Radio World

Comrex is teasing a new product launch that it will announce Monday at an SBE chapter meeting that will also be conducted as an online webinar.

The company said the Zoom meeting webinar will be held in conjunction with the Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 15 and the Next Best Thing Media Tour.

Comrex added that people in the New York area are welcome to join in person for the New York SBE Chapter 15 Annual Picnic and NBT tour from 4 7 p.m. at New York Elks Lodge #1 in Lynbrook, N.Y.

 

The post Comrex, NBT and SBE15 Plan Monday Event appeared first on Radio World.

Henry “Hank” Mahler

Influential media engineer Hank Mahler has died.

Among his contributions to the broadcast industry, he was part of the team at the CBS Technology Center in Connecticut that designed and built the CBS Laboratories Audimax and CBS VoluMax, two audio processors that became widely used in radio and TV.

His passing, on Oct. 5 at the age of 84, has been noted by his colleague Bob Seidel, the former CBS vice president of engineering and advanced technology as well as former president of SMPTE.

Seidel distributed an obituary and appreciation, describing Henry Mahler as an icon.

According to Seidel, Mahler also helped develop the first audio loudness meter for measuring human perception of loudness. And he said many of the audio curves specified by the International Telecommunications Union approximate the original CBS Loudness Meter design from the early 1960s.

“Hank also received a patent for developing an audio meter capable of indicating 60 dB of audio range while the typical VU meter displays approximately a third of that range. Hank also worked on the CBS 360 Record / Player, which was a stereo self-contained solid state audio recorder.”

Mahler went on to be involved in numerous important TV, video and cinema technologies, including developing the famous TV color bars used for calibrating analog color systems. Our sister publication TV Tech has a writeup about his work.

Seidel also provided a personal memory:

“Many a vendor dreaded having their equipment evaluated in the CBS Engineering Lab, because Hank would inevitably uncover issues that required them to ‘go back to the drawing board.’ However, in the end, when the equipment passed Hank’s muster and received the CBS Engineering Lab ‘Good Engineering Seal of Approval,’ it was a world-class product and was recognized by the industry as being top of the line in its category.

“If you wanted to stay on Hank’s good side, you would never interfere with his coffee breaks, which he would announce VERY loudly in his deep baritone voice, ‘COFFEE.’ The lunch time volleyball games at the CBS Laboratories in Stamford, Conn., turned Hank into a jovial, but fierce competitor. There were many CBS Lab colleagues that fell prey to Hank’s practical jokes, and they reciprocated by sending him a fake termination ‘pink slip.’ His office was plastered, not with his technological accomplishment, but with family photos, indicating what was important in his life,” Seidel wrote.

“Hank’s most endearing qualities were his humble nature, engaging smile and willingness to use his vast engineering knowledge to educate his fellow engineers. He will be missed by his immediate family and by his CBS Family who had the privilege of working with him for over 60 years.”

Danbury Memorial and Cremation also has posted an obituary.

 

The post Hank Mahler Dies, Was Innovator for CBS Technology Center appeared first on Radio World.

GatesAir has added native Livewire+ IP audio networking to its Intraplex Ascent cloud transport platform.

This means Intraplex Ascent can ingest and output multiple audio channels directly via IP without the need for conversion equipment, which the company said adds scale and efficiency for radio broadcasters that manage many digital audio channels between studios.

Future support is planned for WheatNet-IP.

Intraplex Ascent started shipping last year. The manufacturer describes it as a next-generation audio over IP platform built to transport broadcast and media content at scale, “leveraging common off-the-shelf hardware to reduce the costs of multichannel contribution and distribution between many locations.”

[Read Radio World’s ebook “What’s Next for Virtualization”]

It quoted VP of Engineering Keyur Parikh saying, “GatesAir has successfully deployed Ascent with a national radio broadcaster that is sending 32 audio channels between two major studio locations. They are directly connecting to the Livewire studios, providing encoding and reliable transport across public IP networks.”

The system’s Dynamic Stream Splicing software supports transport across redundant networks, and GatesAir says it optimizes stream integrity by protecting against jitter, packet losses and network failures. DSS software also supports duplication of SRT streams with video and audio over separate network paths, “leveraging a single stream-splicing buffer for hitless protection against errors and failures.”

“Intraplex Ascent is built to work natively with IP protocol, and IP-based transport is becoming ubiquitous within studio and STL connections,” said Parikh in the announcement. “Whether sending content over cable, DSL, fiber or microwave, everything converges to IP, and Ascent’s software-based solution then provides the engine for moving large volumes of media content for ATSC 1.0/3.0 television and FM radio networks. We are bringing the scalability of the cloud to move content between multiple sites at the same time.”

 

The post GatesAir Adds Native Livewire Support to Intraplex Ascent appeared first on Radio World.

Get an orange vest. Give the pickup truck a tuneup. And go top off your genset … For readers who live in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is coming!

Also: Business is booming at Technical Service Group. … Larry Langford is troubleshooting distortion on a client’s FM translator. … Tula has a nifty combo mic/recorder. … And the FCC is listening to the debate over allowing companies to own more stations in one market.

