Radio World

Mark and Paula Persons at their ham station.

Starting in the 1920s and through the ’60s, almost every broadcast engineer was a licensed amateur radio operator. That has changed a bit, but the importance of being a ham has not.

Both environments involve getting an RF signal from Point A to Point B. But it is interesting to note that radio broadcast and amateur radio are similar and yet so different.

For those who don’t know much about ham radio, I’ll tell you that communicating locally or internationally, via licensed amateur radio, can be a fascinating and challenging hobby. There are about 700,000 hams in the U.S. and an equal number worldwide.

Physics
Broadcast and amateur radio operate under the same laws of science. Transmitters, transmission lines, antennas and receivers make up an RF path to convey a message.

Broadcast engineers know that signal propagation on AM and FM bands is dramatically different. It is because our FM band is roughly 100 times the frequency and 1/100th the RF wavelength of that on the AM band. Engineers also know that 950 MHz STL signals are line-of-sight and roughly a 10-times jump in frequency from FM broadcast frequencies. Each band has its own challenges in getting a useable signal through.

[Read: Mark Persons: “I Never Had a Plan B”]

Amateur radio operators have about 30 bands of frequencies, with opportunities to explore from below the AM broadcast band up through GHz and to light. Hams are not limited to amplitude or frequency modulation, but often use single sideband and many modes of digital. A few communicate via teletype and/or transmit television images to friends.

Yes, some hams still use Morse Code to send and receive messages in their hobby. Code proficiency is no longer required for getting an amateur radio license, but it is a fun personal challenge to many.

Similarities
What I find valuable is applying what I know about amateur radio in my work as a broadcast engineer.
And, of course, it works both ways. Forward power, reflected power, transmission line loss, antenna gain, transmitter power amplifier efficiency and path loss are all dictated by the same rules. The mysteries and science of RF propagation to a new broadcast engineer are facts of life for radio amateurs.

Hams deal with the wave propagation challenge every day. Communicating across the world via radio waves may be lost on the internet/millennial generation, but it can be a real challenge for those who want more out of life.

International contacts are common during peaks in the 11-year solar cycle. With 400 watts I was able to make contact with a station in Antarctica from home using a good antenna. I made contacts to Europe, Japan, Russia and even Australia with just 100 watts from my car, mostly on 20 meters (about 14 MHz). Talk about distracted driving! Australia is halfway around the world from Minnesota. The RF path between us was only open for a half hour. It is always a thrill to be on the right frequency at the right time.

As with broadcast, profanity is not allowed on amateur radio. Don’t confuse amateur radio with Citizens Band. CB is a sad story about people transmitting on the 27 MHz band using bad language and unacceptable social conduct. Hams can lose their licenses for that.

Differences
Broadcasters are licensed for specific frequencies at specific power levels.

Hams might run up to 1500 watts of RF peak power in most bands of frequencies. Good operating practice is to transmit with only the amount of power necessary to reach the other end. Some delight in the challenge of contacting amateur stations worldwide with a watt or less of power.

Broadcasters modulate AM, FM and/or digital as per their license. FCC rules mandate tightly controlled occupied bandwidths. Hams select one of many modulation types, although the bands are divided into segments for each modulation type, just to keep order.

Broadcast transmitters are required to maintain a tight frequency tolerance. Hams can wander up and down authorized frequency bands looking for a clear spot to call CQ (calling anyone listening who might want to talk.) They can and do easily converse with hams in foreign countries. That is far more fun and challenging than just listening.

Hams don’t “broadcast” to a city or the world. They don’t play music or run program as you will find on the AM and FM broadcast bands. Instead, amateurs communicate with other hams one on one by voice, digital or Morse Code.

Sometimes hams participate in “nets” where groups meet on frequency to share ideas. The net control operator turns the frequency over to one at a time for the rest of the group to hear.

In broadcasting, almost anyone can buy a station, a construction permit or a license. It just takes money. Amateur radio is different. For a fee of about $35, a person can write an exam to prove his or her knowledge of electronics and FCC rules. With a passing grade, the FCC will issue a license to that person, good for 10 years with a cost of only $35 to renew. Try that in broadcasting!

Amateur radio currently has three levels of licensing: Technician, General and Extra. Climbing that ladder with examinations gets hams more privileges and operating frequencies. Many thousands have done it and so can you, especially now that proficiency with Morse Code is no longer required.

Call Signs
Amateur radio operators and broadcasters are issued call signs by the FCC.

Each call is unique and recognized worldwide. There is only one WGN in Chicago, only one W0HA for my wife Paula and only one W0MH for me. The (0) is zero, not O.

Call signs in other parts of our country use numbers 1 through 9 separating the prefix from the suffix. They start with a G in England, XE in Mexico — the list goes to more than 300 countries.

Because there are so many hams nowadays, new call signs in the United States look something like KF2XYZ. To be clear, broadcast stations have call signs, but broadcast owners do not. An amateur call sign is assigned to an individual person.

Hams use their call signs to identify every 10 minutes and at the end of a conversation. Broadcast stations, as you know, are required to ID once an hour. A broadcast ID has a call sign and city. Hams only use their call sign. They might be mobile, on the water or even airborne.

SBE
The Society of Broadcast Engineers has a “Chapter of the Air” meeting on amateur radio the second Sunday of each month on 14.205 MHz single sideband. Net control is Hal Hostetler, WA7BGX in Tucson, Ariz. It starts at 2400 GMT. That is 6 p.m. Central Time in Minnesota during the winter and 7 p.m. in the summer. Hams check in and tell what has been happening in their lives, such as attending an NAB convention or SBE meeting. This group has participants from coast to coast.

Morse Code
While walking into the engineering room of a station, I heard the Morse Code letter B (Dah-Dit-Dit-Dit.)

Some hams prefer communicating by Morse Code.

It didn’t take long to realize the sound was coming from a Best brand Ferrups uninterruptible power supply. The “B” was telling me that its battery needed replacing. The letter H is a high temperature alarm. Very clever of them. Knowing Morse Code also comes in handy on 450 MHz transmitter/studio links with Morse identifiers. For those who are Morse challenged, a phone call to a local ham could reveal the answer when the sound that is played over a phone.

Morse Code is another way of speaking English. It is not that difficult to learn. If I can copy code with a severe hearing loss, you can too. (I was a U.S. Army sergeant in Vietnam 1968–69.) My wife Paula passed a 20-word-per-minute code exam to get her Extra Class amateur license.

As mentioned, code is not required nowadays. Many hams find it a preferred mode of operation because it cuts through the noise so well. Many hams refer to Morse Code as the original digital communication mode.

The Ham Hobby
Some radio amateurs like to design and build equipment. Many like to work on antennas. Most like to chat with friends on the radio. Some chase DX (long distance contacts) to stations in foreign countries. They proudly stick a pin in a world map at each far-off location.

Astronauts are licensed amateur radio operators. It is a real thrill to talk to a ham aboard the International Space Station. That can be done with just a few watts of power on VHF or UHF. The old adage is true: If you can see it, you can talk to it.

