Radio World

OSLO, Norway — On Sept. 11, Soundware Norway proved that it was possible to run a live radio broadcast using the touchscreen monitor inside a Tesla 3 electric car.

The Tesla 3’s in-car monitor, showing the web page that controls program rundown, playout and the audio mixer. All photos: Soundware Norway

Inside the Tesla parked outside Soundware Norway’s Oslo headquarters, Soundware Sales Manager Ketil Morstøl managed a mock live broadcast using the Tesla 3’s web browser, which accesses the web via the car’s built-in LTE wireless modem. The browser was connected to a website hosting Soundware’s DHD user interface that remotely controls a DHD-equipped radio production facility, and David Systems’ TurboPlayer playout system.

Using the touchscreen display — which showed a standard radio music playlist in the center of the screen and standard on-air control buttons to switch/fade between audio sources and turn microphones on and off on the right side — Morstøl cycled through the functions just as if he was doing a live radio broadcast.

The Soundware Norway interface set to the remote studio mixer control screen.

“As a proof that we have bidirectional audio, we can switch on the microphone and we will actually see the PPM meter showing the input signal,” said Morstøl in a YouTube video entitled “Soundware Norway to Do BroadCARst as World First!” (Available here.) The microphone was sourced from Morstøl’s own smartphone, which connected to the web browser by taking a photo of an onscreen QR code.

MORE THAN A STUNT

Given that this “broadCARst” was staged to promote Soundware Norway’s appearance at IBC2019, it is easy to dismiss this demonstration as a publicity stunt. But the broadCARst was much more than that: It showed that radio talent can now take remote control of their station’s live production facilities from any location and run the broadcast as if they were actually in studio themselves.

Soundware Norway was able to do this demo inside a Tesla 3 because this car has a built-in web browser on its touchscreen display. This same functionality can be accessed using a web-connected laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Had he chosen to, Morstøl could have run this demo on a Samsung Family Hub refrigerator — because this fridge has a web-connected touchscreen display built in. “We have pictures of us on Linkedin.com, running a radio studio remotely inside a Boeing 747 at 30,000 feet,” he said.

A closer view of the screen, showing the music playlist and mixer controls.

“You can do everything remotely using our DHD interface that you can do in the studio,” Morstøl added. “This goes far beyond choosing songs and opening the microphones. You can actually access the mixing desk in the studio, and make and receive telephone calls. We have even integrated an audio codec into the system so that transporting audio data across the web to the studio is easily enabled.”

MORE THAN A RADIO REMOTE

Broadcasting radio programs from remote locations is nothing new. The first “radio remote” is believed to have taken place in 1924, when WHN (New York City) station manager Nils Granlund leased Western Union telegraph lines to connect his station to local jazz nightclubs.

Producing complex radio broadcasts from remote locations is also standard fare in the broadcasting industry, where fully mixed programs are relayed back to the studio for direct airing. So if Soundware Norway’s DHD system did nothing more than this — turning a Tesla 3 into a radio production studio on wheels — it would be impressive, but not ground-breaking.

However, the Soundware demo showed that the Tesla 3 could serve as a web-based interface for complete remotely controlled radio production; just as the other web-connected devices cited above could.

And this is where the demo gets interesting — because it proves that physical radio production facilities operated by broadcasters who have to be on-site are no longer necessary. Rather than building a 24/7 radio station whose production facilities are only used for live broadcasts at peak hours and otherwise left unused, Soundware’s production model makes it possible to use an unmanned “production hub” whose equipment is accessed remotely as needed, and by multiple users/stations at different times of the day.

The Soundware Norway system can also be remotely controlled by a smartphone.

“Rather in a specific radio station investing in production hardware that is unused most of the day, you could share the costs of hardware across broadcasters and all use a common facility,” said Morstøl.

The Soundware Norway production system also supports physical faders; as shown by Ketil Morstøl.

To cope with the fact that radio broadcasters need production facilities for live morning shows, stations operating in different time zones around the world could do the sharing. As long as Station A is four hours (time zones) ahead of Station B, both could use the same remote production facility sequentially for their four hour-long morning shows.

This same function could be provided by third-party vendors. They could create cloud-based virtual production facilities that radio stations could access remotely, with the mixed radio feeds going directly to their transmitter sites via IP.

Should this come to pass, radio stations would no longer need physical radio production facilities. They could reduce their operations to sales/administration offices and transmitter/antenna sites, with engineering staff located there to handle the remaining physical aspects of radio broadcasting.

This said, there’s no reason that on-air talent could not broadcast from the sales/administration office using a laptop, tablet, or smartphone to maintain the public fiction of actually broadcasting from a radio studio. But it would be a fiction, because the creation of fully remote radio production has made the continued existence of physical radio studios optional at the very least, and unnecessary at most.

This may seem a lot to conclude from a mock radio broadcast from inside a Tesla 3. But the far-reaching implications of Soundware Norway’s demo are there for all to see.

The post Running a Radio Station Inside a Tesla 3 appeared first on Radio World.

The Optimod-PC 1101e audio processing card from Orban is especially designed for use with digital transmission media such as radio streaming channels.

The unit comes with a variety of presets, speech/music detection and PreCode Technology to minimize artifacts caused by low bitrate codecs and according to the company is easy to set up.

It also features a digital mixing function, which Orban says, is “crucially important for an internet radio broadcaster who needs to control commercial content and insertion.”

Optimod-PC lets users mix an analog source, two digital sources, and two WAV sources. For example, the processor allows users to run a playout system on one’s computer while using the three hardware inputs for a live microphone feed, commercial insert and network insert.

Alternatively, operators can run the commercial insert playout software on the same computer as the main playout system, using Optimod-PC’s second WAV input to separately route the outputs of the two playout systems to the card.

Orban adds that Optimod-PC is useful for users with multiple streams because it allows them to load one computer with as many Optimod-PC cards as there are free PCI slots, each card handling one stereo program.

For information, contact Orban in Germany at +49-7141-2266-0 or visit www.orban.com.

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Great content strictly for engineers, including D-I-Y and first-person articles from Frank McCoy, Wayne Pecena, Todd Dixon and Cris Alexander, as well as insights by Dave Kolesar and Mike Raide about their real-world research into all-digital medium-wave transmission.

BAKING WITH PI
Pi for Everyone and Everything

What’s more fun than being able to solve a problem by combining ideas from your own brain with the power of a single-board computing platform? Todd Dixon has the first in an ongoing series of articles.