All that plus early Black sportscasters, the power of radio local news and letters from our readers.

Read it here.

The post Inside the Oct. 13, 2021 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

Radio and TV broadcasters in the state of Georgia are gathering to celebrate the engineers in their midst.

The Georgia Association of Broadcasters will honor three engineers at this year’s GABCON, the largest gathering of radio and TV broadcasters in the state, set to be held Oct. 22–23 in Atlanta.

This year the association will honor Carl “CJ” Jackson with Salem Media Group; retiree Robert LaFore, formerly with Audacy Atlanta; and will posthumously award iHeartMedia executive and EME Communications owner Clyde Scott with the 2021 Angelo Ditty–Frank McLemore Engineering Award.

The award will be presented at the 2021 convention, an in-person event that will also offer educational sessions, an exhibit hall and will honor broadcasters across the state as part of the 2021 GABBY Awards for broadcasting excellence.

 

The post Engineers to Be Honored at GABCON appeared first on Radio World.

Manufacturer Broadcast Partners named Roland Schaller to a post where he’ll work to expand the company’s international sales.

“After spending the first half of his career in internet and telecommunications in technical and marketing roles, he moved to broadcasting in the field of satellite and terrestrial broadcast hardware and software, in presales and sales roles,” the company stated.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

The announcement was made by CEO Robert-Jan van der Hoeven. Broadcast Partners is based in the Netherlands. Schaller will split time between France and Germany.

“Roland is at ease in the business culture of most of Europe, combining a rigorous approach to the sales process in dealing with his customers and business partners,” Broadcast Partners wrote.

The company’s offerings include the SmartRadio “radio as a service” cloud-based system.

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

 

The post Broadcast Partners Names Schaller to Sales Post appeared first on Radio World.

Orban announced the Optimod XPN-Enterprise ecosystem.

The company describes it as a customizable, Linux-based processing platform with capabilities for centralized contexts, particularly broadcast groups that run multiple stations or clusters and/or streaming services.

“It provides Orban’s proprietary OptiCloud processing for up to eight FM and eight HD/DAB+/Streaming processing channels in a 1 RU package and supports AES-67/SMPTE-2110 protocols using an enterprise-class SoftGear server and the appropriate Optimod XPN-Enterprise Nodes,” the company stated.

The XPN-Enterprise server is shipping, as is the XPN-Enterprise AES3 Input/Output Node. Orban said nodes to extend the available outputs and functionalities are coming including DMPX, Kantar and Nielsen watermarking and Orban uMPX.

“Broadcasters worldwide are realizing the benefits of moving operations to centralized — and ideally, virtualized — environments. Many of these customers have high-density needs, with many signals that need to be managed,” it quoted Orban President David Day in the announcement.

Content to be OptiCloud processed is brought to one location using AES3, AES-67, SMPTE-2110-30, Dante or Livewire+, and creates the necessary outputs (FM composite, DMPX, uMPX and DAB+HD) using the appropriate Orban XPN-Enterprise Nodes for distribution to each transmitter site, the company said.

The server also handles processed channels for streaming, sending those outputs to the appropriate streaming devices.

“Each signal coming into the Optimod XPN-Enterprise server can be individually processed, with Orban’s OptiCloud providing precision tailoring of each station’s broadcast or stream to meet the requirements of the audience and delivery method,” it continued.

Features include factory presets for various formats, and “Less-More” controls to simplify “dialing in” a desired sound by combining multiple processing parameters.

Day also highlighted the company’s “Last Mile” solutions including XPN-Enterprise input and output nodes and low-bandwidth solutions.

“This ‘Last Mile’ service is especially important for stations whose transmitter sites may be in locations with less-than-ideal internet access. We make it possible to manage our processing remotely and feed that signal to a site on lines as slow as 500 kbps, with high-quality results. And many nodes are ‘Power over Ethernet’ (PoE) capable, further simplifying installation.”

The post Orban Announces XPN-Enterprise appeared first on Radio World.

Pierre Bouvard once again has combed through fresh data from Nielsen and put together a series of positive bullet points about trends in radio, intended to of help to radio salespeople and managers.

Bouvard is chief insights manager of Cumulus Media and Westwood One, which makes him one of the industry’s prominent pitch persons.

Looking at Google data, he said that through September and into October, COVID search volumes have sharply fallen, an indication that pandemic concerns have eased.

American travel miles also are up, which means people are spending more time in their cars.

Further, Bouvard says that marketers and ad agencies continue to “dramatically underestimate the number of Americans that are commuting to work each day.”

And he cites Nielsen data showing AM/FM radio listening recovery continuing in September with Portable People Meter listening up +4% over the prior year.

Below is the latest chart from his post showing month-to-month changes in Average Quarter Hour audience in PPM markets.

[Read the blog post: “Nielsen AM/FM Radio Audiences Grow as COVID Concerns Drop and Vehicular Traffic Surges”]

 

The post Bouvard: COVID Concerns Are Dropping appeared first on Radio World.