Conclusion
Broadcast engineers who are licensed amateur operators have a better handle on the world of electronics. Having a ham license is one more way of showing their peers that they know something about RF. It is another feather in their cap.

For more information on amateur radio, go to the ARRL, the National Association for Amateur Radio at www.arrl.org.

And learn more in this video at youtube.com: “W1AW ARRL Station Tour.”

Mark Persons, WØMH, CPBE, retired after 44 years but continues to mentor broadcast engineers.  For more articles and resources from the author visit http://mwpersons.com.

Comment on this or any article. Write to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post Alike, but Not Alike: Broadcast vs. Ham Radio appeared first on Radio World.

Tieline is onboard with Ravenna.

The codec manufacturer said it has joined the Ravenna community. It recently announced a firmware release that adds Ravenna support to the Gateway line of codecs.

 In the announcement, VP Sales APAC/EMEA Charlie Gawley said, “Ever since the days of POTS and ISDN, Tieline has always advocated for interoperability of equipment from different manufacturers. The world of IP is no different. It’s why our Gateway platform is AES67, ST 2110-30, NMOS and now Ravenna compliant, allowing devices using different AoIP protocols to connect seamlessly.”

Tieline said its Gateway and Gateway 4 codecs are capable of routing audio between equipment based on Ravenna, AES67 and ST 2110-30 as well as between devices using proprietary AoIP protocols like WheatNet-IP and others.

The Ravenna platform was developed by ALC NetworX.

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The pandemic threw a wrench into many a schedule in 2020: cancelled meetings, abandoned appointments, missed deadlines. And for the Federal Communications Commission, those missed deadlines have generated many a headline as more than a few broadcasters failed to file broadcast license renewal applications on time through the year.

The Broady Media Group, licensee of station WENO(AM) in Nashville, had its license renewal deadline smack in the midst of the COVID explosion. The station’s application needed to be filed before the first business day of the fourth full month before the license expired, which was April 1, 2020. Without providing an explanation for the delay, Broady Media filed the application on July 31, 2020, a day before its license was due to expire.

Another missed deadline in the pandemic epoch of 2020: a FM translator station license renewal application due on Dec. 1, 2020. The Media Bureau issued a forfeiture order for Soli Deo Gloria FM LLC, the licensee of K266AK in Aspen, Colo., for failing to file the renewal on time. The licensee did finally file an application on Jan. 14, 2021, but did not provide an explanation for the late timing.

[Read: Political File Slip Leads Two Texas Broadcasters Into Consent Agreement]

The procedures are clear when it comes to a missed license renewal application deadline, pandemic or no pandemic.

For Broady Media, the Media Bureau issued a notice of apparent liability, the first step in cases like these, and ordered that the broadcaster pay a forfeiture of $3,000 for failing to file a required form on time.

For Soli Deo Gloria, it received a forfeiture order, which is the second step in a process like this. The initial a notice of apparent liability was delivered on June 8, 2021, in which the commission proposed Soli Deo Gloria pay a $1,500 fine, the base forfeiture for a secondary service like an FM translator. To date, no one at Soli Deo Gloria has either paid the proposed forfeiture or filed a written response.

Broady Media has 30 days to respond to the notice and to ask for reduction or cancellation of the forfeiture. Soli Deo Gloria, however, is now being told by the Media Bureau that it must now pay the $1,500 forfeiture outright.

The post Woe the Missed Deadlines of 2020 appeared first on Radio World.

When Fox News Radio’s Eben Brown arrives on scene (wherever it may be) he’s ready to report.
Photo: Fox News Radio

Radio news is a combination of sound, speed and story. The best reports, be they live or recorded, take the listener to the scene where the news is made and tell a story, using the words of the reporter on scene, the sound of the news or the words of a newsmaker.

Network radio reporters, major-market reporters or small-market broadcasters have a tool kit they rely on to make those stories come alive for the listener.

Eben Brown’s voice is familiar to Fox News Radio listeners. Brown is a national correspondent based in Miami. One would expect him to be able to send a report from wherever his assignment takes him.

“I’m responsible for transporting and operating my own gear. Going live from anywhere is something I’ve often considered my big strength as a radio reporter. One of my recurring nightmares is being sent into the field and not being able to send line-quality audio back to the home base.

Eben Brown Photo: Fox News Radio

“Going live over telephone quality audio, to me, feels like a fail — even when it truly is the only option. With more people listening to our product via digital means or even with so many news/talk stations migrating to FM, the sound of a POTS line can be jarring. So, when I’m on my own in the field, I carry with me multiple options for getting high-quality audio, live, back to New York. But it’s not just my mic I want live. I want to be able to play my own recorded sound.”

[Check Out More From the Road Warrior]

Brown rolls with a Comrex Access NX, which allows for connections through Ethernet or multiple cellular paths, and with a second input, allows him to insert actuality with his voice. He also files a copy of his live reports in case the line back to the New York studios drops.

“Nothing is ever 100% foolproof, so filing a backup is always smart.”

He’ll use workarounds like Zoom or Skype or the smartphone if necessary, but those options won’t let him insert actuality. Recording that actuality has become easier, with iOS-based apps like TwistedWave for short recordings. Brown uses TwistedWave, but breaks out a digital audio recorder for longer news conferences.

“I’d worry too much that a smartphone battery could die if made to record 30 minutes of conference.” His choice for microphones: A Shure SM58 and Electro-Voice RE50.

Though smartphone microphones sound good, there’s another reason Brown likes the stick microphone: “Walking up to total strangers can be daunting for both parties. I find that having a stick mic with a flag — and a famous network logo — is a way of presenting my bona fides.”

“If I say I’m a network reporter, and I try to record them only by holding up a smartphone near their face, they tend to doubt my sincerity or professionalism.”

Production in the field for Brown is handled by a MacBook pro running Adobe Audition.

“Being Apple-dependent means I can record something on my iPhone and airdrop the file to my MacBook Pro. I can lay my own tracks into the MacBook via an IK Multimedia iRig-connected mic. I can edit in Audition and can send finished products back to New York via several file transferring methods that are commercially available and not specific to the industry.”

[Read More Tech Tips Here]

He can also use the iPhone to do all of that, using an app called Ferrite, which is a multitrack editor that allows him to record and mix narration, natural sound and newsmaker actuality, and send the finished product back to New York.

John Sylvester, vice president of Fox News Radio, says “FNR reporters like Brown have been given remote access to Adobe Audition, Amazon Workspace, Slack, Zoom, iNews for writing and editorial newsgathering, and VPN access to our ENCO automated audio systems. In addition, we have provided various other tools and software applications.”

“Whatever Is Most Practical”
Michelle Wright reports for Atlanta’s WSB Radio, heard on 95.5 FM and 750 AM.

“In my bag, I’ve got a laptop equipped with Adobe Audition for editing, a microphone, Zoom recorder, headset and a box that connect to the phone to do live remotes, a wireless hotspot and various charging cables for all the above-mentioned electronics. And of course, my phone.

“I also still have the old-school pen and reporter’s notebook to jot down notes as well.” Back in the newsroom at Peachtree Street, NewsBoss software and email are used to process reports.