DIGITAL RADIO
Real-World Tests Make Business Case for MA-3

Continuing a report they began in the October issue of RWEE, Kolesar and Raide describe the technique and equipment used to measure power from the WWFD transmitter, and describes the day- and nighttime drive tests of the station’s all-digital signal.

 

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• Do You Know What Time It Is?
• “Green” Tower Lights Are a Viable Option
• Receivers in a Box on the Roof

The post Inside the Dec. 11 Issue of RW Engineering Extra appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Gian Carlo Ampie/EyeEm

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of car trips that we took, usually at night, between our home in the Texas panhandle and Dallas, where my older sister and later my brother lived. And I remember seeing those vertical stacks of red lights, some of which were flashing, and wondering what they were. “Those are radio towers,” or something to that effect, was my dad’s response.

Of course, at the time, I had no idea what radio towers even were or why they had to be adorned by those red flashing lights, but I thought they were pretty cool. Then, when I started at my first job in radio, there was a whole array of towers with flashing red lights right outside the back door. At that job, I had no responsibility for those lights, but I did know what they were for and if my job were at a non-directional station, what my responsibilities for them would be as a Third-Class Radiotelephone Operator licensee (with Broadcast Endorsement, of course).

That first radio gig was pretty much a summer job, and I landed a job at an FM station across town when it was done. That FM was located at the base of an 800-foot tower, and I worked 4 p.m. to midnight six days a week, which meant that I had to make the daily visual observation of the tower lights and faithfully enter into the operating log, “Tower lights are on and flashing.”

It was kind of a cool thing, standing in the dark at the base of that tower, listening to the ever-present Texas wind howling through the angle iron and guy wires and looking up at those red lights. The top beacon illuminated the “crow’s nest” above the top plate and beacon, and the tower had enough cross section that I could really see it and wonder what it was (I later climbed up there and saw it, the huge Huey & Phillips beacon and side marker fixtures up close).

A MYSTERIOUS BOX

The station signed off at midnight — there were few people out of bed after midnight in Amarillo, Texas, in those days, and of those that were, few had FM radios.

When the filaments and all the blowers shut off, I could hear a rhythmic grinding noise coming from the back wall. There was a mysterious electrical box of some sort that contained a motor, a cam and a pair of black bulbs with wires coming out of them. Up and down those bulbs went, one coming down as the other went up. I had discovered the tower light controls and mechanical flasher unit.

The KBRT LED tower lights are so efficient that we could run them off a single 300-watt solar panel and a deep-cycle battery.

For decades after that, I found similar setups at tower sites all over. Even when we bought new towers in the 1990s, tower lights and tower light controls were very much the same. They used the same pairs of 620-watt bulbs in the beacons, the same 110-watt lamps in the markers; and they used some kind of mechanical device to produce the flash, although mechanical contacts were used rather than mercury switches by then.

Over those decades, tower lights were always a pain in the backside. It seemed like I could never keep the lights all working for long — bulbs burned out, flashers developed mechanical issues and the constant vibration on the towers would cause wiring to chafe and occasionally short out. Then when solid-state flashers entered the scene, they were prone to failure, either from lightning or overheating. We would buy them by the case.

A FLASH IN THE DARK

Somewhere back in time, we began to see strobes come into use for some towers, usually with reduced intensity at night. We had (and still have) a tower in suburban Chicago that is 450 feet high and free-standing. It cost a fortune to paint, and we had to paint it every three or four years, so as soon as the FAA lighting standards would permit, I filed to change it from red lights and paint to a dual system with medium intensity white strobes during the day and red lights at night. While we no longer had to paint the tower after that change, those tower lights were a chore to keep working. It was always something with that high-voltage gas-tube system.

Sometime later, a few manufacturers began producing direct replacement LED red beacons and marker lights. These fixtures included integral 120-volt AC power supplies, so the existing 120-VAC wiring, power and flashers could be used with them. They weren’t cheap, but with the promise of much longer bulb life, we went down that road at a lot of sites, with mixed results. At some, we had no problems and the retrofit LED beacons and markers that we installed are still working after many years. At others, we had quite a bit of trouble and any power and bulb replacement savings was quickly consumed by repair costs.

In 2012, we built a four-tower 50 kW directional array for KBRT near Los Angeles, way up on a mountaintop with the L.A. Basin below to the west and the Inland Empire some 3,000 feet below to the east. The marking and lighting for that site were very much in question for all kinds of reasons. First was for air safety and obstruction marking. Then there was the question of light pollution — how much would the various lighting options contribute to light pollution above the skyline of the Santa Ana Mountains? And then there was the question of migratory (and other) bird attraction to the lights.

ENTER LED LIGHTING

After much study, we opted to install red LED lights on the four towers, lights with tightly-focused beams that would confine the light projection to the horizon plus or minus a few degrees. That seemed to satisfy everyone, but I had my doubts that an LED tower lighting system that operated on low DC voltage would be reliable with 50 kW of medium-wave RF present. But to my amazement, I had nothing to fear. The lights worked fine, and we have not experienced a single failure to date. Their power consumption was so low that I was able to run the tower lights off solar panels and deep-cycle marine batteries for a couple of months after the towers went up but before we had commercial power at the site.

Today’s LED tower light controllers are a far cry from the motor, cam and mercury switch mechanical controllers of old.

Since then, I’ve become a believer in LED tower light systems (and I’m speaking here of DC-powered LED systems, not hybrid or retrofit systems). I have been converting some of our oldest towers to new-technology systems. It’s amazingly easy. Beacons fit the bolt hole patterns of a code incandescent beacon, and all new wiring employing UV-rated SO cable is used to connect everything up.

A couple of years ago, the FAA began allowing the use of dual white/red systems on towers under 700 feet high, and that encompasses most of the towers in my company. It means that we can, in many cases, convert to dual red/white systems and (if the towers are galvanized) forget about painting forever. And don’t forget about the power savings, which can be significant on taller structures and multi-tower arrays.

So, the next time you find yourself troubleshooting a tower light issue … or relamping … or replacing a solid-state or mechanical flasher … consider making the move to new technology LED tower lighting. It’s the green (or maybe red) thing to do.

Cris Alexander, CPBE, AMD, DRB, is director of engineering of Crawford Broadcasting Co. and technical editor of RW Engineering Extra.

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The family of the recently deceased John Lyons has set up a GoFundMe account to help with the costs of education for his 7-year-old son.