Getty Images Zhihong Zhuo

Jessica Rosenworcel is talking up 6G.

“If you think I’m too early on this one, think again. Much like in the early days of 5G, the scrum for 6G is already intensifying,” she said.

Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke Tuesday to the wireless industry’s Americas Spectrum Management Conference. She devoted a good part of her online remarks to the topic “Paving the Way for 6G and Beyond.”

She cited plans or developments that look ahead to 6G in South Korea, Finland, Japan and China.

While no one knows exactly what 6G will entail, she said, “Let’s learn from what came before. Let’s acknowledge here and now that it is time to start thinking seriously about how we can better position ourselves for success with 6G.”

She called for a “6G Solarium” modeled on a recent bipartisan government initiative called “Project Solarium” that resulted in 80 recommendations on how to overhaul the nation’s approach to cybersecurity.

“What we need now is new thinking, broader consensus and more early focus than we had for 5G,” Rosenworcel said. “We need a process for prioritizing and executing on spectrum objectives and for developing strategies to align the ends, way  and means for 6G.” She wants to see a similar effort that brings together government, business, the non-profit sector “and the rest of civil society and the public to chart a new course.”

Rosenworcel said that to help, the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council could be charged with “looking beyond 5G and conceptualizing 6G — to help set the stage for our leadership. By refocusing the TAC in this way, the FCC will be able to stay on top of new developments and ensure that the nation can turn the latest scientific research into viable communications technologies that will help power our future.”

Not to skip over 5G, in the first half of her remarks Rosenworcel discussed steps that she said would “reinvigorate the momentum toward 5G.”

She highlighted FCC efforts to provide more spectrum — including the granting of 5,600 licenses in the C-band — as well as her goals of expanding the reach of fiber facilities, diversifying technology that goes into 5G networks, building security and resiliency in supply chains, and participating more substantially in global technology standards-setting.

The post Rosenworcel Calls for 6G Initiative appeared first on Radio World.

Telos Alliance has introduced a streamlined version of its Axia Quasar AoIP surface.

The Quasar SR replaces the Axia Fusion in the company’s lineup. Telos also announced a major free system update for users of its original Quasar.

The new Quasar SR is part of the Livewire+ AES67 ecosystem. Telos said it uses the frame, power supply and master module of the original Quasar, but the fader modules are not motorized and there are fewer, larger and easier-to-reach buttons on each channel strip.

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

“All of these refinements make it easy for any operator to use the SR console, while introducing cost efficiencies that allow SR to be an exceptional value,” the company stated in the announcement.

The surface includes a heavy-duty 12.1-inch touchscreen user interface so an external monitor is not required, though one can be used if desired via the external video output.

Axia Quasar DSP user interface

The system includes Expert Source Profile controls for power users to set custom logic associated with each source. “The user can program GPIO control, mix-minus routing, talkback and other functions based upon console channel state,” Telos said. “Flexible Record Mode gives complete control of monitors, meters, headphone feeds, program bus assignments, and more.”

Show Profiles allow up to 4,000 console “snapshots” with different settings, layouts and defaults. Automatic mix-minus and automixing are available on all channels. Features include touch-sensitive encoders, faders and user buttons.

The new model also introduces a remote control option called Quasar Soft. “This solution lets broadcasters control the surface from any HTML5 browser. Included as part of the Quasar Soft license, Quasar Cast is a remote monitoring solution that lets users listen to what is happening in the studio and on the air while they operate the console remotely using Quasar Soft.”

In a related development, Telos announced availability of a Quasar V2.0 Major System Update, which converts an original Quasar console to Quasar XR. This is a free system update that adds scalability and modularity to the original console; it also adds Quasar Soft and Quasar Cast, integration with Telos Infinity IP Intercom and support for planned Quasar Accessory Modules. Telos said the update makes Quasar more flexible for applications like working from home.

Send your new equipment news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

Info: https://telosalliance.com

 

The post Telos Offers a Streamlined Quasar appeared first on Radio World.

Radio Maria, an international network of 77 Catholic radio stations, is now participating in DTS AutoStage.

Xperi says that given Radio Maria’s reach of roughly a half-billion listeners, this is its largest global radio integration to date.

[Related: “Cumulus Stations Support DTS AutoStage”]

DTS AutoStage is a hybrid radio platform that parent company Xperi Corp. is offering in 60 countries and hopes will be adopted by broadcasters and carmakers globally.

Hybrid radio systems combine over-the-air radio with IP delivered content. Xperi is working to make DTS AutoStage available widely in vehicles; it is available in the market so far in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

Radio Maria began as a parish radio station in 1983 in Milan, Italy. It now has 77 stations and is also heard on FM-world, a streaming and aggregation platform for radio stations run by 22HBG, which facilitated the integration of Radio Maria with DTS AutoStage.

[Related: “Xperi Has Big Ambitions for DTS AutoStage”]

The announcement was made by Joe D’Angelo, Xperi senior vice president, business development, broadcast, and Vittorio Viccardi, president of World Family of Radio Maria.

