastic front and multicolored lights on the inside which lit at select frequencies, creating a light show on the plastic panel.

With a little patience you could connect it to a radio under your Christmas tree and drive a string of holiday lights, watching the bulbs respond to the different frequencies in the music. In our case bass tones triggered blue lights, mid-tones caused the green lights to pulse and high notes made the red lights blink. Now I don’t know anything about this first-hand but I heard that if one were stoned this was a very special treat to watch.

Far out, man!

At WOHO(AM), Toledo, Ohio, we had a gifted engineer, Bob Sowers, who did this on a larger scale. He connected a color organ to a radio, and ran the audio into a string of 150 large outdoor display lights.

[Read: Adventures in 1970s Radio: How Desperate Was I?]

Once he got it to work, we could put our plan into action. After receiving permission from a local strip mall we erected a 40-foot blue spruce tree in its parking lot about two weeks before Christmas, and hired a cherry picker to drape our lights over the entire tree. At the base of the spruce was a locked box that contained a radio that was hard-wired to receive our station. Our air signal was sent to the lights via the color organ. We also blasted WOHO through some PA speakers near the tree. Every night we sent someone over to turn on what we dubbed “The WOHO Carol Tree” at sunset.

It was magic.

The public turned out by the thousands to sit in the dark, listen to our station on their car radios in the parking lot and watch the colorful pulsing lights with fascination. Guys took their girlfriends there to make out; parents took their kids because it was cheaper than a drive-in movie. Every evening from sundown until about midnight, for several winters in a row, ours was the hottest ticket in town.

One song in particular, “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers, had a pulsing drumbeat that was memorable to witness in living color. Our jocks were aware of this and played the song every hour because it drove the crowds wild. Even commercials were fun to “watch.”

I think the tree cost the station about $400. The crane rental and construction of the lights (which could be stored and used again) was about $450. Permission from the shopping center: free.

It was a groovy way to celebrate the season so I shout: on, Donder, on Sneezy, on Zeppo! And a free-range, gluten-free Christmas to you all!

Ken Deutsch was a DJ in the days of three Bs: bubblegum, Beach Boys and Beatles. He is now a closed-caption transcriber and advocate for the deaf/hard of hearing.

 

The post Adventures in 1970s Radio: The WOHO Carol Tree appeared first on Radio World.

TiVo and Xperi are entering into a happy new union, with the two companies announcing that that have agreed to combine in an all-stock merger that values at $3 billion. Together, they say they will create a “leading consumer and entertainment technology business and one of the industry’s largest intellectual property licensing platforms with a diverse portfolio of entertainment and semiconductor intellectual property.”

With this merger, TiVo is expected to provide its content aggregation, discovery and recommendation capabilities with Xperi’s product capabilities in the home, automotive and mobile device ecosystems, helping consumers enjoy content anywhere, anytime, the two sides said.

The intellectual property licensing platform that will be offered by this newly formed company will reportedly serve markets in entertainment content, consumer electronics and semiconductors, and includes more than 10,000 patents and applications between TiVo and Xperi, TiVo said.

“There is more content, and more ways to enjoy that content, than ever before,” said David Shull, CEO of TiVo. “In a rapidly expanding and fragmenting digital universe, consumers want and need to be able to easily find and enjoy the content that matters to them. TiVo has always been the company that brings entertainment together. Now, we can significantly expand our mission. With Xperi’s annual licensing of more than 100 million connected TV units, and complementary relationships with major content providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and automotive OEMs, our combined company will transform the home, car and mobile entertainment experience for the consumer.”

The new parent company will take the Xperi name but will still provide entertainment services under the TiVo brand, alongside Xperi’s DTS, HD Radio and IMAX Enhanced brands.

This merger will take the place of TiVo’s plans announced earlier this year that it was going to separate its product and IP licensing business.

Jon Kirchner, Xperi’s CEO, will take on the same role in the new parent company, with Xperi CFO Robert Andersen also serving as the parent company’s CFO. Shull is tapped with continuing as a strategic advisor to help out with the transition.

The merger has been agreed to by the board of directors of both companies and is expected to close during the second quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approvals.

The post Xperi Announces $3B Merger With TiVo appeared first on Radio World.