This simple field kit helps KKHJ Radio keep their audience in American Samoa informed. Photo: KKHJ

Six thousand five hundred miles away, Joey Cummings is the operations manager for KKHJ(FM) Radio in American Samoa.

“We have three full-time news people. Of course, in a small market, everyone is responsible for gathering news. As such, we’re all using whatever is most practical and comfortable in the field.

“If we’re trying to capture a speaker at a conference or meeting, we can’t always get a full-size microphone in place. In this case, we’ll use a small Sony or Olympus field recorder and sneak it onto the table or lectern,” he said.

“Otherwise, I like the wireless Samson HXD1 wireless mic. This connects to a small USB receiver. I typically connect this to my iPhone or iPad using the Apple USB to Lightning adapter. For recording and editing in the field, I am quite fond of the TwistedWave Editor app. Best $10 I ever spent on the app store. Dropbox gets files from A to B.”

Radio World is interested in sharing with readers how other stations and organizations have outfitted their news kits to assure redundancy, efficiency and versatility. Email us at radioworld@futurenet.com to tell us what tools you use to gather, edit and send news audio. And don’t forget to include a photo of yourself using your gear.

Paul Kaminski, CBT, has been a contributor to RW since 1997. He has reported for CBS News Radio, the Associated Press, BBC World Service, CBC Radio and American Forces Radio. Twitter: msrpk_com.

 

The post What’s in your Radio News Toolkit? appeared first on Radio World.

Content delivery company LinkUp Communications Corp. has acquired the majority of assets of Orbital Media Networks Inc.

“The acquisition includes the service agreements for a wide array of broadcast customers, including those who purchase space segment and other services from OMNi, and others who subscribe to the company’s XDS satellite and streaming platform,” LinkUp stated in the announcement.

“It does not include the Rocky Mountain News Network, nor OMNi’s two-way IP services.”

[Read: Workbench: Invasion of the Bees]

Terms were not announced.

OMNi has its roots in what was once called Clear Channel Satellite Services. It was created about seven years ago when iHeartMedia got out of the backbone transport capacity business and sold it to entrepreneur Sam Dibrell Jr.

Mark Johnson, president of LinkUp, was quoted: “Our knowledge and skills complement each other. While OMNi offers the best in innovation and technology with their content distribution facility, LinkUp is known for its quality service, tailored solutions and positive working relationships with the industry’s top manufacturers.”

LinkUp Chairman Karen Johnson said OMNi customers will gain more design and installation services while LinkUp customers will have access to a distribution platform that offers both satellite and streaming.

Target client markets include secular and faith-based broadcasters, universities and colleges, sports distribution and businesses.

Orbital Media Networks offered broadcast programming delivery via C-Band, Ku-band and terrestrial, satellite-based IP networking and internet services.

LinkUp is based in Panama City, Fla. OMNi is in Englewood, Colo. LinkUp said it plans to integrate its customer support with the Network Operations Center in Englewood in a process that will take three to six months.

 

The post LinkUp Acquires Most of Orbital Media’s Assets appeared first on Radio World.

A steady stream this week of third quarter earnings reports from major U.S. radio groups has culminated with a rebound report from the country’s largest radio group.

iHeartMedia’s climb back to pre-COVID revenue levels continued at an accelerated pace in the third quarter of this year. The company’s third quarter earnings call on Thursday afternoon was highlighted by consolidated revenue growing nearly 25% year over year to $928 million. The company says it is confident it will be back to 2019 Adjusted EBITDA levels by the end of this year.

The broadcaster’s multiplatform group, which includes its 850 radio stations, saw Q3 revenue climb 19% year over year. iHeartMedia Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman said during Thursday’s call “the strong recovery and growth potential of our radio business” added to the quarter’s revenue recovery.

[Read: Betting on Sports, iHeartMedia Partners With DraftKings]

Specifically, broadcast revenue grew $79 million or 19.5% YoY, while networks added $8.9 million or 7.5% up from Q3 2020.

“Our strong results this quarter are further evidence of the success of our company’s continuing transformation — data-led, digital and podcast focused, along with the unparalleled audience reach of our broadcast radio assets — supported by the largest sales force and the only unified ad tech stack in audio advertising,” Pittman said in a statement that accompanied its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

For comparison sake the radio broadcasters said the multiplatform group’s revenue for the quarter was down 17% compared to Q3 in 2019, Pittman said, continuing the quarterly sequential rebound since the onset of COVID.

Digital continues to boost iHeartMedia’s revenues YoY, according the latest financial report. The digital audio group reported a 77% jump in revenue compared to Q3 2020, which includes a significant increase in podcast revenue. The broadcaster’s podcast platform boasted a revenue increase of $41.3 million over the same period a year before, which is an increase of 183.7%.

In January 2021 the broadcaster began reporting financial statements based on three reportable segments; the digital audio group, the multiplatform group and the audio & media services group, which includes Katz Media Group and RCS. Revenue from that final group decreased nearly 12% compared to the same quarter in 2020 in large part due to lower political advertising revenue this year, according to the SEC filing.

The company’s continued modernization efforts resulted in capital expenditures climbing to $101.3 million through the first nine months of this year compared to $58 million in 2020 through the same period. The company says the increase is due to its real estate consolidation initiatives.

“We expect cap ex to go down next year. This quarter we spent about $50 million in cap ex and the major increase was due to the downsizing of our real estate and becoming more efficient in that area,” said Rich Bressler, iHeartMedia president, COO and CFO.

iHeartMedia earlier this week announced a multiyear strategic relationship with DraftKings, making the sportsbook the official odds supplier for all iHeartMedia’s broadcast, digital, podcast and social media platforms. The agreement allows DraftKings to co-create and distribute long-form content with iHeartMedia using the company’s personalities.

[Read: iHeart, NPR Have Their Prints All Over Podtrac Rankings]

“This partnership builds on iHeartMedia’s industry leading sports assets, which includes partnerships with the NFL and NBA. We expect sports and sports betting to be a significant growth engine for us going forward,” Pittman said on Thursday’s earning call.

Radio groups have been aligning with betting apps and sportsbooks creating a new ad category for radio broadcasters with quickly growing revenue figures, according to analysts who follow the broadcast industry. iHeartMedia already has several radio stations with the moniker “The Gambler,” which are dedicated to sports talk and sports gambling. Bressler said during the investment call its Draft Kings deal is not exclusive and the broadcaster is open to other partnerships in the sports betting space.

iHeartMedia last week announced a $60 million voluntary buyback of its preferred stock. Pittman at the time said the repurchasing of stock demonstrates the broadcaster’s commitment to strengthening its balance sheet. As of September 30, 2021, the company was carrying approximately $5.7 billion in total debt.

 

The post iHeartMedia Q3 Report Shows Continued Recovery appeared first on Radio World.

Although those days of storing boxes and boxes of paper public files on site at a station are gone, the rules requiring broadcast stations to maintain public files is a longstanding one — as it has been for more than 80 years — and is still in place.