DTS AutoStage is based on a large database of broadcast metadata that Xperi highlights for its “large and stunning” artwork, artist and album information, personalization and other functionality.

 

The post Radio Maria Joins DTS AutoStage appeared first on Radio World.

Music scheduling software developer Powergold has a new edition of its eponymous program.

Called Powergold NXT, the company said “This ground-breaking music scheduling software release is a purpose-built response to the evolving needs of some of the world’s largest broadcasters.”

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

Powergold CEO/CTO Lance Olvey said, “Broadcasters around the globe were already moving toward technology hubs and decentralized working even before the worldwide pandemic. We observed these shifts and subsequently began to build Powergold NXT a number of years ago.” Adding, “COVID-19 only accelerated the need for a more robust scheduling solution that could accommodate many concurrent users working remotely in less-than-ideal networking conditions. It turned out to be the perfect environment in which to deploy Powergold NXT!”

According to Powergold, NXT is built on a Microsoft SQL database which will provide compatibility with most software and hardware it is likely to encounter in the broadcast plant and through remote operation.

According to Powergold, NXT also has enhanced functionality and flexibility that should give programmers more control over their music scheduling. In addition, rule optimization, schedule snapshots, element merge functions, music research imports, and an improved ‘undo’ function back to any point in time ensures will help users.

Send your new equipment news to radioworld@futurenet.com.

Info: www.powergold.com

 

The post Powergold Rolls Out NXT appeared first on Radio World.

Legislation being considered in the House and Senate could help local media outlets hire and retain skilled local journalists — and the National Association of Broadcasters is asking radio and TV broadcasters to press their Congressional leaders to take action.

Introduced this summer, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act is designed to help local news outlets keep local journalists on staff by providing tax credits to local media outlets that hire local reporters. A recent briefing on the NAB website titled “What Would the Local Journalism Sustainability Act Mean for Your Station,” NAB Executive Vice President of Government Relations Shawn Donilon suggested stations press their members of Congress to support the inclusion of the act as part of the current budget reconciliation package. Such a move would help stations continue to deliver both trustworthy local news and vital investigative journalism to local communities, Donilon said.

The legislation is designed to support local news production through a series of tax credits, including a local news subscription credit, a local newspaper and local media advertising credit and the local news journalist compensation credit — the latter of which is gaining significant traction in Washington, Donilon said. This item is designed to give any broadcast station that employs local journalists — defined as those who do original reporting, design or technology support for their local station and work more than 100 hours per quarter — credit for 50% of an employee’s compensation (up to $50,000) in the first year and credit for 30% of an employee’s compensation (also up to $50,000) in the subsequent four years.

The proposed legislation has a cap of 1,500 employees for any individual company, although negotiations on Capitol Hill are ongoing in regard to the size and scope of the policies, Donilon said.

It’s time for NAB members to reach out to their Congressional members and press them to support the Local Journalism Sustainability Act in the budget reconciliation package, he said. Support for the act already exists by senators like Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), a co-sponsor of the legislation, who has said that local news needs to be supported and protected. “At its core, local news is about holding the powerful accountable,” she said. “The strength of our democracy is based in truth and transparency and local newsrooms are on the ground in our communities asking the critical questions, countering misinformation and telling our stories.”

Passage of this legislation could have a significant impact on broadcasters as they work to keep their newsroom staff on payroll, Donilon said. In addition to a recent blog post by the NAB, Donilon suggested broadcasters voice their supports for the act by emailing legislators prepared text outlining why local radio and TV matter.

The legislation also has garnered support from state broadcast associations, media organizations like the News Media Alliance and organizations representing journalists like the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Native Public Media.

 

The post Sustainability Act Would Offer Tax Credit for Local Journalist Hires appeared first on Radio World.

This article is from a Radio World ebook. Click image to read more on this subject.

The author is president of Burk Technology.

If you have transmitter sites to care for, you know each emergency means an engineer on the road and possibly lost airtime.

Remote control systems have traditionally allowed transmitter observations to be made remotely, but modern systems are capable of much more. Here are some tips to improve routine maintenance and reduce emergency calls using the versatility of a modern remote control.

Virtual channels add meaning.

Virtual channels can take data from other channels and synthesize new data mathematically. Each virtual channel uses an equation to process this data in real time. These channels can be logged and used for alarms and to trigger macros and notifications just as regular channels. Here are a few classic examples, but you can probably think of more:

It’s getting hot!

Knowing the heat rise in your transmitter is important. Two temperature probes can give you a way to measure the rise in temperature in your transmitter. Simply use a virtual channel to subtract the input temperature (or even the room temperature) from the exhaust plenum temperature. Stack probes make it easy to pick up the temperature in a closed plenum. The virtual equation is simply M1 – M2.

Is your efficiency sufficient?

A sudden drop in transmitter efficiency means trouble. Look at the other readings to determine a possible cause. If it suddenly gets better, you likely have a faulty meter sample.