SiriusXM with 360L — the “L” presumably stands for “Listening [experience]”? — is the rebranded and extended form of the satcaster’s user interface and platform. It “delivers content via both satellite and streaming” in and out of the car, SiriusXM says. (Both a Connected Access plan and a SiriusXM All Access or Select subscription are required.) 

Note that dash photos do show AM and FM radio buttons.

[Read about SiriusXM’s Pandora purchase] An excerpt from a tip sheet SiriusXM created for car dealers to promote the SiriusXM with 360L rollout.

“SiriusXM with 360L transforms the way we listen to audio in the car by marrying our satellite network to embedded connectivity in vehicles. This allows for significantly more channels and choices,” SiriusXM Sales and Automotive EVP Steve Cook said in a press release.

360L debuted with the 2019 Ram 1500, and is now poised to massively increase its footprint. General Motors says SiriusXM will be included in 13 Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC 2020 model year vehicles, adding up to about 1 million automobiles.

Based on the platform and app’s capabilities, it seems SiriusXM has integrated technology and know-how it gained through its 2019 Pandora acquisition. In addition to the 200+ live SiriusXM channels, 360L features on-demand programming options, content recommendations, sports play-by-play and official game broadcasts. The platform also enables “multiple drivers and passengers to customize and maintain their own presets and favorites” through individual vehicle profiles. Profiles can be tweaked in-car or using the SiriusXM app, or U.S. customers with a Remote Access Plan can designate “favorites” through apps specific to their vehicle’s make, which will then sync to the linked infotainment system. 

The apps can also be used to manage SiriusXM subscriptions, and GM says it will offer a free three-month trial of SiriusXM with 360L to those who buy the equipped 2020 vehicles. 

360L also appears to be the next step to increasing SiriusXM’s automotive presence after the 2018 launch of its Automatic connectivity service for car dealers.

The post General Motors Adds SiriusXM With 360L to Some 2020 Models appeared first on Radio World.

WMMS’ Cleveland Buzzard hatched 45 years ago, the product of a rebrand idea from Program Director John Gorman and Music Director Denny Sanders, executed by artist David Helton. 

Helton hadn’t planned on creating this “rock star” for WMMS — he had originally sent in a complaint about the station’s programming — in the form of a cartoon.  The move caught John Gorman’s attention, and the rest is history. 

The Buzzard was introduced in the alternative weekly, Zeppelin, in April 1974 (shown at left). The public embraced him, and the popularity of the rock radio station skyrocketed, with the Buzzard at the helm. Over the years, the Buzzard appeared on all manner of swag, large and small:  bumper stickers, shirts, glassware, mugs, and even vehicles. He represented WMMS in print and TV ads, billboards, parade floats and murals. He also had his own publication — The Buzzard News — an internal comic that tracked what was happening at the station in the 1970s. 

The Buzzard is still a WMMS, and Cleveland, icon even as the station celebrated its 50th birthday in 2018. The station is currently owned by iHeartMedia. 

Helton hasn’t been an employee of Malrite Communications, then owner of WMMS, since 1989, but he didn’t have to dig too deep to draw a special illustration for a feature story in the Cleveland Scene (left). The Buzzard may be older, but he’s not forgotten. 

For Buzzard fans who want to get a little nostalgic, Helton is selling some of his vintage swag online. Visit www.davidheltonillustration.com.

REFERENCES

Learn more by reading these articles:

• www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/08/16/a-brief-history-of-the-wmms-buzzard
• www.chattanoogapulse.com/buzzard-luck/
• https://buzzardbook.wordpress.com/

The post See the Evolution of the “WMMS Buzzard” appeared first on Radio World.

AMSTERDAM — Visitors to the main radio area of the recent IBC exhibition may have noticed a striking hand-drawn white cardboard stand in the adjacent “Future Zone.”

The hand-drawn cardboard Project MARCONI stand at IBC2019.

This was the home of Project MARCONI [Multimedia and Augmented Radio Creation: Online, iNteractive, Individual] and HRadio, both funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

The project consortium includes public broadcasters NPO in the Netherlands, and Belgium-based VRT, alongside technology companies and academic partners. Together, they aim to improve radio experiences by enabling fully interactive and personalized radio solutions, integrating broadcast radio with digital and social media.