So the Federal Communications Commission recent decision to hold two broadcasters to account for failing to keep their online public file up to date is a clear one. Pampa Broadcasters Inc. and Tackett-Boazman Broadcasting are both licensees of commercial radio stations who have decided to enter into individual consent decrees with the commission to resolve political file investigations. A full-power station’s political file is part of its public inspection file.

According to FCC rules, the political public file rule states that radio stations must provide information about public office candidates and advertisers who purchase broadcast time of a political nature. Stations must upload information about such requests to their online political files and those files must be made available for public inspection.

[Read: Consent Decree (Plus Good Behavior) Results in Reduced Forfeiture]

The reason that these files must be complete and up to date is that information in them directly affects the rights of opposing political candidates to request equal on-air opportunities laid out in the Communications Act. “[T]he disclosures indicated in the political file further the First Amendment’s goal of an informed electorate that is able to evaluate the validity of messages and hold accountable the interests that disseminate political advocacy,” the commission has said in the past.

Pampa Broadcasters Inc. filed license renewal applications for its three station but it was unable to prove that it was in compliance with the public file requirements for one of the stations, which includes KDRL(AM), KGRO(AM) and KOMX(FM) in Pampa, Texas.

The situation was similar for Tackett-Boazman Broadcasting. The bureau also suspended processing of the licensee’s applications because of Tackett-Boazman’s failure to certify compliance with its public file obligations for one of the stations, which includes KQBZ(FM) and KXYL(AM) of Brownwood, Texas, as well as KWYL(FM) of Coleman, Texas.

In both cases, the Media Bureau suspended processing of the broadcast licensees’ renewal applications and commenced an investigation into their public files. And in both cases, the bureau agreed to enter into a consent decree with the broadcasters, acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic “caused a dramatic reduction in advertising revenues which, in turn, placed the radio broadcasting industry … under significant, ongoing financial stress.”

Under terms of the consent decree, the bureau agreed to process the broadcasters’ pending radio license renewal applications if the broadcasters agreed to adhere to a compliance plan. That plan involves appointing a compliance officer to see that all terms of the decree as enforced including distributing a compliance manual to all employees, creating a compliance training program, submitting a compliance report and promising to report any instance of noncompliance.

 

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IBC says its convention in Amsterdam four weeks from now is a “go” and that attendees will not be required to wear masks once they’re inside.

“Following the update on COVID protocols from the Dutch government on Nov. 2, IBC is pleased to announce that its December event can go ahead in a safe and comfortable way,” it said in an announcement.

“As of Nov. 6, the public will be required to wear face masks in public areas where no COVID entry pass is used, including supermarkets, shops, libraries, theme parks and train stations. IBC Show will be exempt from these measures because it is organized within a perimeter where everyone must show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test before entering the premises.”

So IBC2021 attendees will not be required to wear a face mask once they have entered the RAI and are inside the IBC Show bubble.

“Additionally …. bars and restaurants will operate between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. Guests will be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, the same evidence needed to access the IBC Show. There will also be no change in entry requirements for international travelers, which means the show will remain accessible for almost 100% of IBC’s usual audience.”

A resource guide on its website explains the documentation necessary for international travelers.

Chief Executive Michael Crimp said the latest announcement from the government “will not impact the IBC Show visitor experience but, rest assured, we will be delivering the gold standard in live event safety.”

Related: IBC exhibition protocols.

The post The IBC Show Is “Full Steam Ahead” appeared first on Radio World.

From our People News page: At MARC Radio, Jerry Butler has been promoted to market manager for its Gainesville/Ocala operation.

He had joined the company last year to lead its local sales effort. MARC has eight stations in northern Florida. The announcement was made by Dave Cobb, executive vice president.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Before MARC, Butler was vice president of sales at Music Master and was on the faculty at the University of Florida.

Send People News announcements to radioworld@futurenet.com. We are particularly interested in announcements about engineers and executive leadership.

 

The post Butler Is Promoted at MARC Radio appeared first on Radio World.

The author is senior development engineer for Wheatstone Corp.

There’s nothing like a little audio performance testing to cap off a hectic week at the station, especially if you don’t have to haul out the heavy (read “expensive”) equipment to do it.

There are two main things I like to test: the flatness of the frequency response and the distortion added by equipment in the air chain. For this, you’ll need clean test signals and a way to measure those signals after they’ve passed through the air chain.

Measuring Distortion
Obtaining clean test signals is fairly easy. Most audio editing systems have the ability to synthesize low-distortion sine waves and then save them to a file.

I generate and analyze test tones using some software tools written by Sebastian Dunst, available from http://softsolutions.sedutec.de. Note that a license is required to use these tools in a “commercial” environment.

I use the SoftSolutions Multisine audio generator to synthesize single or multiple sine waves of any length or audio level, stereo or mono, and store them as a linear WAV file.

Fig. 1 (Left): Two sine waves at 1 and 2 kHz, equal amplitude. Fig. 2 (Right): Undistorted spectrum of two sine wave signal.

Fig. 1 is the waveform that has resulted from adding a pair of sine waves at 1 kHz and 2 kHz, both at equal amplitude, to create a test signal. Then, with the SoftSolutions AudioAnalyzer software, I can analyze audio saved as a WAV file and display the distortion parameters I’m interested in.

Fig. 2 is the spectral analysis of the waveform from the above example. This would be what we’d see if we had a perfect air chain.

[Read the Complete Oct. 20, 2021 Issue of Radio World Engineering Extra]

If these two pure sine waves are fed through an air chain with no distortion (which isn’t possible, yet — all circuits add distortion), the analyzer would show only the original two signals. As the spectrum analysis shows, the rest of the audio spectrum would be clean — no other signals would appear above the bottom of the display.

But if there were distortion, what would it look like? It might appear similar to Fig. 3, showing many other signals in addition to the first two we started out with. The example is of a severe distortion problem — this air chain would sound horrible on the air!

Fig. 3 (Left): Severely distorted spectrum of two sine wave signal. Fig. 4 (Right): Waveform of 11 sine wave signal.

Frequency Response
The same tools we just used to measure the distortion within the air chain can also be used to measure frequency response.

This time we’ll use the same software tools to generate a test signal that has many sine waves. By then sending this complex signal through the air chain and then looking at it on the analyzer, we’ll be able to see if the sine waves (at different frequencies) are coming back at equal levels.

Fig. 4 is the waveform of a test signal made up of sine waves at 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, 5120, 10240 and 20480 Hz. In a perfect air chain, the analyzer would show all of the signals at their original and equal levels after passing through the air chain.

Fig. 5 (Left): Spectrum of undistorted 11 sine wave signal. Fig. 6 (Right): 11 sine wave spectrum through an air chain with some problems.

Fig. 5 shows that all of the signals are present and that they all reach the same audio level. This represents “flat” (good) frequency response.

What would the analysis look like if there were a loss of low frequencies due to, for instance, dried out electrolytic capacitors in some part of an analog signal path?

It might look like the next display, shown in Fig. 6. Note how the signals at lower frequencies are quite a bit lower compared to the mid and high frequencies. This station would have a “weak” bottom end, no matter what they tried to do with the audio processing.