The formula for efficiency we are all familiar with is Power Out divided by Power In. The input power is final volts times current, so efficiency simplifies to P Out / E / I. (If this simplification doesn’t make sense, try it on paper.)

Assuming the first three metering channels, Fig. 1 shows the equation.

Set this virtual channel to alarm if too high or too low, and make sure you add it to the log.

It’s been a while.

Just how long have those air filters been in there? Set up a virtual channel for each such item and assign it to a timer. Elapsed hours can be accumulated and can trigger a warning if overdue.

As shown in Fig. 2, a command button for each can be used to reset the timers when the maintenance is performed.

Straight as an arrow

Ever have a sample that isn’t linear? Here is a fix:

Measure across the needed range and record actual and indicated values. You’ll need at least three points, but more is better.

Now put the actual and measured values in a graph in excel as shown in Fig. 3. Try different degrees of polynomials and pick the lowest order that gives you a good R squared value.

In this case a second order polynomial works well. The equation for Channel M1 becomes:

.0182 * M1 * M1 + 3.864 * M1 – 93.2.

Voila: a transfer function that is linear.

APIs add data.

There are many data sources that are not physically connected at the site but are available through an Application Programming Interface (API).

The obvious example is a source of free weather information such as weather.com. This can provide a virtual weather station that represents the conditions in a radius of about 1,500 meters of your site. Good enough to know when to automatically turn on the deicers. Add 0.35 degrees per 100 feet of antenna height. It’s 7 degrees colder at 2,000 feet!

Burk has an app note available that explains how to use APIs.

Alarm on low VSWR.

That’s not a typo! Most engineers alarm on high VSWR, as well you should, but there is also a reason to alarm if the meter sits on the left peg. A VSWR indication of near-perfect may look comforting, but it is likely a faulty sample. To assure VSWR protection, alarm if it is too good to be true.

Don’t miss a beat.

If you are lucky enough to have an auxiliary transmitter, you should already be switching to it automatically when the main transmitter fails.

It is important to test the aux regularly, but you don’t need to get out of bed to do it. Schedule a flowchart or macro to run the text on a regular basis.

Test on-air with the same sequence as your normal recovery. You will be testing the complete backup chain so recovery in a real failure will be smooth. Let your routine tell you about the test in the morning.

Mr. Pearson and his coefficient

Most of us diligently keep transmitter logs, but what do you do with the data? There is a lot of interesting information in there if you dump the log data into Excel and start digging.

Ever wonder if AC line voltage affects power out? Does the STL signal fade on warm days? How does tube age affect efficiency? Those are the kinds of questions that you can answer with a stack of logs and the Pearson correlation coefficient.

In Excel, fill two columns with the values to test and put “PEARSON(Array1,Array2)” in another cell as shown in Fig. 4.

The answer will be between –1 and +1, with zero indicating no correlation and one representing a perfect correlation.

Continuous Improvement

If your system has been in place for a few years, there are improvements that you can make to avoid future down time. Call your equipment suppliers or check the web for the latest updates.

The post Easy No-Budget Tips for Better Transmitter Care appeared first on Radio World.

The author is general manager and chief engineer of WIHS(FM).

Noncommercial, listener-supported WIHS/104.9 FM is a ministry of the Connecticut Radio Fellowship and broadcasts music plus local and national Christian programming to listeners in Connecticut, Western Massachusetts and parts of Long Island, N.Y.

I had worked at the station from 1985 to 1991, and returned last year as its general manager and chief engineer.

One of my first priorities is refurbishing all three of our station’s studios. The main objective is to update our technology, but also make the studios more aesthetically pleasing.

Phase 1 of the project was the upgrade of our on-air studio, replacing everything from the furniture and flooring to the audio console. At the heart of our technology overhaul was a significant upgrade to our ENCO DAD automation and playout system.

WIHS was a long-time satisfied ENCO customer, but our DAD deployment had not been updated in many years. The software was seven major versions behind the current release, and most of the hardware it was running on was well beyond the viable lifecycle for any computer platform. I felt like we were using the old system on borrowed time.

With our announcers familiar and happy with DAD already, we decided to stay on the ENCO platform for the upgrade. I wanted all of the equipment to come from ENCO so they could fully configure and test it before shipping it to us, making it mostly “plug-and-play” when we received it. We purchased everything turnkey from ENCO, from the mice and monitors to the workstations and network switch.

Rather than simply replacing the systems in our previous configuration, ENCO’s technical team re-architected our deployment to reduce our hardware requirements. Our old installation did not have a true server, and it had two workstations just running supporting utilities. By deploying a DAD server license on a new file server and consolidating those utilities onto it, we went from eight workstations down to five — a significant savings.

The upgrade went smoothly. An ENCO technician helped us migrate our existing DAD libraries to the new system and came to our station for final refinements and training.

Our staff members vary in their technical aptitude, but everybody has adapted nicely to the new system. We went on-air with our new ENCO deployment June 17, and it has made our playout extremely reliable and less prone to the usual issues associated with aging hardware.