Rik Bauwens is lead developer for VRT Innovation.

PERSONALIZED RADIO SOLUTIONS

In a live demonstration at IBC, MARCONI highlighted the technologies behind the project: different software tools integrated in a dashboard, using AI-powered chatbots and content analysis. The project showed engagement with listener content by replying to messages, dragging and dropping them into the radio program, and playing their footage on a screen on the other side of the stand.

Rik Bauwens, lead developer for VRT Innovation, describes how the project came about. “MARCONI was preceded by the ICoSOLE project, which focused on user-generated content during live events. For MARCONI, we narrowed this down to music events, such as festivals, in a radio context. Together with some of the ICoSOLE partners, additional technical companies, radio software provider Pluxbox, and radio teams from VRT and NPO, we drafted the MARCONI project.”

Bauwens explains that matching novel technological solutions such as face detection and chatbots to a contemporary radio workflow was the biggest challenge for the project.

“To address this, we started by organizing co-creation workshops with both radio content producers and their listeners. Subsequently, we held observations with radio teams at VRT and NPO to get to know their current tools. We adopted an agile development process with week-long sprints and a stand-up with project partners every Monday, to continually evaluate and adjust our prototypes.”

EXPERIMENTATION

The EU funding has also been helpful, he adds. “First, it allows us to experiment next to a live radio production; it gives us the freedom to start over very quickly if needed. Second, it allows us to organize open piloting with other radio stations in Europe, to get even more feedback.”

VRT is involved in both Project MARCONI and HRadio. “The use cases are different but complement each other very well,” explains Bauwens.

“MARCONI focuses on creating tools for radio-makers to handle novel ways of interaction with their audience. HRadio offers an end-user experience for radio listeners, such as rewinding live radio, participating in polls via DAB+ using a radio webview and so on.”

The aim for MARCONI is to offer a new toolset to radio stations by the end of the project in March 2020, with open pilots taking place until then. “Possibly, MARCONI gets a sequel in the years to come,” VRT’s Bauwens says. “Aside from interaction, visualization and extensive automation would be important topics for us.”

The post Project MARCONI Brings Stations Closer to Listeners appeared first on Radio World.

Dave Burns has died.

According to an obituary on Legacy.com, Burns was 76 and died after a short illness. He is shown in the accompanying photo from his Facebook page.

Readers who were active in the industry’s equipment supply industry of the 1980s and 1990s will remember Burns from his tenure in sales and marketing.

According to earlier RW coverage, Burns began his career as a salesman for Roy Ridge at Allied Broadcast Equipment, which later was known as Harris Allied and eventually Harris Corp.’s Broadcast Division. He also worked as a consultant to several companies, and in 2002 joined Klotz Digital America as director of broadcast business development.

In retirement he remained passionate about radio in retirement and was active in online communities.

[See a photo Burns submitted in 2013 to RW in “Here’s Looking (Up) at You, WLW”]

According to Legacy.com, Burns died Tuesday at Hospice of Southwest Ohio. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.stegallberheideorr.com.

 

The post Dave Burns Dies, Was Retired Broadcast Tech Sales Exec appeared first on Radio World.

Broadcast engineers are often found to be obsessed with time, likely because they are surrounded by time-critical tasks. Many a radio broadcast engineer has programmed an automation system schedule built around precise time program clocks that outlines and controls the content broadcast throughout the day. Precise in this case is defined to the second, with time synchronization often provided by a trusted network program content source.

Gettyimages/maomage

And of course the all-familiar FCC-required legal station ID during the top of the hour window. The broadcast engineer in the joint radio and TV station likely has distributed SMPTE time code throughout the broadcast facility with the intention of locking video tape recordings to a precise and consistent time reference for editing purposes or simply synchronizing control room clocks.

Precise accuracy is defined to the sub-second or video frame rate. As the broadcast facility infrastructure, whether radio or TV, has migrated to an Information Technology (IT) environment and infrastructure, precise time references such as the Internet Protocol (IP), Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the Precise Time Protocol (PTP) have emerged. Precise in terms of accuracy to 1 mS for NTP.