[Subscribe to Radio World Engineering Extra]

There are many tools available, both hardware and software, that can be used to quantify the quality of the station’s air chain. Remember that it is not important which tools are used but rather that they are used to check occasionally to see if the station’s air chain is healthy.

If the air chain isn’t up to snuff, it doesn’t matter what audio processor, transmitter, STL or exciter the station has, because the on-air sound can never be better than that of the weakest link.

The post Audio Performance Testing on the Cheap appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Communications Commission agreed to renew the license of an Alabama FM translator station — but only on the contingency that it enter into a consent decree and agree to make a $13,000 penalty payment.

After getting the green light to begin operating FM translator W299BX at the same site as its primary station WARB(AM) in Dothan, Ala., back in 2015, Alabama Media LLC had both stations go quiet for nearly 10 months in 2015 and 2016. Then in September 2016, the translator began operation from a recently constructed tower located nearby, with WARB following suit a few days later. Two months after that, Alabama Media moved three of its four full-power stations to this new so-called Dothan Tower.

[Read: Florida Licensee Faces $3,000 Forfeiture After Late Filing Penalty]

And while the broadcaster filed modification applications to relocate its full-power stations, it inadvertently failed to file a modification application for the translator.

A complaint was filed by broadcaster WOOF Inc. soon after, saying that Alabama Media did not have approval to operate the translator at that site. WOOF operates 99.7 WOOF(FM) and 560 WOOF(AM), both in Dothan, Ala. Two days later, Alabama Media filed a modification application and requested special temporary authority (STA) to operate at the new site.

The Media Bureau responded (note that the decision took nearly 2.5 years, into March 2017) and granted both the modification application and STA. The bureau also found that Alabama Media was liable for a monetary forfeiture of $18,000 for several violations: unauthorized operation, originating programming without authorization, failing to notify the FCC of its intent to discontinue operations for 10 or more days, failing to obtain approval to discontinue operations for more than 30 days and failing to file proper forms needed when relocating a translator. The bureau gave Alabama Media 30 days to pay the full amount or submit a written statement seeking reduction.

In April 2019 Alabama Media responded and asked the bureau to reduce the forfeiture, saying it could not afford to pay that amount since the company has operated at a net loss for the past four years. As a smaller broadcaster, Alabama Media said, it does not have access to lines of credit or other readily available funds. And besides, the broadcaster said, a reduced forfeiture is all the admonishment it needs to deter any future misconduct.

But the Media Bureau was not persuaded. “[T]he mere fact that a business is operating at a loss does not by itself mean that it cannot afford to pay a forfeiture,” the bureau said in its order. The bureau ruled that financial hardship in this case is not enough to approve a reduction of the $18,000.

But something did sway the bureau to decrease the forfeiture: Alabama Media’s track record as a rule-following licensee. “[W]e find that a reduction from the forfeiture amount proposed in the [notice] is appropriate given that Alabama Media does not have a history of prior offenses.”

As a result, the bureau entered into a consent decree with Alabama Media in which the broadcaster admitted to the charges laid out by the bureau and agreed to make a $13,000 civil penalty payment. The bureau also denied the earlier objection raised by WOOF since the licensee did not show how Alabama Media’s continued operation of the translator would be against public interest.

 

The post Consent Decree (Plus Good Behavior) Results in Reduced Forfeiture appeared first on Radio World.

(Click here to enlarge.)

NPR and Wondery in October held their top positions in Podtrac’s list of top podcast publishers as measured by U.S. audience.

Most of the rest of the list looks like last month’s too, with a few swapping positions.

But this month, ViacomCBS joined that list and enters at #12 (bumping Hidden Brain Media out of the top 20).

Ranking data only includes publishers that participate in Podtrac measurement:

The company said Unique Monthly Audience for 19 of the top 20 publishers was up or flat in October over the month before.

(Click here to enlarge.)

 

It also found that Total Global Downloads for the Top 20 were up 9% from the month before but down 9% compared to October of 2020.

The list of top individual podcasts also looked similar at the top compared to the month before, with the NYT at the top, and NPR holding five of the next 19 slots:

[Related: “iHeart, NPR Have Their Prints All Over Podtrac Rankings”]

 

The post Podtrac Issues Monthly Podcast Rankers appeared first on Radio World.

Cox Media Group named Chris Eagan as its VP of audience and operations for radio.

“In this role Eagan will lead the overarching programming strategy, audience development and multiplatform distribution for CMG Radio,” it stated. “He will also lead the CMG Digital Content team and partnerships to drive innovation for CMG Radio.”

The company owns 54 radio stations in 11 markets, as well as 33 TV stations and other media assets.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Eagan was most recently senior director of operations for CMG Atlanta Radio, a cluster that includes B98.5 WSB(FM), News Talk WSB(AM), 97-1 The River WSRV(FM) and Kiss 104.1 WALR(FM).

The announcement was made by Rob Babin, SVP-head of radio, and Jaleigh Long, VP and general manager of Atlanta radio.

Send news of engineering and executive personnel changes to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post Cox Appoints Eagan to Radio Audience and Ops Role appeared first on Radio World.

Communications tower owner Vertical Bridge said its leadership team has donated $1.1 million personally to benefit two industry foundations.

The money is going to help Warriors4Wireless and the Tower Family Foundation.

“The donations were made in support of the work that these non-profit organizations do to help veterans enter the telecommunications industry and to support the families of those injured on the job,” the company stated in a press release.

The announcement was made by CEO Alex Gellman and EVP of Operations Bernard Borghei.

[Read: Vertical Bridge Remains in Acquisition Mode]

Warriors4Wireless was formed “to bridge the gap between the demand for trained and deployable wireless technicians, and the thousands of qualified service men and women eager to transfer the skills they have learned in the military.”

The Tower Family Foundation provides financial assistance to family members of a severely injured, permanently disabled or deceased tower worker.

Vertical Bridge said that last year it donated $1.5 million to 149 causes chosen by its employees.

 

The post Vertical Bridge Execs Donate to Industry Foundations appeared first on Radio World.

Quick, can you name a Christmas song that gets virtually no radio airplay, yet was streamed more than 57 million times last year?

It’s one of the insights in a report from P1 Media Group and MRC Data, which reported on America’s top Christmas songs and dug into what data about music streaming can tell radio programmers.

The companies tested the appeal of the 40 most-played and 40 most-streamed Christmas songs from the 2020 holidays, which ended up being 60 unique songs. They used BDSradio, an MRC Data tool; and P1 Media Group conducted a survey with 400 radio listeners in top markets who were likely to listen to a local all-Christmas radio station.

For the fifth consecutive year “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms is America’s #1 testing Christmas song, they reported.