Our station is roughly 60% programming and 40% music, and the DAD platform helps us by making program retrieval largely automated. The combination of the DAD DropBox utility (for watch folder monitoring) and enConveyor utility (for automating FTP and web downloads) lets us efficiently get programs into our system in ready-for-air formats with minimal intervention.

We are also in the process of deploying ENCO’s WebDAD for browser-based remote control of the DAD system. My intention is to be able to operate the station remotely, so I can give our on-air staff time off for major holidays or when we can’t find somebody to fill a shift. With WebDAD, I’ll be able to make any changes from home if needed, without requiring staff to be in the studio.

I have been pleased with both the new system and the upgrade process. The support and level of information we received from ENCO have been stellar, and we have peace of mind that we no longer have to worry about legacy equipment failing. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it again with ENCO.

Info: Contact Sam Bortz at ENCO Systems in Michigan at 1-248-827-4440 or visit www.enco.com.

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

The post User Report: WIHS Upgrades Automation With ENCO appeared first on Radio World.

Spotify announced several developments related to its Spotify Audience Network, the audio advertising marketplace it introduced last winter.

The company has made Anchor podcasts in the U.S. eligible to be part of the Spotify Audience network. Anchor is a Spotify hosting platform intended to help creators monetize their podcasts.

[Read: Spotify Expands Audience Network]

Also, Spotify plans to introduce podcast ad buying to Spotify Ad Studio, its self-serve channel, beginning in the U.S. It said beta testers buying ads via Ad Studio include the company Two Men and a Truck.

Spotify also is joining the Global Alliance of Responsible Media, launching the ability to exclude sensitive topics. It says this will give advertisers more control over where their message is heard across the network. Spotify is the first audio company to join GARM.

And the company is adding new controls to allow advertisers to target their messages against relevant podcast topics.

The ad marketplace is now active in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada.

It posted details on its blog.

 

The post Spotify Beefs Up Its Audience Network appeared first on Radio World.

In 2019–2020, Florida’s saltwater recreational fishing industry contributed $9.2 billion to the state’s economy. When COVID-19 finally wanes, that industry is likely to revive, as are saltwater recreational fishing industries off ocean coasts around North America.

For a diversification-minded technology company like SiriusXM, recreational fishing offers a natural business supplement to its core listening audience.

For decades, offshore fishing vessels have relied on radio for vital information. Today SiriusXM Marine is able to provide these craft with a Fish Mapping data service to identify areas in the ocean where the fish are most likely to be biting.

As an example of its activities in this area, SiriusXM announced this spring that it is now transmitting its Fish Mapping service to Furuno’s NavNet TZtouch3 line of multi-function displays (MFDs) equipped with BBWX4 SiriusXM Satellite Weather receivers.

“Furuno’s strong product line has always helped anglers get on the fish and catch them,” said Dean Kurutz, Furuno USA’s senior VP of sales, marketing & product planning, in the announcement.

“Now, with the advanced data provided by Fish Mapping, captains will have the ability to locate ideal fishing grounds by targeting specific species and sea conditions, maximizing their time on the water and helping save time and fuel.”

“Situational awareness” SiriusXM Weather and Fish Mapping on a boat helm

SiriusXM’s business case is based on providing listeners with a unique broadcast selection of entertainment, music and information audio channels.

Its North American satellite footprint covers from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts and adjoining waters. This is why “SiriusXM has provided key weather information for offshore anglers well beyond the reach of cell or internet signals for many years,” according to Geoff Leech, senior director of SiriusXM Marine Services.

“This information has provided anglers with valuable situational awareness while they are exposed out on the water.”

Initially, this weather service was voice-only. But eventually, under the name of SiriusXM Marine Weather, it was expanded to include weather and ocean data to onboard navigation displays made by Furuno, Garmin, Raymarine and the Navico brands Simrad, Lowrance and B&G.

These full-color displays allow boat operators to “see” the weather around them overlaid on top of their electronic navigation charts. The move made sense: Boat operators were willing to pay to access this data, and SiriusXM had the satellite distribution network in place to provide it to them.

SiriusXM Fish Mapping Plankton Front Strength and Sea Surface Temperature Front Strength help locate promising areas to fish.

So how did an information service for boats end up providing offshore fishing recommendations?

“One feature of SiriusXM Marine Weather that anglers value is Sea Surface Temperature data,” Leech replied.

“The areas where ocean surface temperatures change are often where bait fish find nutrients to feed on, and in turn the pelagic species of game fish feed on these bait fish. Knowing that many of our customers were already offshore anglers led us to develop Fish Mapping so we could provide additional fishing information for these valued customers.”

The Fish Mapping service costs $99.99 a month and includes SiriusXM Marine’s Weather information. The service can be suspended at no charge for up to six months each year.

The science

Fish Mapping works by identifying the qualities in areas of the ocean that influence the likelihood of finding desirable game fish such as marlin, tuna and wahoo, among others.