Time references existed long before the first broadcast stations. The sun might be considered our first time reference standard for the local community, with 12 noon defined as occurring when the sun was directly overhead.

Many communities relied on local time synchronization provided by a dominant community member. I grew up in a small east Texas town where you could count on the local “steam whistle” from the refinery to sound at 8 a.m., 12 noon and 5 p.m.

RAILROAD TIME

In the mid-1860s, Western Union utilized its nationwide telegraph system to distribute time signaling from the U.S. Navy Observatory (USNO) in Washington, D.C. The observatory used precise celestial optical observation to establish a time standard reference. This same time reference was first used to synchronize clocks in the railroad system, bringing some order to what was often described as a continuous state of confusion between “railroad” time and the local community time. The nationwide telegraph system became dedicated for time distribution just before the top of each hour.

The establishment of 24 worldwide time zones setting our familiar time zones with each referenced the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was stated as “humanizing time.”

In some communities, one could find Western Union synchronized clocks in corporate offices, schools, banks and public venues that were connected by “clock loop circuits,” providing synchronization at the top of each hour. The time synchronization signal consisted of an established sequence of 1-click-per-second clicks of the telegraph sounder across the nationwide telegraph system a few seconds before the hour. After a pause, the final click or “mark” signal originated a local reset signal to drive a solenoid in the clock, resetting the clock time to the current top of the hour.

History indicates that this fee-based nationwide standardized clock time system remained in service into the ’70s but faded away as the telegraph as a delivery medium and Western Union faded away. Today, a Western Union railroad clock manufactured by the Self Winding Clock Company is considered a cherished technology collector’s item by many.

AT THE TONE, THE TIME IS…

And of course the broadcast engineer is familiar with the precise time and frequency information broadcast by WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado and WWVH in Kauai, Hawaii on a variety of frequencies ranging from 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz utilizing 1/2-wave antennas. These time and frequency reference broadcasts provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) utilize multiple cesium atomic clocks for precise time and frequency accuracy. Many a broadcast engineer has utilized the precise 10 MHz WWV broadcast as a frequency reference to calibrate or verify their local frequency counter.

The legacy broadcast engineer may have had a master clock utilizing a WWV or WWVH receiver as the time reference. The military Inter-Range Instrumentation Group (IRIG) type H time code format broadcast by WWV or WWVH was the only openly available time reference standard before Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) were available. WWVB, also in Colorado and adjacent to the WWV stations, broadcasts a 1 bit-per-second time code on 60 kHz that is responsible for keeping an estimated 50,000,000 consumer timepieces automatically synchronized. That $19.95 “atomic” clock on your kitchen wall relies on WWVB for its time synchronization.

Today, a GNSS-based time master clock is an integral component of the broadcast technical plant. The Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation operated by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) is one of several worldwide GNSS systems in operation. GPS utilizes multiple Cesium Beam or Hydrogen Maser atomic clock references provided by the USNO.

Whereas the system was primarily developed for navigation applications, the system can be used to provide a precise reference to a disciplined oscillator in the local master clocks by reception of several GPS satellite time signals providing facility time and system timing information.

GPS system accuracy is often quoted in terms of location accuracy such as a minimum of 4 meters for civilian applications which receive a coarse-acquisition (C/A) code on 1575.42 MHz. Military GPS (referred to as PPS) uses the civilian frequency plus a second signal on 1227.60 MHz to reduce radio path degradation caused by atmospheric disturbances. With regards to a time reference, accurate time information can be determined to the microsecond level.

The GPS-based master clock references in a broadcast facility are capable of supplying time references in several formats ranging from the SMPTE time code, to NTP and PTP, and to several General Purpose Output (GPO) interfaces. These GPO output interfaces are typically Transistor-Transistor-Logic (TTL) based signals in formats including one pulse per second (1PPS) and top-of-hour (TOH) pulse.

Facility distribution allows a single reference to supply time information to a variety of devices throughout the facility in lieu of each device containing its own time standard based reference. In addition, a 10 MHz frequency reference is often provided by these references and is useful to check calibration of the stations frequency-measuring devices.

The 1PPS and TOH outputs have been used to synchronize other devices in the broadcast plant such as early automation systems. The GPS-based master clocks provide time in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) format. UTC may also be referred to as solar time.