But eight songs from the top 40 most-streamed list tested better with likely Christmas radio listeners than eight songs from the top 40 most-played songs list. “The data suggests these eight songs can be played more on all-Christmas radio stations,” the companies said:

• Frank Sinatra – Jingle Bells (ranked #47 on the 2020 BDS Airplay chart)
• Jimmy Durante – Frosty the Snowman (#50)
• Perry Como – It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas (#69)
• Chuck Berry – Run Rudolph Run (#70)
• Earth Kitt – Santa Baby (#78)
• Dan Hathaway – This Christmas (#84)
• Michael Bublé – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (#182)
• Nat King Cole – Deck the Halls (#1,119)

Classic songs dominate the top 20 including “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” two versions each of “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock,” and three versions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” from 1994 is the newest song in the top 20.

Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” from 2014 and Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” from 2010 are the highest testing original Christmas songs from the Millennium, at #46 and #48.

Intriguingly, four of the top 40 most-streamed songs received very little radio airplay in 2020. Three are “Deck the Halls” by Nat King Cole, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” by Kristen Bell and “What Christmas Means to Me” by John Legend.

And the fourth is the answer to the question posed at the top of this article: The song that got only 1,736 total spins last year by radio but was streamed 57.5 million times was Dean Martin’s “Baby it’s Cold Outside.” P1 Media Group co-founder Ken Benson noted: “Radio all but banned this classic song from the airwaves in 2018 due to the ‘Me Too’ movement.”

The companies have posted their full list of “America’s Top 60 Testing Christmas Songs” for 2021.

The post This Is the Song No One Plays on the Radio Anymore appeared first on Radio World.

Dave Hershberger, Geoff Mendenhall and Cliff Leitch are shown during installation of an MS-15 FM exciter breadboard for on-air testing at WGEM(FM) in Quincy, Ill., in 1977. Mendenhall’s left hand is on the exciter breadboard.

Dave Hershberger’s work with exciters and modulators for transmitters and with low-level signal processing is considered legendary by many in broadcast. In fact, he co-developed the world’s first digital FM exciter as an experimental prototype that was tested on the air in 1986.

The National Association of Broadcasters presented its 2021 Radio Engineering Achievement Award to Hershberger, saluting his work at Harris Broadcast, Grass Valley Group, Axcera and Continental Electronics.

The veteran engineer even worked on X-band uplink transmitters for the JPL/NASA Deep Space Network. He retired in 2017 as senior scientist at Continental.

Hershberger does occasional consulting but is mostly enjoying retirement life. Radio World asked him about his career, which was about evenly split between radio and television design projects, and his thoughts on current events in the world of broadcast engineering.

Radio World: Where did you grow up and what sparked your interest in broadcast engineering?
Dave Hershberger: I grew up in Sycamore, Ill., just west of Chicago but beyond the suburbs. When I was 13 years old I got my ham radio license. After a few years of ham radio, a neighbor suggested that I should look into broadcast radio. That’s what got me going.

[Read: Hershberger Honored With 2021 NAB Engineering Award]

When I was 16, I studied and got my FCC First Phone commercial license. That was my ticket to getting into broadcast. After high school, at age 17 I got my first radio job at what was then WCLR in Crystal Lake, Ill. — AM 850. They had a directional antenna and needed a First Phone licensee on duty.

David at his ham radio station (WA9QCH)

RW: Describe your early days at Harris Broadcast when you started in 1975. What was it like in Quincy?
Hershberger: Harris was a lot of fun. Quincy, Ill., less so. But it was where the work was.

I started out in the TV transmitter group, but after talking with Geoff Mendenhall, who worked in FM, we started brainstorming at lunchtime on what we would like to do in a new FM exciter.

The TE-3 was old, expensive to manufacture and had its shortcomings. Geoff worked with management, got authorization to start a new FM exciter development and I got transferred to FM. We added some more engineers on the project and away we went.

We broke new ground with a new kind of stereo generator, overshoot controlled filters, improved PLL dynamics to eliminate tilt on low-frequency square waves, and many other features.

RW: What do you consider your most important contribution at Harris?
Hershberger: That would probably be the overshoot-controlled low-pass filters. When we were developing the MS-15 FM exciter, we heard that there was a popular new stereo generator with built-in audio processing being made on the West coast. It was called the Optimod. One of its most important features was its ability to control overshoot in the 15 kHz low-pass filters integral to the stereo generator.

Bob Orban had come up with a brilliant solution for dealing with the problem. He took a systems approach, and the filtering and filter overshoot correction were tightly integrated with the audio processing.

We were also developing a stereo generator option for the FM exciter. But if we did not solve the overshoot problem too, then we would not be able to sell very many stereo generators. So my job was to find a solution to the problem.

And it was a difficult problem, controlling both amplitude and spectrum simultaneously. One way to begin to address the problem was to filter, then clip off the overshoots, and then filter again. That would reduce the overshoots somewhat but would not get rid of them completely.

Theoretically the process could be repeated: filter, clip, filter, clip, filter, clip and keep doing that until the overshoots were low enough. Of course such a system would not be practical.

Eventually I figured out that what I needed was something that did more than clipping. A clipper can be analyzed as a gain reduction device, which reduces gain only during overshoot. If I could reduce the gain more than what is necessary to accomplish simple clipping, then I could make the overshoot controller converge in just one pass of filter-clip-filter.

So the trick was to take the overshoots, clip them off, amplify them with a gain of about two and then subtract them from the clipped waveform. Linear phase filtering of that signal resulted in near complete elimination of filter overshoot, while still providing a sharp 15 kHz cutoff.

The advantage was that this was not part of an audio processor. It was a stand-alone function. So you could use any audio processor you wanted, run it into our stereo generator and the 15 kHz low-pass filters would not overshoot and create overmodulation. Any audio processor could gain the overshoot control capability of the Optimod.

We did our first on-air testing of the MS-15 exciter at WGEM(FM) in Quincy in early 1977. The overshoot control, along with greatly improved low-frequency dynamics, allowed a huge increase in average modulation.

Brian Cox was one of the engineers on the MW-1 AM transmitter. He had left Harris and was working for another company in Quincy. He would leave his car radio tuned to WGEM, and one morning he got in his car to drive to work. He turned on the radio and Brian said it was so loud that it blew him into the back seat. That was the first morning we had the prototype on the air.

RW: How about the highlights from Continental?
Hershberger: In general, deployment of digital signal processing in several different product lines: FM exciters, ATSC exciters (including linear and nonlinear adaptive equalization), and VLF and LF transmitters.

RW: Is there a career project that stands out?
Hershberger: Probably the coolest project was the JPL/NASA Deep Space Network uplink transmitters. They generate up to 80 kW in the 7 GHz range

Dave Hershberger

These were nonbroadcast transmitters but it was a most interesting and challenging project. JPL wanted very low phase noise — not for communications, but so they could also use the transmitters for science experiments. Those included searching for gravity waves by detecting phase bumps, and bistatic radar imaging. Bistatic radar has the signal source on earth, with the receiver on the spacecraft.

So everything we did required attention to low noise performance. RF amplifiers, the klystron beam supply, focus magnet supply and filament supply, and even the water cooling system all needed to be very low noise.

The first production transmitter was installed at the Goldstone station and was first used for the Pluto flyby in 2015. In addition to communication, it was used for the bistatic radar mapping of Pluto.