[John Lyons Dies; Helped Shape N.Y. Skyline]

Lyons died unexpectedly the day after Thanksgiving. In addition to his wife Natasha and adult son Matthew, his family includes 7-year-old Constantine.

“In lieu of flowers, donations for Constantine Lyons’ education, extracurricular and other school-related needs to help support him as he grows will be greatly appreciated,” stated his obituary. As of Wednesday the site had raised about $5,000.

Find info here.

 

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The National Association of Tower Erectors has elected its new board of directors. Four board members will retain their seats, and the fifth will be occupied by Jessica Cobb, the association announced this week. The two-year terms are effective Feb. 16.

Cobb is CEO of MDTS in Ortonville, Mich. She is a current board member of the Michigan Wireless Association and also serves on the NATE Member Services Committee and as a member of the Women of NATE Committee.

The returning board members are MillerCo President Jimmy Miller, Tower & Turbine Technologies LLC President John Paul Jones, Millennia Contracting President Kevin Dougherty and Lee Antenna & Line Service President Bryan Lee.

“Looking ahead to 2020, the NATE board of directors will be governing during a very exciting and dynamic time in the industry that offers enormous potential to position the association for future growth and influence,” NATE Chief Operating Officer Paula Nurnberg said in the announcement.

The post NATE Election Results Are In appeared first on Radio World.

Cambridge Consultants has unveiled a design for a Digital Radio Mondiale receiver that it claims will cost under US$10 (about €9).

At its annual Innovation Day conference last week, the firm showcased a prototype of the low-cost, low-power DRM design.

This, according to the company, addresses the vital need for information by the global population that doesn’t have the internet or TV, adding that since it is low power, it can run from solar or wind-up.

Cambridge Consultants say the design will be ready in 2020, available for any radio manufacturer to license and incorporate into their own products.

Ruxandra Obreja

DRM Chairman, Ruxandra Obreja said she welcomes the announcement.

“The unique and inspiring design will finally lead to the development of a low-power, low-cost, small-screen, large-coverage receiver. This means we’ll be able to bridge the digital divide for millions of people who don’t have easy access to broadband.”

 

The post Cambridge Consultants Unveil Prototype for Low-Cost DRM Receiver appeared first on Radio World.

During the latest national test of the Emergency Alert System, more than 84% of radio broadcasters successfully received the National Periodic Test alert, and then 82.5% of those retransmitted the code, averaging slightly better than all of the EAS participants combined.

That’s according to initial results of the 2019 Nationwide Test of Emergency Alert System released Dec. 9. This public notice includes “aggregated, anonymized data” derived from the Form Three filings submitted by EAS participants. 

This annual test is intended to assess whether the EAS would perform as designed, an increasingly important question as some debate whether the current system is the best way to keep citizens informed in the smartphone age.

[Broadcasters Need to Keep Eye on Latest EAS Updates]

A total of 19,607 EAS participants spanning radio and television broadcasters, cable systems, Internet Protocol Television providers, wireline video systems and others reported they received the alert, and 15,986 then retransmitted it. Radio broadcasters make up the majority of EAS participants at 13,940, followed by the 2,717 television broadcasters and the 2,626 cable system providers. 

Interesting, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau noted that nearly half of those who reported receiving the alert said that they were monitoring three or more over-the-air sources at the time. Almost 70% of participants who filed Form Three indicated that there were “no complications” in receiving the test, but about 12% said there were issues with the test’s audio quality. Also, nearly 75% indicated there were no complications during the retransmission, although a small minority said they encountered “other” difficulties.

Read the public notice (DA 19-1244) online here.

The post FCC Shares EAS Test Results appeared first on Radio World.

As 2020 approaches, community stations face many vexing yet familiar challenges. Most want to grow their volunteer base as well their audiences/donors, across generations as well as across socio-economic groups, at a time when the role and relevance of radio itself is being challenged or rethought.

Nina Simon

Nina Simon, author of “The Art of Relevance,” says managers might ask themselves, “How do I get young people to volunteer or listen to my station?” She feels this is the wrong question because it takes the onus off the station. 

Instead, she challenges organizations to focus on ways to make a station more welcoming to a plethora of audiences. 

The nonprofit that she founded is OF/BY/FOR ALL. It articulates this vision by stating, “Putting up a ‘Welcome’ sign is not enough. To involve people in meaningful, sustainable ways, you can’t just make programs FOR them. You have to involve them in their creation. And that means becoming OF and BY them too.”

Simon, speaking at the Community Media Conference of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters earlier this year, said she has learned that while most people believe their organizations are welcoming to all, they will also say that their current audience doesn’t reflect the diversity of their community. 

This is a disconnect with which many community stations grapple.

WHAT IS “INCLUSION”?

NFCB CEO Sally Kane has a deep understanding of the community radio landscape and agrees that there’s work to be done. 

“Lots of community radio folks say they are ‘inclusive,’ but in fact [their stations] are insider clubs that aren’t seeing or understanding the fullness of their communities. And I think that is perilous,” she said.

“For example, lots of rural stations are actually embedded in a dominant culture that is highly conservative, and [yet] they are more progressive. It’s important for the stations to at least acknowledge that and not pretend that they represent the community as a whole.”

Although it can be challenging for stations to connect with everyone, “community” is obviously the focus of community radio, for both its workforce of volunteers and for its audience of listeners and donors. 

“Community radio is, by design, intended to be of, by and for the people,” Simon said. “Especially today, when many community radio stations have been politicized or marginalized into perceived niches, I believe it’s critical and meaningful to recommit to involving everyone.”

[Facebook Needs Community Radio]

Kane believes these conversations about engaging with audiences are imperative in the current hyper-connected media landscape. 

 “The digital space is highly interactive, so a one-way pipeline of delivering content is no longer adequate, and stations need to integrate that into the way they approach communication and content and organizational culture.” 

Young people are identified time and again as a vital component of radio’s future; yet many a community radio station has an aging crew of volunteers and minimal involvement by new, young team members. 

Simon suggests that stations get specific: “Identify a specific community of young people who you want to involve, whether that be high school band nerds or young professionals starting their first full-time job and looking for creative outlets. Then talk with them about what they are looking for from a volunteer or engagement experience. Base your offerings on their goals and interests, not yours.”  

CALLS FROM HOME

Ways that community stations are seeking to engage and evolve are reflected by others who participated in that NFCB conference.

WMMT airs “Calls From Home,” promoted here on its website. The station in rural Kentucky works with listeners incarcerated in at least six nearby prisons.