SMPTE time code, known as SMPTE 12M-2, can be found in two formats: Longitudinal (LTC) or Vertical-Interval (VITC). Time is presented in the format of hours:minutes:seconds:frame or HH:MM:SS:FF and is represented by 32-bit binary coded decimal (BCD) number identifying an individual frame of video.

In order to correct for the 29.97 frames per second rate of color NTSC, drop-frame (DF) time code is commonly used. It is typically represented as HH;MM;SS;FF with the semicolon indicating the drop-frame mode. The name is often misleading, as no frames of video are actually dropped. Instead a few time codes are dropped in order to match up the timecode with clock time.

The broadcast facility today likely relies on NTP for time synchronization among a diversity of IP-based host devices. NTP is defined as time synchronization over a packet-switched network or today’s common IP network. Now in version 4 (NTPv4) as defined by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments (RFC) 5905 provides accuracy to 1 mS. NTP is considered one of the core IP protocols and utilizes TCP/UDP port 123 as assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and an IPv4 multicast address of 224.0.1.1.

A NEW AND ECONOMICAL OPTION

For many, NTP is an excellent (and now economically implemented) approach to time sync devices in the broadcast plant, such as an automation system components, network content sources, the control room clock and of course all IT-oriented devices. Development of improvements continues today with enhancements specifically in the area of network security.

NTP was developed as a client-server application utilizing a complex algorithm to determine a precise time reference accounting for variable packet network time delays. The client on a host device calculates a time offset and the round-trip-delay from one or more time reference sources.

A peer-to-peer mode is also supported where a peer node can consider another peer node as a time reference.

The NTP client utilizes the familiar Bellman-Ford shortest path spanning tree algorithm to calculate and in turn minimize the delay to the reference time server. NTP clients have been developed for all mainstream computer operating systems, and thus are available for a wide range of host devices. In the Unix/Linux environment, the client is implemented as the daemon “ntpd,” and as a service in the Windows operating system. The Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) defined by RFC 2030 was developed as a simplified version of NTP and is often found in embedded systems where less demanding time synchronization is required.

NTP is based upon a hierarchical or layered scheme of time references described as a Stratum level ranging from 1–16. A Stratum 0 clock is defined as a high-precision reference clock and is not connected to the network as it only serves as a reference. It is simply a high-precision reference standard.

A Stratum 1 clock is directly connected (wired or RF path) to a Stratum 0 reference and is in turn utilized to synchronize lower level clocks. A Stratum 16 clock is considered an unsynchronized clock as is often a clock that has lost network connectivity to its reference source.

The Stratum n description refers to the device distance from the reference source rather than an indication of an actual time accuracy. In reality a Stratum 3 clock may be the most accurate, as this level can be synchronized with multiple Stratum 2 clocks which are referenced to multiple Stratum 1 clocks, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1: Stratum Levels

NTP utilizes the Unix time epoch. The Unix epoch, also known as POSIX time or Unix time, is based upon the number of seconds occurring since January 1, 1970 as each day consists as 86,400 seconds. Unix time is represented by a signed 32-bit numerical integer string such as “1560862759.”

The Internet provides ample time conversion utilities. The current Unix integer time string can be found at https://time.is/Unix_time_now. However, NTP utilizes a modified method of storing the time integer value. Sixty-four bits are used to create an NTP timestamp by assigning 32 bits for the second storage and 32 bits for the fractional second.

A DIFFERENT “Y2K” BUG?

Looking ahead, the use of a signed 32-bit time storage unit creates a problem upon reaching Jan. 19, 2038, as an integer overflow occurs and the time becomes a negative integer and begins counting backwards. This often is referred to as the “Y2K38” problem. Most if not all operating systems have corrected for this problem by adopting a 64-bit storage registers.

NTP has a similar roll-over issue occurring in February 2036. However, the impact is not felt to be as severe since NTP time determination is based upon time-stamp differences rather than an absolute value. Future NTP versions will likely extend the timestamp value to 128-bits. Today, it is not clear as to what the final recommended solution(s) may be.

Yet another enhancement to NTP is PTP. Maybe not found in the radio station environment today, it is worth being aware of. PTP is defined under the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 1588 standard now implemented in version 2 or IEEE-1588-2008. PTP is master-slave architecture similar to NTP, but provides accuracy in the sub-second range.