RW: You wrote in Radio World over the years about implementations of HD Radio. Can you discuss that work and assess the state of HD Radio in the United States, and where it may go next?
Hershberger: I’m rather disappointed. There are interference problems. The audio codec cannot be upgraded to more modern technology. There is no “Oh, wow” factor — such as having your radio figure out your preferences, and then find and record shows it thinks you might like — features that are found in some DVRs.

There is little or no ability to provide different commercial announcements and music to different listeners, based on age, interests or location. There is no non-real time transmission and storage capability.

There are many such features that should be part of a new digital sound broadcasting system. As it is, we just have plain old real-time, single-stream radio but transmitted digitally.

RW: You were an advocate for moving AM stations to TV Channel 5 and 6 below the FM band, which didn’t happen. What are your feelings about that now and about the future of AM radio in general?
Hershberger: It was unfortunate yet predictable that it wouldn’t and didn’t happen. But there is a similar opportunity now. ATSC 3.0 includes the ability to carry audio-only programs. And those audio-only programs can be broadcast with optimization for mobile reception, with robust coding, independent of the modulation and coding for the video signals.

Hershberger is shown installing AM stereo at WLS(AM) in Chicago in 1983.

I would like to see AM radio begin simulcasting on ATSC 3.0 signals. A single ATSC 3.0 transmitter could carry all of the AM signals in a market, in addition to TV programs. Car radios could be made to receive at least the audio-only streams in ATSC 3.0. And that would be a solution to the electric car problem, where the drive train makes so much electrical noise that including an AM radio is just way too expensive because of the required EMI suppression. ATSC 3.0 is also a way to make AM programming receivable in homes again.

Meanwhile, I am participating in the AM Improvement Working Group of the National Radio Systems Committee, which is studying ways to keep analog AM viable.

RW: You thanked Geoff Mendenhall and Dan Dickey for their support through the years in your NAB acceptance video. Any other mentors?
Hershberger: Absolutely. There were many. At Harris, there was Hans Bott, Tony Uyttendaele, Terry Hickman, Bob Weirather, Hilmer Swanson, Tim Hulick and there were more. At Continental there was José Sainz, Grant Bingeman, Michael Pugh, Howard Butler and more. And the late Dr. Steve Reyer, an EE professor at Milwaukee School of Engineering, was certainly a mentor.

RW: If you were chairman of the FCC, what one technical change would you want to make?
Hershberger: If I could only make one change, it would be to enforce radiated and conducted emission limits. Don’t let cheap noisy power supplies and chargers into the country. Force recalls of products that are in gross violation of the rules. Make AM radio receivable in homes again!

RW: What do you think is the most important trend or recent development in the management of technical infrastructure for radio? We hear a lot about centralization of engineering departments.
Hershberger: I’m not a manager or an accountant. But I am disappointed to see management make decisions which greatly increase off-air time when there are problems. I am disappointed to hear stations with audio problems that last for years at a time.

Better engineering is sorely needed. And that costs money, but it is well spent.

Letting broadcast infrastructure decay saves money in the short term but not in the long term. You can do the same thing with your car — don’t do maintenance — but it will come back and bite you eventually.

RW: What do you see as the most pressing technical issue facing radio broadcasters today?
Hershberger: Interference. Switching power supplies, chargers, lighting, etc. not only affect AM frequencies but also VHF and even UHF. Allocation and regulatory mistakes create legal interference which only adds to the problems.

RW: As you talk to fellow engineers, what are their most common complaints or career challenges?
Hershberger: Not many broadcasters want to do things the right way. They want to spend as little as possible, even if performance and the on-air product is degraded.

RW: What is your advice to younger folks entering a technical field like this?
Hershberger: Don’t expect to be proficient if your education is digital-only. You still need to understand analog concepts, even if they are all implemented digitally. Learn control and feedback systems, filtering, modulation theory, signal processing and complex math.

Also, beware of computer engineering philosophies invading radio engineering. As more and more digital technologies are applied to broadcast engineering, there have been clashes of culture, which turn into real technical problems. Computer engineers are interested in sending the bits in a proper format without errors.

Dave and his wife Sandy at NAB 1980. She was a software engineer for Harris and worked on remote control systems.

That much is fine. But computer engineers often pay no attention to phase noise in their clocks, or in selection of clock frequencies which are appropriate for broadcast radio, or frequency accuracy of such clocks. And why would they? Data are still transmitted without error, even if the clock is noisy or off frequency.

Bottom line, don’t assume that digital signals have low enough phase noise and frequency accuracy to meet broadcast standards.

RW: You and your wife have certainly been together a long time. Any marital advice to offer?
Hershberger: I have been married to Sandy for 44 years now. She has been a music teacher, a software engineer, for which she won an Emmy award, and a licensed marriage and family therapist.

As for marital advice, I think I would say to change compatibly. We all change as we age, and it’s important to consider our mates as we do so.

Also I think there is some luck involved. I feel pretty lucky. We are blessed to have a gifted 17-year-old daughter who aspires to a career in the sciences.

RW: Retirement life in California seems to be treating you well. Why do you love it? 
Hershberger: We live in a log house we built on our rural property adjoining Tahoe National Forest, near Nevada City, Calif. We have deer, bears, foxes, coyotes and other critters for neighbors. My voluntary hobbies include ham radio. My involuntary hobbies include property maintenance — cutting, hauling and splitting firewood from downed trees, and plowing snow with my tractor. We have alternative energy — solar electric and diesel generator backup  — for our frequent power outages, but it is beautiful here.

 

The post Hershberger Honored as a “Renaissance Engineer” appeared first on Radio World.

Jeff Welton

One of the best tools in the engineer’s lightning protection toolbox is a tried, true and frequently underutilized friend, the ferrite toroid.

The principle is quite simple. If you have two (or more) conductors passing through a ferrite, such that the net sum of their currents is zero, then the ferrite is an inert object, just sitting there waiting for something to happen.

If, as in the case with a surge or lightning strike, the current on any conductor increases, such that the net current is no longer zero, then the ferrite core saturates, creates a magnetic field and attempts to induce an equal and opposite current flow in the other conductor(s) — in effect, trying to maintain the zero net total current.

[Subscribe to Radio World Engineering Extra]

For this reason, ferrites are a very good tool in many ways, not the least of which is lightning protection. Used on a coaxial cable going out to the antenna system, they can also be useful for finding ground loops.

Fig: 1: Ferrites used in a transmitter installation.

If you have a ground loop, such that not all of your return current is through the coax shield, the ferrite will saturate — and quickly (depending on the amount of the imbalance between feed and return) get physically warm … in extreme cases, I’ve even seen them explode!

Easy to Install
You want ferrite toroids at the output of the transmitter, preferably before the point where the coax shield is connected to the station reference ground (usually where the coax enters the building, but not always, so keep an eye out). The photo in the first image was taken at an AM site.

In the course of the installation, ferrites can and should be placed on pretty much every current carrying conductor, including AC lines, remote control feeds and audio/AES lines (don’t forget the STL antenna cable).

Nautel provides a handful with every transmitter that goes out the door, to ensure your installation isn’t held up for want of some basic protection. Talk to your sales rep if you think you need more.