WMMT General Manager Elizabeth Sanders says the rural Whitesburg, Ky., station works with its listeners who are incarcerated in at least six nearby prisons. WMMT has for many years communicated with prisoners and their families through its “Calls From Home” and “Restorative Radio” programs and more recently through a Prison Justice Assembly. 

Sanders shares letters that the station has received from prisoners. She said WMMT is trying to represent those who are “the most marginalized” and also wants to bring a “multitude of voices” to the airwaves.

Collaborating with organizations that are enmeshed in specific communities is another way that stations are touching new audiences. 

Kerry Semrad, general manager of KZUM in Lincoln, Neb., says the station has an innovative Podcast Partner Program that offers podcast training in order to broaden its public affairs programming. Through partnerships, the station was able to work with some of Lincoln’s refugee communities and learned more about how KZUM could address their needs. 

As a result, content is being developed in listeners’ native languages. Semrad says the “only way to remain relevant is to learn from each other constantly.”

[Community Broadcaster: Acting on Equity]

Similarly, WERU Community Radio in Maine has been increasing the number and depth of partnerships with community organizations in part to help make the station relevant to a broader audience, especially younger listeners. 

Development Director Heather Andrews says that through conversations and surveys, the station learned about specific programming needs. As a result, the station is looking more closely at local programming and on-demand and mobile access for listeners. Andrews said that it was critical to “break down barriers” and “change things up” in order to attract new audiences.

As at KZUM, podcasting is an entry point for new participants and listeners at many community radio stations. Station Manager Ursula Ruedenberg of KHOI in Ames, Iowa, said its entry into podcasting was unexpected. In response to the lack of audio production training at the nearby Iowa State University, KHOI created an audio lab in order to work with the school newspaper. Ruedenberg said the program has expanded and now provides training as the required audio production class in the school’s journalism program. 

In a moment in history when so many people are racing to get involved with podcasting, KHOI realized that it could provide a needed service while simultaneously engaging with new audiences to spread the word about KHOI. This type of collaboration also has helped to bridge the traditional “town and gown” divide in Ames, by bringing the student and non-student communities together in order to create audio.

The author is co-founder of Radio Survivor and co-chairs the College, Community & Educational Radio Caucus on the Library of Congress’ Radio Preservation Task Force. 

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FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks spoke in November at the Media Institute “Free Speech America” Gala. He addressed issues involving freedom of speech as well as diversity in broadcast ownership and hiring. His text:

THE FIRST AMENDMENT 

The need has always been clear: for free men and women to commit to the ideals of liberty and self-determination, they must be well-informed. A free press is the sentinel of our democracy. On this score, perhaps the greatest observer, and the greatest account, is Alexis de Tocqueville in “Democracy in America.” He writes: “The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people.”

In our current moment, perhaps more than ever, the need for a robust, independent free press has never been more critical. 

Today, there is an overload of information. It can be difficult to discern what is true, what is not; what are facts, and what are not; what is worthy to be called news, and what is not. And just as the promise of the First Amendment supported the free exchange of ideas in the age of typewriters and telegraphs, it continues to do so in today’s era of broadband and network broadcasting. Social media, deep fakes and the barrage of information that comes to each of us through the internet are potent new influences upon our democracy that admonish us to develop new responsive interpretive muscles.

But part of this hearkens back to the era of our nation’s founding. In the 1830s, Tocqueville wrote that “[t]he number of periodical and occasional publications in the United States actually surpasses belief.” The American people have a deeply ingrained urge to seek out and wade through what the Supreme Court has called a “multiplicity of information.” 

That’s a good thing because it is essential to our democracy that the American people go through the process of hearing from a wide range of sources, ideologies and viewpoints. The fabric of our shared culture has long understood how to make decisions in the midst of this fog. Democracy is inherently curious and competitive, which is why we often speak of our culture as the product of a marketplace of ideas.

Like all markets, the one of ideas rises and falls upon the quality and depth of information. As they say, “Garbage in, garbage out.” What we need, then, is a press that pursues unvarnished facts and, above all else, truth.

MEDIA DIVERSITY

The rights enshrined in the First Amendment, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press, guide the Federal Communications Commission’s public interest standard, which must inform everything that we do. But the fact that those celebrated words were written into the Bill of Rights does not, in and of itself, guarantee that it will work as intended. The First Amendment is not self-executing. Preserving its guarantees requires the vigilance of regulators, the media, and the public alike. 

Ida B. Wells once said: “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.” For its part, the FCC has an incredibly important role to play in supporting the First Amendment and preserving the freedoms it affirms. 

Namely, the FCC, by statute, is tasked with facilitating greater diversity in our national discourse. As the Supreme Court has stated, when considering the First Amendment, “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.”

Those in the media are both the beneficiaries and the guarantors of our First Amendment rights. They have the power to inform, to educate and to impact the way we view ourselves and the world. Where we strengthen our media, we strengthen our national conversation and reaffirm our freedom of speech at the same time.

The FCC, which governs our communications networks, has a critical role to play in securing and protecting public access to information. One of the many roles the law assigns to the commission is licensing broadcasters to use our public airwaves. In doing so, our controlling statute demands that we distribute these licenses in a way that prevents too many from winding up in the same hands and promotes ownership by women and people of color. 

[Starks Criticizes FCC Record on Media Diversity]

This is important. The capacity of broadcast media to empower and inform is indisputable, and it is critical that those exercising this power represent all of us, not a mere privileged or anointed few. Eighty-six percent of Americans get their local news from local TV stations, while only 23% get their local news from sources that are exclusively online. And numerous studies suggest that most of the news consumed online is originated by traditional sources, like broadcasters or newspapers.

Of particular concern to me, then, is the persistent lack of diversity in broadcast media ownership, and among its rank and file. 

America’s broadcasters should look like America. Ownership sets the tone for a media outlet, and employees manage its day-to-day operations and provide its public face. Given the crucial role our media plays in informing the public, it is critical that it reflect the nation at large, both behind and in front of the camera, and that our local media also be reflective of the local communities it is bound to serve. These institutions should mirror the richness of our population and give expression to its diverse voices.

The need for a greater focus on diversity and inclusion has never been more apparent, and the commission has, largely and over many decades, failed in meeting its statutory goals and obligations in this regard. 

This isn’t conjecture or political posturing. It isn’t even an opinion. It is a fact borne out by our data. 

The FCC’s numbers on broadcast ownership are collected every two years. The latest dataset was released in 2017. According to our most recent data, there are more than 1,300 full-power television stations licensed across the country, with only 12 owned by African Americans. If you were rounding, that would be closer to zero percent than 1% — and this has been so for a long, long time.