These ocean features include variations in sea surface height (upwellings of nutrients), surface/subsurface temperatures, “weed lines” — floating vegetation where fish congregate to find food and shelter, and where they are hunted by larger predator fish — and plankton concentrations.

SiriusXM Fish Mapping recommendations identify areas that oceanographers recommend for zeroing in on six target species.

At SiriusXM Marine Weather, “the data for our Fish Mapping service is provided by oceanographers from Maxar Technologies,” said Leech.

“Maxar is a satellite company that provides Google Earth imagery and other services including information to help find the best fishing conditions. The oceanographers at Maxar compile and analyze data from various sources and send it to SiriusXM to incorporate in our satellite feed for our Fish Mapping customers.”

This feed reaches boats up to 150 miles offshore. A SiriusXM receiver on the boat captures the signal, which is translated into images shown in large-screen format directly on the boat’s navigational display.

“Having onboard fishing-specific data showing the areas of the ocean where pelagic species of fish are most likely to congregate is seen as a true ‘game changer’ by offshore anglers,” Leech told Radio World.

“SiriusXM Marine Weather helps boaters stay away from dangerous weather so they can enjoy their time on the water, and Fish Mapping helps anglers find the best spots to fish, saving time and fuel.”

Happy customers

Finding that place where the fish are a-bitin’ is a constant question for fishing enthusiasts. SiriusXM’s Fish Mapping service harnesses science to answer this question, resulting in a lot of happy “fisherpeople,” if not happy fish.

“The ‘Fishing Recommendations’ are my favorite feature,” wrote Captain Greg Weaver of E-Fishing Sea Sport Fishing Charters in a testimonial sent to SiriusXM.

“In a recent trip, I headed out to the areas marked as recommended for wahoo. In addition to catching wahoo, I found that the area was productive with bait and I also caught tuna and marlin. Fish Mapping has already made a huge impact on where I take my charter customers.”

Dave Johnson, Mike Hatcher and Captain Tom Robinson of the fishing craft “Fixed Income” in Naples, Fla., told the company that after looking at SiriusXM’s Fish Mapping Fishing Recommendations feature on their Garmin plotter and seeing several recommended areas for wahoo, they aimed the Intrepid for one of the overlapping “fish bubble” areas about 80 miles offshore.

“We put two weighted wahoo flatlines out well behind the boat and two outriggers with skirts chugging over the wakes and trolled at 8.5 knots. We had our first wahoo on in minutes.”

Given its success in Fish Mapping, SiriusXM is understandably motivated to move into new areas beyond its core audio business.

“We are constantly exploring new and innovative services that would bring additional value to our existing and prospective subscribers,” said Geoff Leech.

The post SiriusXM Fishes for Diversification appeared first on Radio World.

Paul Schafer. Photo: Rob Schafer

This article was originally published in the June 8, 2016 issue of Radio World and posted to the Radio World website on June 10, 2016.

***

Radio World reported the passing of Paul Schafer earlier. This article is a more detailed story about his life.

Paul Schafer, who is called a father of radio programming automation technology, died this winter in Bonita, Calif., following complications from a fall. He was 90.

Schafer spent virtually his entire life in broadcasting, receiving his first FCC license as a teenager in 1942 and being hired to do on-air work the same year by WJOB in his hometown of Hammond, Ind. The following year he moved on to Fort Wayne’s WOWO where he had a chance to ply his engineering skills. After time out for World War II military service in the U.S. Army’s Signal Corp. division, he joined WANE in Fort Wayne, dividing his time between equipment maintenance, selling time and pulling air shifts. He eventually left Indiana for Virginia, where he was employed as chief engineer and assistant manager at Norfolk’s WNOR.

Schafer’s big career break came in 1951 with a move to California and employment at the network level as a summer relief engineer with NBC’s Hollywood broadcast operation. He worked with some of the biggest movie and radio talent of the day at NBC and later remarked that he had had a chance to be involved in “the last of the golden years in radio.”

Schafer poses with one of his transmitter remote control units in a 1950’s photo. Photo: Rob Schafer

Pioneered Transmitter Remote Control
It was during his stint at NBC that the FCC began to relax rules on transmitter operation, allowing certain classes of stations to operate without an operator at the transmitter site, as long as a licensed engineer could control and monitor operations from the station’s studio location. With the assistance of another NBC engineer, Bill Amidon, Schafer soon devised a remote control system that met commission requirements, and installed the first such unit at Oakland, Calif.’s KROW in 1953.

The introduction of this product marked the beginning of the Schafer Custom Engineering business. (Later the name was changed to Schafer Electronics.)

A few years after the launch of the remote control system, the National Association of Broadcasters used it in an extensive field testing program to test the viability of remote control for additional classes of radio stations. The NAB ultimately convinced the FCC to further relax rules governing operation of broadcast transmitters.

First Radio Program Automation
In 1956, Schafer was approached by the owner of KGEE in Bakersfield, Calif., to see if he could devise a system to provide overnight programming content without the involvement of a human operator on duty, thus allowing the station to further economize on operational expenses, as transmitter control and logging had already been remoted by Schafer.