For any cable where there is a safety ground connection (for example, the antenna feedline ground referenced above, or an AC mains surge protector), ensure the ferrites are installed between the ground and the equipment being protected. That makes the reference ground connection look like a better path than the equipment, by raising the effective impedance lighting or surge current has to overcome to get to the equipment.

[Read the Complete Oct. 20, 2021 Issue of Radio World Engineering Extra]

Fig. 2: Ferrites are used on control, monitor and RF sample lines in this NX5 installation.

The second photo is a 5 kW AM transmitter installation showing ferrites on control, monitor, RF sample and Ethernet cables.

Ultimately, for the purpose of common mode protection (trying to keep feed and return currents equal), size and permeability are somewhat less important than if we were making a choke by wrapping a single conductor around the toroid.

Another use for toroids is helping to reduce pickup (for example, the RF from your AM station getting onto the audio feed for your FM station). The principle is much the same as for lightning protection: The ferrite will help to filter any signal that is not present in equal amplitudes in both the feed and return paths.

Nautel offers several ferrites that can help, and you can order them via our Parts Quotation Request form at http://support.nautel.com/parts.

Some useful part numbers:

• LXP38 — this is a 3/4-inch inside diameter toroid, good for RF rejection and lightning protection on small signal cables.

• LP23 — a 2-1/8-inch inside diameter toroid, good for most heavier AC cables and coax up to 1-5/8 inches (as long as the connectors aren’t already installed!)

• LP32 — a 4-1/8-inch inside diameter toroid, good for the really big AC and RF cables (again, this won’t fit over a 3-1/8-inch EIA flange, so keep that in mind when planning)

• LA52 — a small (1/4-inch inside diameter) clip on ferrite that helps to keep higher frequency (FM) RF out of control and signal wiring. Impedance curve shows 320 ohms at 100 MHz, so it wouldn’t be so good for an AM station, but definitely useful for a higher power FM.

Before being named sales manager for Nautel’s U.S. Central Region, the author spent 16.5 years as a customer service technician for the company.

The post Ferrite Toroids Can Be an Engineer’s Best Pal appeared first on Radio World.

The Federal Communications Commission continues to hand out forfeitures to stations that fail to file their license renewal application on time.

Whether it’s only a few days late or nearly four months overdue, the FCC rules on license renewal application deadlines matter are clear: a broadcast station license renewal must be filed by the first day of the fourth calendar month before the license expires. For WPGS Inc., the deadline for filing a license renewal application for station WPGS(AM) in Mims, Fla., was Oct. 19, 2019. WPGS finally submitted the application on Jan. 31, 2020 — a day before the license outright expired on Feb. 1, 2020. The licensee did not provide an explanation, the Media Bureau said in its forfeiture order.

[Read: Sunshine State Licensee Agrees Penalty After Environmental Miss]

The FCC has some wiggle room on the amount a proposed forfeiture should be — based on the severity or length of the violation — but the base forfeiture amount for a violation like this is $3,000. In July 2021, the Media Bureau sent a Notice of Apparently Liability for Forfeiture to WPGS Inc. giving them 30 days to either pay or file a written statement asking for cancellation of the proposed forfeiture. As of Nov. 1, 2021, the licensee had not responded.

Accordingly, the Media Bureau released an order concluding that WPGS Inc. willfully violated the rules. The request for payment of the $3,000 still stands and is due before Dec. 1, 2021.

 

The post Florida Licensee Faces $3,000 Forfeiture After Late Filing Penalty appeared first on Radio World.

WorldDAB says a total of 110 million DAB receivers have now been sold globally.

Twice a year, the organization — which positions DAB+ as “the core future platform for radio in Europe” — publishes an infographic that depicts trends for the digital radio format, including receiver sales, population coverage and road coverage.

It now has released its latest infographic.

It reports that over the past 12 months, the number of automotive DAB receivers sold surpassed 10 million for the first time, while consumer receiver sales totaled about 5 million units.

“The automotive DAB+ market has been transformed over the last two years,” the organization stated, “with DAB+ now a standard feature in over 89% of new cars in all key European markets.” It noted that the European Electronic Communications Code now requires new car radios in the EU to be capable of receiving digital terrestrial radio.

“In the consumer receiver market, the proportion of devices featuring DAB / DAB+ has also seen a sharp increase — from 28% two years ago to 42% in the second quarter of 2021. DAB sales are benefiting from strong marketing in Germany and the Netherlands, receiver regulation in Germany, France and Italy, and the emergence of new DAB markets including Belgium, Austria and the Czech Republic.”

Among other data points, WorldDAB said that digital radio reach “has achieved record levels in several markets, including the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia,” and it cited growth patterns in the sales of consumer DAB+ receivers in countries like Italy, the Czech Republic and France and a number of other countries.

Below is one chart from the infographic; the full version is available on the WorldDAB website.

 

The post WorldDAB Celebrates Receiver Sales Numbers appeared first on Radio World.

iHeartMedia wants more of the fast-growing action in sports betting, so it has signed a “strategic relationship” with DraftKings.

It says the agreement makes DraftKings “the official odds supplier for iHeartMedia’s broadcast, digital, podcast and social platforms.”

Sports gambling is a hot commodity for big companies with radio roots just now. Audacy and Cumulus for example have been active in the sector.

iHeart and DraftKings cited all sorts of possible joint projects, including DraftKings co-creating and distributing long-form content.

“The two can also collaborate around a wide range of possible content development opportunities, tapping into iHeart’s 270 million+ monthly consumer base on its broadcast platform alone,” according to the announcement.

Further opportunities include integrations in iHeart live sports coverage and “possible experiential opportunities for listeners and fans.”

This seems like a natural fit, given the scale of iHeart’s sports audio network, which includes broadcast products as well as the large iHeartPodcast Sports Network.

Among other things DraftKings will be able to use iHeartMedia’s SmartAudio advertising products.

“The data integration would enable fact-based audience planning and targeting optimizations across iHeartMedia’s broadcast and digital platform,” they said in the announcement.

Both companies are publicly traded on Nasdaq. The announcement was made by Greg Ashlock, CEO of iHeartMedia’s Multiplatform Group, and Matt Kalish, co-founder and president of DraftKings North America.

Kalish and friends Jason Robins and Paul Liberman started DraftKings in Liberman’s apartment in Massachusetts, launching a daily fantasy sports platform in 2012. Last year it combined with Diamond Eagle Acquisition Co. and gambling technology firm SBTech, going public in April 2020. It now calls itself a “vertically integrated pure-play sports betting and online gaming company.”

Kalish was quoted saying, “Analytically tapping into iHeart’s coveted listenership while powering authentic betting content is a landmark moment for both organizations and precursor to new possibilities in media innovation.”

Related:

“Audacy Expands BetQL Sports Betting Network”

“WynnBET and Cumulus Media Forge Betting Advertising Alliance”

“Cumulus Highlights AM/FM for Reaching Bettors”

 

 

The post Betting on Sports, iHeartMedia Partners With DraftKings appeared first on Radio World.