IEEE 1588 is used in utilized in network applications where accuracy is required beyond the capabilities of NTP such as industrial automation and financial transaction markets. It has become commonplace in IP-based TV networks such as the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) ST-2110 standard. PTP is designed for local area networks requiring accuracy in the sub-nanosecond range.

PTP utilizes a synchronization master as the root time reference referred to as the “grandmaster” clock. The grandmaster derives its reference from a Stratum 0 source such as the GPS satellite constellation. A “slave” clock in turn derives a time reference from the grandmaster. Boundary clocks may be present, which in turn relay time information to other segments of a network.

The PTP standard utilizes UDP messages to convey time reference information between devices on the network with IPv4 multicast addresses 224.0.0.129 and 224.0.0.107 registered for message exchange. Master clocks can be obtained that serve as both NTP and PTP time references.

A common challenge in many broadcast facilities is providing NTP time services across multiple isolated IP networks or subnets in the facility. These individual isolated networks are often built with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) segments and utilize private IP address space. The multiple subnets are used to segment or isolate critical broadcast network functions into layers or zones.

NTP time information can be shared across multiple networks by a sometimes elaborate means of static Network Address Translation (NAT) and Access Control Lists (ACL) in a Layer 3 router to control inter-subnet interoperability from a cybersecurity standpoint. The use of an ACL allows only NTP packets to be exchanged between the individual subnets.

I have found that a better approach is to use an individual NTP time server for each network subnet. This approach is now feasible from an economic standpoint as a NTP server can be purchased for less than $300 such as the TimeMachines TM1000A GPS NTP Network Time Server. A single outdoor GPS antenna and multi-port signal splitter provide a GPS antenna connection to each time server. The more industrious engineer can roll his own time server with an OEM GPS receiver, a Raspberry Pi, and some open-source software. Each time server is configured for each network subnet required such as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2: Example of multiple time servers for dedicated subnets sharing a common antenna (note the lower right combination NTP / PTP time server).

No wonder the broadcast engineer is often obsessed with time when his or her day is often defined in terms of seconds, frames, milliseconds and even microseconds. The broadcast engineer’s Apple “iWatch” as shown in Fig. 3 is considered a Stratum 2 reference, as Apple maintains a network of fifteen (15) Stratum 1 time servers worldwide.

Fig. 3: The iWatch is a Stratum 2 Reference Clock.

By the way, you did ask what time it is. This column was submitted to the editor at precisely 1568613600 prior to the deadline of 1569412740.

Wayne M. Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE is associate director, Educational Broadcast Services at Texas A&M University and director of engineering at KAMU TV and FM. He also is president of the Society of Broadcast Engineers and a past recipient of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award.

The post Do You Know What Time It Is? appeared first on Radio World.

It’s a New Year’s tradition: the arrival of a new Radio World Source Book & Directory!

Some folks have asked me why Radio World still creates a printed and online directory. Well, even as we head into the third decade of the 21st century, it turns out that equipment buyers and sellers

still want to find one another, and that buyers are always looking for ways to streamline the process of researching equipment and buying it. Although you or I can find any website with a quick Google search, there’s something both simple and effective about having a directory, particularly a hard copy, right at hand — especially if it gives a succinct summary of what that company does and how to contact them, something not all websites do well.

So here’s your latest resource for professionals working in the U.S. radio broadcasting industry. The companies listed here are those that responded to our solicitations toward the end of 2019. You’ll find respondents listed alphabetically in the Vendor & Product Directory section starting on page 15.

Companies also tell us the type of hardware or service they offer; find those categories in the Supplier Cross Index starting on page 12.

On pages 4–11, sponsors highlight key products in the Profiles in Excellence section. Starting on page 33 are sponsored reprints of product stories that originally appeared in Radio World in recent months.

Radio World believes in the importance of a vibrant technology supplier marketplace. We appreciate all of the companies listed, and in particular those that advertise in Radio World, because they make it possible for us to continue to serve you. I hope you’ll find this directory of companies useful throughout the coming year.

The post 2020 Radio World Source Book and Directory appeared first on Radio World.