OPPORTUNITY

However, now we may finally have a chance to get this right. 

The FCC has been given a golden opportunity to succeed where it has previously fallen flat. As the Third Circuit Court of Appeals observed in its most recent media ownership decision, Prometheus v. FCC, the commission can and must do better in addressing the impact of its regulatory efforts on the ability of women and people of color to own stations. No longer can it rely on bad data and analysis while ignoring its obligations. The court sent back the FCC’s latest deregulatory efforts and demanded that we get the data and perform the analysis necessary to ensure that we are fully meeting our statutory requirements. [In November, the FCC, led by Chairman Ajit Pai, filed an appeal of the decision vacating the FCC’s media ownership rules. — Ed.]

Beyond ownership, the commission must redouble its Equal Employment Opportunity efforts to ensure that broadcasters are seeking diverse employees. For 15 years, the commission has had an open rulemaking proposing to continue a decades old data collection on the diversity of the broadcast workforce. And for 15 years, while we’ve been stuck in neutral, we’ve elicited zero visibility on whether station management and news teams reflect our communities. We cannot fully engage on this issue when our ability to understand the problem is compromised.

On both counts, when it comes to ownership and employment, there are those that would argue that collecting data or adopting meaningful policies to promote diversity would be unconstitutional. I couldn’t disagree more. 

First, collecting and analyzing data is a core function of an expert agency, and having a better understanding of the industries that we regulate is also just common sense. 

Second, when it comes to designing programs that would help improve our stagnant and declining ownership numbers, we can target our efforts based on race, ethnicity and gender, so long as we are careful and provide a well-supported reason for doing so. The Third Circuit Court has instructed us to do so. Given the historic problems we’ve had with broadcast diversity, new research like disparity studies identifying past discrimination in licensing, could be critical to both addressing the concerns of the Third Circuit and finally making good policy in this space.

So, we must get this right. We must do better in fulfilling our statutory obligation to promote diversity in broadcasting. And we must support the inclusion of marginalized voices in the national conversation. Only then can we claim to have upheld our responsibilities under our statute and secured the guarantees of First Amendment in the field of broadcasting.

Geoffrey Starks, a Democrat, was nominated by President Trump to the FCC seat formerly held by Mignon Clyburn. He was sworn in in January 2019. 

The post America’s Broadcasters Should Look Like America appeared first on Radio World.

We are proud to announce the 16th recipient of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award. Also: Radio places a bet on gambling; best practices in RF safety; keeping mice out of a transmitter; and Paul Rotella sounds off about the latest attempt in Congress to pass a “performance tax.”

EXCELLENCE
He Sees the Promise in All-Digital AM

Our honoree Dave Kolesar of Hubbard Radio is an innovator and disruptor. Hear about his career and what he sees coming next for AM.

SAFETY
Staying Safe Around RF

James O’Neal shares lessons learned at a seminar tailored to assist transmitter/tower workers.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• NABA Urges North American Radio to Look Ahead
• Don’t Let Mice Kill Your Transmitter
• America’s Broadcasters Should Look Like America

The post Inside the Dec. 4 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

The author is chairman of Digital Radio Mondiale.

A picture is worth a thousand words and a digital radio coverage map might be worth a million dollars or more in business.

Ruxandra Obreja

We might stress in documents and presentations the undeniable benefits of digital radio: Better audio, extra data, more choice, emergency warning capability and less spectrum. For DRM specifically the list also includes, the capacity to offer improved audio and data for large or local coverage very often using the existing basic infrastructure.

This can be illustrated with audio and can be doubled by screen grabs showing data, like names, colorful pictures of singers and albums, stock exchange values, etc. This is often impressive but not as easily understood as a map.

CORRECT REPRESENTATION

To many of those interested, a big global map showing the progress of one or another digital audio broadcasting standard is unbeatable. It is also immediately understandable and appreciated, especially by regulators, cost-conscious receiver manufacturers, the car industry and even listeners.

Seeing your [digital radio] standard represented by deep (actual transmissions) or faint colors (trials and demos that might lead to rollout or nothing at all) over large swathes of Europe, India, China, the Middle East or Asia, certainly gives confidence and creates the image of unstoppable progress.

But are clever marketers just using these maps as a fictional tool to impress the right audience?

Firstly, several standards claim the same territory on their respective maps. Is China a DRM, a CDR or a DAB country? DRM in shortwave (pumped 80 hours a day) giving actual and huge domestic coverage is the latest digital radio project in China.

So, maybe, the previous DAB broadcasts are no longer of great significance? Is South Africa a DRM or a DAB+ territory? For the time being, neither, since the country has tried or rather is trying both standards but the Pretoria government has not announced a policy. And the decision might go both ways, which would be good for the country, the standards and the maps.

Photo Credit: Radu Obreja

Then, does a short workshop, a much-touted future trial, a feeble transmission on a low-power and unloved transmitter or a favorable meeting at a ministry turn a country into a colored spot on the global map? And how many transmitters and broadcasts and receivers qualify a country as a truly digital radio territory?

 

BLURRED LINES

The purists might say the only truly undeniable deep color patches on anyone’s map represent the following: DRM in India, DAB in Norway and the United Kingdom (though FM continues to function in the country), and HD Radio in the United States.

And there is also the question of actual coverage. We might say DRM is covering the whole of Western Europe in shortwave but this is mainly for a short time and for the BBC World Service and digital pioneers. We could also say that a DAB transmission in a capital city, sometimes of a small Central European country, does not represent coverage of a whole country.

Is HD Radio really taking hold of Mexico when just some border stations are using the standard? There is no right or wrong answer, just the realization that generalization can often lead to distortion. We might even have to agree with what a famous politician was glossing on the famous saying: “One picture is worth a thousand denials.”

Rather than using the map argument, proponents of the various digital broadcasting systems need to give a true picture of what is really happening, while admitting that true coverage without false extrapolations is important but so is engagement and extending listening time, especially for the younger generation, Generation Z and the Millennials.

Radio is doing well everywhere but the big brands like Disney+ and now Amazon HD Music are muscling in. Streaming is everywhere and soon we’ll see the unthinkable, a Podcast Radio station (announced recently for London) using the radio platform to attract young listeners to a format they know and have grown up with, the podcast, whose roots were in radio in the first place.