The delivery of a package built around Seeburg jukebox 45 rpm record changer mechanisms and some Ampex reel-to-reel tape decks for playback of commercials and station IDs marked Schafer Electronics’ entry into the program automation business. This first system would be considered crude in comparison to later automation packages delivered by Schafer, but it marked the launch of a completely new technology in the broadcasting industry.

One of the Schafer Custom Engineering mobile automation system showcases used to demonstrate the product outside of trade shows. Photo: Rob Schafer

Schafer and his engineering staff went on to develop increasingly more versatile and sophisticated program automation systems, including the Model 903 that appeared in the 1970s and became an industry standard. His name became synonymous with radio automation and his client base eventually grew to more than 1,000, with systems installed at radio operations all over the world.

Schafer’s automation systems were marketed by Collins Radio, Gates (later Harris and now GatesAir), RCA and others, as they had no similar products of their own. Schafer Electronics’ latest creations were a big part of the NAB Show for many years. However, Schafer was aware that not all broadcasters were able to attend such trade shows and outfitted several busses and motor homes with his systems and went “on the road” to demonstrate the value of program automation to management and engineering staff at smaller stations across the United States.

Schafer sold Schafer Electronics in 1968, but launched a new business the following year, Schafer International. In the mid-’80s he founded a third business, Schafer Digital, which was involved in the development of PC-based program automation and traffic systems.

Stereo FM Validation
Schafer was tapped by the FCC in the 1960s — when AM radio was still king — to assist the commission in proving the worthiness of FM to broadcasters through some intensive field testing of the newly-adopted U.S. FM stereo broadcasting standard. (Part of the testing involved transmission of a stereo audio pair by satellite.)

Paul Schafer received the Radio Engineering Achievement Award from the National Association of Broadcasters in 2002. He is shown with NAB’s Lynn Claudy.

According to Schafer, the NAB also had a hand in the testing and demonstrations, as that organization believed that the U.S. FM stereo standard should be adopted worldwide.

He was honored with the NAB’s 2002 Engineering Achievement Award and authored a chapter on remote control for one of that organization’s Engineering Handbooks. Schafer was also the owner of a number of radio stations. His family included five children

A private ceremony to celebrate Schafer’s life is planned for June 18.

The post Paul Schafer Was a Father of Radio Automation appeared first on Radio World.

Here’s a story of interest to those who follow emergency alerting in the United States:

The FCC has now published the list of questions that it asked major wireless companies about the recent national test of the Wireless Emergency Alert system.

Answers from the companies to the questions were already available on the FCC website, but those answers make more sense now that the original questions are also publicly available.

The national WEA test was held in August concurrently with the national EAS test that involved broadcasters. The test would have been seen only by mobile users who had opted in on their devices.

The commission had sent letters to Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T ahead of time asking them to file voluntary comments about the performance of the test on their networks. (Read the letter.)

Among the questions it asked each to answer were: Did the carrier receive the nationwide test message and transmit it to its subscribers in all geographic areas where it offers WEA coverage? At what time, to the closest millisecond, did its gateway receive the alert from FEMA IPAWS, and when did it transmit the alert to subscribers? Were there complications with alert processing or transmission? What differences were noted in WEA performance between 3G, 4G and 5G networks?

The carriers’ responses are public; the links below will open or download their filed replies:

AT&T is confident the alert was transmitted to all geographic areas. The company said alert transmission to subscribers started 40 seconds after it received it from IPAWS. AT&T had employees in 37 cities enabling the test alert on a variety of Android and iOS devices and found a 99% completion rate, though apparently the test alert was received twice by some users. “We believe we understand the reason and are working with the vendor to confirm the cause of this duplication,” it wrote.

Verizon cited a 55-second turnaround time. It said it saw several cell sites restart at various times during the alert, so those sites were late to broadcast the alert, but it said customer impact would be minimal due to coverage redundancy. “The device would ignore the later alert broadcast of the restarted cell site as a duplicated alert because the devices had already received the same alert earlier from other available cell sites.” It also noted that it received anecdotal reports that some consumer handsets didn’t receive the alert, but said some users may have misunderstood how to opt into the relatively new State/Local alert category on their devices.

And T-Mobile said it had more 50 devices monitoring the test and that it had experienced no issues, even though real WEA alerts were issued in some parts of the country during the test. T-Mobile redacted some of the information in the public version of its letter, citing security reasons.

 

The post Carriers Report Success in National WEA Test appeared first on Radio World.

Office of FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington has made a pair of personnel announcements.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Marco Peraza will join the office as a wireline advisor and also advice on signal security issues. He previously served as a law clerk to Judge Michael B. Brennan on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Peraza also worked as a software engineer with Microsoft before going to law school. He will replace Carolyn Roddy who is joining the FCC International Bureau.

Erin Boone will take over the chief of staff position along with maintaining her position as a wireless advisor.

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

The post Peraza Joins Simington’s Office appeared first on Radio World.