PROMOTE THE FACTS

It is against these developments that digital radio needs to hold its own and do much better. Internet is not a threat; it is just an accompaniment. In the U.K., according to Rajar, 23% more audio hours have been consumed in the last four years. But many broadcasters are looking at how audio is being consumed by the younger generation and a more realistic picture of how audio is being enjoyed is shaping their thinking and strategies.

Instead of playing with maps, which become often obsolete and inaccurate the moment they are included in the slide pack, digital radio proponents could show that digital radio can deliver all that’s needed to attract the younger listeners: Better audio and larger coverage (DRM), greener broadcasting, news, emergency warnings, pictures and even podcasts.

Maps are flat and inaccurate, often a blunt instrument used to persuade the industry that there is only one standard or one version of the digital radio world. Digital radio is many-layered and very relevant in all parts of the world, in all countries developed or developing. It is also still gatekeeper-free and protective of the listener’s identity.

So maybe a picture is worth a thousand words but be sure to use only those that illustrate the picture accurately. This way the picture will provide encouragement and good vibes for the future of radio.

The post Are Digital Radio Coverage Maps Useful? appeared first on Radio World.

The FCC’s Media Bureau is seeking comment on whether analog LPTV stations should be able to continue to program an analog radio service after the deadline to switch to digital.

While full power stations were required to go all digital in 2009, the FCC allowed LPTVs to continue to broadcast in analog until 12 months after the completion of the post-incentive auction repack, currently on track to meet its July 3, 2020 deadline, which means LPTVs would have to make the digital switch by July 3, 2021.

[Read: Is There an Afterlife for “Franken FMs”?]

Some analog LPTVs (operating on Channel 6) use their spectrum to program an ancillary audio service available on the FM dial (87.76 MHz) and want to continue to be able to continue to deliver that analog signal after the mandatory transition to digital.

The commission has sought comment on the issue before, but citing the approaching deadline and “recent developments,” said this month it wanted to refresh the record.

The FCC wants to know if its supplementary service rules mean that the ancillary analog service is OK even after the deadline, and whether, in that case, the FCC could limit the number of such services — say, applying only to existing services — whether such rights could be transferred, or whether, alternatively, an analog service is not consistent with the designation of digital as being for the provision of “advanced television services.”

Finally, if an analog audio service is consistent with that digital mandate, can the FCC subject it to the fee of 5% revenue currently levied on ancillary services.

The FCC is providing commenters 45 days to weigh in, with 30 days for initial comments and another 15 for replies.

 

The post FCC Seeks Input on Analog Radio as Digital TV Service appeared first on Radio World.

The FCC is starting to allocate the reimbursement money for FM stations affected by the TV repack, beginning with $17.2 million to be disbursed to 87 radio stations that met its qualifications.

The FM spectrum in the United States was not subject to the television spectrum repacking process; but as we have reported, some FMs with antennas on or near a tower supporting a repacked TV antenna may be affected if, for example, the FM antenna must be moved, temporarily or permanently.

[Read: FCC: The Time to Request Repack Reimbursements Starts Now]

Congress provided $2.75 billion for the Reimbursement Fund, with up to $50 million to reimburse FM radio stations. Now this initial allocation step enables the Media Bureau to start reimbursing FMs that submitted approved invoices.

The commission says it has received 93 submissions from FM stations, of which 87 met the requirements. The FCC said each will receive an email communication describing the results of its review, and that the approved stations may now begin submitting documentation of actual expenses incurred for approval to be drawn down against their allocations. Those stations will upload invoices or receipts and resubmit a reimbursement form using a Media Bureau’s online data system.

The FCC added that it is holding back a percentage of total estimated costs to ensure that eligible entities don’t face an undue financial burden but also with an eye on reducing the likelihood of the FCC having to “claw-back” payments later. “We will monitor closely the drawdown of the fund as well as revisions to initial cost estimates to determine if additional allocations are warranted. It is therefore important that eligible FM stations seeking reimbursement timely submit invoices after incurring costs.”

The FM stations seeking this funding muse certify that they meet the required eligibility criteria and provide documentation or other evidence to support their certification. They also must report estimates of the types and amounts of repack-related costs that they expect to incur, relying on a range of costs set out in an FCC Cost Catalog or on their own estimates or actual expenditures. The FCC then reviews the eligibility and estimate submissions and issues an initial allocation from that $50 million.

 

The post FCC Allocates $17.2 Million to FM Stations Hit by Repack appeared first on Radio World.

When a nearly 40-year-old Nebraska radio tower was felled by ice and high winds in late November, it was immediately clear that KQSK(FM) would require an interim solution to get back on the air, according to the Panhandle Post.

(The Panhandle Post is the online presence for Eagle Communications’ radio stations in the region.) 

General Manager Olivia Hasenauer told the Panhandle Post, Eagle Radio now has “a temporary antenna and transmitter for KQSK” in Chadron, Neb., but the broadcaster intends to rebuild the tower at its current site in 2020. 

Eagle Radio Chief Engineer Kevin Wagner said this has enabled “the majority population of Dawes County” to hear the country music-formatted station again.

Prior to the incident, the nearly 500-ft tower also provided leased space for National Weather Service’s NOAA weather, as well as other agencies and organizations. Until the permanent solution is constructed, the National Weather Service is attempting coverage with help from sister stations, but NWS’ Bill Mokry also told the Panhandle Post that residents should turn to other sources of weather information for now. 

The post Severe Weather Knocks Down Eagle Tower appeared first on Radio World.

It’s important for a licensee to notify the Federal Communications Commission of certain licensing changes. Otherwise it can turn into a costly mistake.

In this case, Carolina Radio Group applied for a construction permit for a translator in Raleigh, N.C. and specified WQDR(FM) as the translator’s primary station. After the Media Bureau granted the permit application and then the license application, a Petition for Reconsideration was filed by Triangle Access Broadcasting who said that not only was there was no technical need for the translator but that the translator was not being operated as authorized. Specifically, Triangle’s said that the CRG translator was broadcasting an unauthorized station.

[Read: FCC to Two AM Licensees: Pay Fees or Nixed Licenses Could Be Next]

In response, CRG said that no “technical need” showing was required and that the translator was currently rebroadcasting the signal of WQDR. However, CRG did not respond to Triangle’s claim that the translator had previously rebroadcast the signal of a different station.

Upon investigation, the Media Bureau found that when the translator commenced operations, it was rebroadcasting WPLW(AM) rather than WQDR. For about a month, CRG’s translator had been broadcasting a station other than its approved station, which is a violation of failure-to-file rules and the unauthorized broadcasting rule book.

The Media Bureau also found that CRG did not properly notify the commission of this change.

As a result, the bureau proposed a forfeiture for CRG of $2,000. Although the commission had the authority to establish a base forfeiture of up to $7,000 (for two violations: failure to file and unauthorized broadcasting) the Media Bureau said a reduced forfeiture was appropriate in this case. “We reach this conclusion based on the fact that CRG’s violations were not prolonged and the fact that CRG has no history of prior offenses,” the bureau said in its ruling.

The Media Bureau also moved to dismiss Triangle’s request that it reconsider the  licensing of CRG’s translator. Under FCC rules, a permittee “is entitled to a high degree of protection” and presumption that public interest is being served during the construction permit process — unless circumstances arise that would make operation of the station against the public interest. That’s not the case here, the bureau said.

As a result, the Media Bureau proposed a $2,000 forfeiture for CRG. The licensee has 30 days to pay the full amount or file a written statement explaining why it deserves reduction or cancellation of the forfeiture.

 

The post Failing to Notify FCC of Primary Station Change Proves Costly appeared first on Radio World.

BURGAS, Bulgaria — DB4005 is the latest monitoring product from DEVA Broadcast.

The company explains that the unit makes use of sophisticated DSP algorithms and provides SDR FM tuner-based signal processing. “Its powerful digital filters are a guarantee of precision and enable the FM signal to be accurately and repeatedly analyzed with each device,” the company adds.

A leading feature of the DB4005 is the MPX input, which allows users to monitor external composite signals, regardless of whether they are from a composite STL receiver/stereo FM encoder, or from an off-air source. In addition, the loudness meter allows for measurements to be shown as defined by ITU BS.1770-4 and EBU R128 recommendations — the DB4005 supports both standards.

DB4005 is easy to use and packs a host of features. These include TCP/IP connectivity, audio streaming, and automatic alerts for operation outside of predefined ITU-R ranges, as well as GSM connectivity.

For information, contact DEVA Broadcast in Bulgaria at +359-56-820027 or visit www.devabroadcast.com.

The post DEVA Broadcast DB4005 Promises Precision 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.

The last week or so, it seems like almost everyone in the United States has been transfixed on the impeachment hearings being held in Washington. Riveting testimonies, piercing questions and literally around-the-clock analysis of every word and nuance has made for penetrating coverage. If you were among the noncommercial media watchers, all of this focus may have prompted anxiety. Not for what is happening in Congress at the moment, but what is to come around the country in 2020.

This election year is shaping up to be a big one. With all seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate, and the White House being contested, interest is going to be tremendous. Plus, love him or hate him, Donald Trump is going to inspire fiery passions for and against the incumbent president. Volunteer block walkers, phone callers and campaign workers will dot communities as they do every election, and indubitably shall in 2020, in presumably growing numbers.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Be Thankful for Community Radio]

And then there is the matter of money.

Even with the elections a year away, donations have been pouring in for all the Democratic and Republican contenders. By next spring, the massive field will whittle down and fundraising will be in full court press for advertising, staffing and winning.

Guess what is also in the spring? Pledge drives.

Is your station ready to go one-on-one with the election cycle?

For noncommercial stations, competing with others for financial support is nothing new. However, when other organizations have the greatest lightning-rod issues and personalities in recent memory that motivate people to give, stations must make a fresh pitch.

Right now, many community radio and noncommercial media institutions are doing year-end fundraising. If you’re a listener, you should certainly support your local radio. If you work with a station, the close of 2019 is a good time to map out your 2020 strategy.

Attention will be high for every election. Residents will be seeking context for the races and issues that they care most about. Understanding how your station can sustainably deliver election coverage is crucial to your audience. Your station’s ability to be relevant to your community also makes a strong case for giving in the future.

With a high-stakes election almost here, why not take an audit of your service? Making an appraisal of your news, talk and community coverage; what each of your programming resources can practically do; and possible collaborations and partnerships with your city and local nonprofits to get out the vote and elections education are all a good place a start. What questions do your listeners feel are most in need of answers? How are they even getting their information, and how can you reach them about the elections?

These questions are not intellectual exercises at all. They are asked with a purpose: to understand how community radio can have the greatest connection to the audience, and to create the best engagement possible.

Stations provide valuable coverage to their communities. The 2020 election promises to draw many ears and dollars. Whether your station stays in the hearts and minds of your listeners rests on your ability to respond.

The post Community Broadcaster: Will 2020 Elections Doom Radio Fundraising? appeared first on Radio World.

Soundware Norway ran a live radio broadcast using the touchscreen monitor inside a Tesla 3 electric car. In the Tesla parked outside the firm’s Oslo headquarters, Soundware Sales Manager Ketil Morstøl managed a mock live broadcast using the Tesla 3’s web browser, which accessed the web via the car’s built-in LTE wireless modem.

The “broadCARst” project aimed to demonstrate that physical radio stations are no longer necessary. Read about this and more in the December issue of Radio World International.

GUEST COMMENTARY 

What Exactly Happened to Ampegon?

The company provides an update on recent changes.

INNOVATION

Project MARCONI Brings Stations Closer to Listeners

EU-backed program aims to automate and increase listener engagement.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

NXP and DRM Hold First India Infotainment Forum

Podcasts, On-Demand Challenge Traditional Radio

Buyer’s Guide: Streaming Radio, Podcasting, Online Content Delivery 

The post Inside the December issue of Radio World International appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images/Caiaimage/Rana Dias

The FCC tentatively plans to allow AM stations in the United States to convert their transmissions to all-digital on a voluntary basis, using the MA3 mode of HD Radio. The five commissioners in November unanimously approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes technical standards for all-digital AMs, including adoption of the NRSC-5-D Standard, and asks for comment on the impact of all-digital operations on analog stations and listeners. 

The proceeding was prompted by a petition in March from Bryan Broadcasting Corp., as RW has reported.

MANY QUESTIONS

Below are highlights of the 33-page NPRM. At press time the final text had not been published, but details had been published before the FCC vote and were not expected to change in substance:

The NPRM opens with background about the state of AM and its various challenges; the benefits of digital transmission; and the history of in-band on-channel technology including the hybrid (MA1) service mode. 

It then described technical testing by NAB Labs (now Pilot), noting that field testing found that all-digital transmission resulted in a clearer, more robust signal, with greater daytime coverage than a hybrid signal, but that lab testing raised concerns about possible co-channel interference and the ability of all-digital signals using standard transmission equipment to stay within the HD Radio emissions mask.

The NPRM then detailed the experience of Hubbard Radio’s WWFD(AM) in Frederick, Md., which operates MA3 full-time under an experimental license. It noted that Hubbard experienced significant improvement in audio quality and signal robustness in the all-digital mode, but that its facilities first had to undergo considerable upgrades, and that the station continues to experience transmission issues that limit all-digital capabilities, such as the ability to transmit song and artist visual metadata.

The FCC then set out a list of areas it wants to hear comments about. 

Regarding the predicted benefits of all-digital AM broadcasting, it asks dozens of questions about improved audio quality, auxiliary data, improved useable signal coverage, increased programming choices (such as music) and energy and spectrum efficiency. 

It also asked for comment on potential interference, including adjacent-channel, co-channel, digital-to-digital and nighttime interference. 

[Dave Kolesar recognized for converting WWFD(AM) to full-time, all-digital transmission]

It set out proposed operating standards, including power limits, emissions mask requirements, a new carrier frequency tolerance standard, a notification requirement for stations converting to all-digital and EAS requirements, and asked for comments on all of that.

It further wants to know about the costs of conversion for AM licensees, the readiness of the public to transition to all-digital reception and the rule changes needed to implement the proposal.

SOME SPECIFICS

Specifically about the potential benefits, the FCC tentatively concluded that all-digital operation would improve the audio quality of AM broadcasts. “Compared to hybrid mode, all of the modulated transmitter power is dedicated to the digital carriers, in theory resulting in a significantly more robust reception even in the presence of a stronger analog co-channel signal.” 

But it listed some qualifications — for instance, that NAB Labs had reported some interference from bridges and power lines that caused the all-digital signal to drop out, and one instance of apparent nighttime interference to all-digital reception from first-adjacent stations operating in hybrid mode. 

So it asked for input on numerous questions around signal quality, such as whether all-digital operation would provide listenable signals at relatively low signal strength levels or at the outer listenable fringes of the all-digital signal coverage, particularly where a co-channel signal is encountered. It asked about the reception capability of digital receivers over analog, as well as the impact of power lines and other potential noise sources.

Regarding the work by NAB Labs work and the reports from WWFD, the FCC said that this research “confirms the overall value and feasibility of all-digital broadcasting” but noted that those results have not been evaluated by the National Radio Systems Committee. And it asked whether certain areas need more research, including RF mask compliance, the effects of noise on all-digital coverage area and potential co-channel and adjacent-channel interference.

[Read our ebook: Digital Radio Developments]

The NPRM then digs into other areas over 33 pages. Here’s just a sampling:

Auxiliary data — Backers say all-digital will let AMs provide services like stereo audio, song and artist ID, and emergency notifications with text and images. The FCC asked, among other things, whether it should allow flexibility regarding the use of additional channel capacity as it does with hybrid stations, and specifically whether there’s potential in the AM service for future multicast channels.

Signal coverage — Do people agree with the FCC that based on available evidence, an all-digital signal offers the potential of greater useable signal coverage than analog or hybrid? The commission also asked whether it should monitor that a station’s digital coverage corresponds to its previous analog coverage, and if not, what it should do.

Energy efficiency — Will all-digital operation offer greater energy efficiency and utility cost savings for AM broadcasters? 

Spectrum efficiency — Will all-digital operation help realize the full potential of digital technology for spectrum efficiency? What are the implications of using current 20 kHz AM channel assignments in all-digital mode?

Interference — The NPRM’s many questions around interference include whether the existing framework for interference protection is sufficient, or whether there are concerns unique to all-digital that should be accounted for in rules governing groundwave and skywave protection of AM stations. 

Will all-digital cause interference to co- and adjacent-channel analog stations? Shouldn’t all-digital present fewer interference concerns than hybrid mode? 

Is the FCC right in thinking that co-channel interference is more of a concern than adjacent-channel? What does the industry think of existing research about the potential impact of all-digital signals on co-channel analog stations, in and outside their protected contours?

[Letter: Digital Radio vs. 5G]

The FCC noted that when it first authorized nighttime operation for AM stations, it had stated that “the benefits of full-time IBOC operation by AM stations outweigh the slightly increased risk of interference …” The FCC asked whether that earlier reasoning applies to the potential for co-channel interference as a result of all-digital operation.

How might the likelihood of co-channel interference from all-digital stations be minimized; and how should the FCC resolve impermissible interference if it occurs?

What about digital-to-digital interference? Is it true that if all AM stations were digital, co-channel interference would be less, thus potentially increasing groundwave coverage for a given power level and carrier frequency? If the all-digital mode increases the power and bandwidth occupancy of the digital carriers, how might this affect adjacent-channel digital transmissions? What would be the impact of all-digital stations on hybrid ones? 

Nighttime operations — Should the FCC allow AM all-digital at night, given that propagation characteristics vary markedly between daytime and nighttime? How would all-digital affect potential interference caused by skywave propagation? What additional study and testing might be needed?

Receivers and consumers — Are consumers ready? Is 55 million HD Radio-equipped cars a sufficient number? Are non-car receivers readily available and affordable? How many HD Radio receivers sold in the past are still in operation? 

[Symposium Examines Changing Radio Landscape]

The FCC also wants to know about the impact of all-digital on listeners with analog-only receivers. “What is the estimated size of this audience, and their estimated frequency of use of such receivers? In a market with very few stations, a single station’s conversion to all-digital could reduce options for analog-only listeners.” Should the FCC require a station converting to all-digital to show that it is not the only full-service aural service within its community of license county? Would preserving the long-term economic viability of an AM station and the public benefit of improved service to some listeners justify the present-day loss of service to other listeners? Should the FCC require a converting station to notify its listeners, and in what way?

The NPRM also includes discussion about operating rules; emissions mask compliance (with the FCC noting that “the NRSC has not evaluated it and NAB Labs testing indicated that all-digital stations might have difficulty complying with it”); how signal power should be measured; what carrier frequency tolerance standard to adopt; the impact on EAS and TIS/HAR operations; the likely costs to station of converting; and other factors that might encourage more widespread adoption of all-digital broadcasting within the AM service.

The final NPRM text had not been published at press time, and comment deadlines were not yet set. The first deadline would be in or after late January. Search for “All-Digital AM Broadcasting Revitalization of the AM Radio Service” in MB Dockets No. 19-311 and 13-249.

The post FCC Takes Your Questions on AM All-Digital appeared first on Radio World.