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The Bureau enters into a Consent Decree with MCL/MCM Georgia, LLC

The Federal Communications Commission is questioning whether a licensee of a station in Pennsylvania is qualified to retain his license — or if it should be revoked after he pled guilty to felony use of a communication facility and several related misdemeanors.

The chief of the Media Bureau has begun a hearing proceeding to determine whether 70-year-old Roger Wahl, licensee of WQZS(FM) in Meyersdale, Pa., should be allowed to keep his broadcasting license.

In July 2020, Wahl pleaded guilty to criminal use of a communications facility (the station is located in his home) and four related misdemeanors after he admitted to recklessly endangering another person, unlawfully disseminating intimate images and tampering with evidence.

At the time of his sentencing in November 2020, the judge decided against jail time for Wahl due to his age and underlying health conditions that put him at risk for the coronavirus, according a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Wahl, the station owner as well as a disc jockey, pled guilty to secretly taking nude photographs of a woman inside her home using a concealed camera that had been installed in her bathroom. According to court documents, he also impersonated the woman on an online dating site, sent nude photos of the woman to at least one man whom he connected with through that site and solicited that man to have sexual relations with the woman without her consent. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one man from the dating site came to the woman’s address and was met by Wahl who solicited the man to rape the woman, according to authorities quoted by the Post-Gazette.

Once he learned an investigation was underway by the Pennsylvania State Police, Wahl was accused of tampering with evidence by deleting the nude photos from his mobile device and erasing the communications he made at the online dating site.

Initially, Wahl also pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy; after learning that that charge would require him to register as a sex offender, however, he withdrew that guilty plea and instead pled guilty to identity theft. He was sentenced to three years of probation, four months of electronic monitoring, and was required to pay $600 in fines as well as the costs of his prosecution and supervision.

Local sources also reported that Wahl was prohibited from hosting his morning show on WQZS for the duration of the electronic monitoring but has since returned to the airwaves.

Charges of this type — which in Wahl’s case include a third-degree felony, first-degree misdemeanor and several second-degree misdemeanors — raise the question of whether the holder of a broadcast license possesses the character qualities to remain a licensee. Following guidelines under the FCC’s Character Qualifications Policy Statement, the Media Bureau instigated a hearing proceeding in which an administrative law judge will serve as a presiding officer.

The commission has the authority to revoke a license when the character of an applicant is called into question, according to language within Section 312(a)(2) of the Communications Act. The Media Bureau started a hearing proceeding in this case because it considers any felony to be a serious crime. In some cases, certain misdemeanors may also be relevant when it comes to determining the character of a licensee. In this case, the bureau said it was necessary to evaluate Wahl’s character in light of the felony and multiple misdemeanor convictions.

[Read: FCC Hands Down Decision on Four St. Louis AM Stations]

“Furthermore, the fundamental purpose of the commission’s character inquiry is to make predictive judgments about an applicant’s truthfulness and propensity to comply with the [Communications] Act and [FCC] Rules,” wrote Media Bureau Chief Michelle M. Carey. “For this reason, we find that Wahl’s misdemeanor convictions directly implicate his character qualifications.”

If he chooses, Wahl has the opportunity to be heard by the administrative judge as part of the hearing proceedings. To do so, a written request must be filed within 20 days of the Notice of Opportunity for Hearing he received.

A hearing will commence from there to determine if Wahl has the qualifications to be a commission licensee and whether or not the license for station WQZS should be revoked.

 

The post Felony Conviction Leads FCC to Consider Revoking Station License appeared first on Radio World.

She has experience at the now-defunct Regent Communications, and joined Townsquare Media with that company’s acquisition of Regent more than a decade ago. Starting in Flint, Mich., this sales executive shifted to New Jersey and then returned to Flint in December 2013 after a year working for iHeartMedia in Chicago.

Now, after nearly eight years in her second stint at Townsquare, Zoe Burdine-Fly is flying off to Alpha Media.

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The year 2020 was a year like no other. A pandemic of global proportions will be written into the history books. So will actions tied to a summer of activism brought on by social unrest and renewed questioning of the “status quo.”

A call to action came to fruition as never before seen. And, CMOs and Brand Managers are paying attention as consumers watch and listen to how brands are reacting. Creative directors and media buyers are shifting greater focus and budget to better reach a more diverse audience. Yet, Hispanic advertising executives continue to lament that even with Census 2020 data in their hands, the ad spend versus the population remains out of whack.

What can your media company do? Ensuring someone sits in on an exclusive Forecast 2022 session devoted to the new American mainstream and how marketing and advertising must reach all consumers is a session definitely worth attending.

At Forecast 2022, Deborah Wahl, Global Chief Marketing Officer at General Motors, sits down with American Urban Radio Networks CEO Chesley Maddox-Dorsey for an exclusive conversation on GM’s commitment to increased minority media expenditures along with her thoughts on how broadcast media fits into GM’s marketing strategy.

They will be joined by Doug Ray, Chief Product Officer, Global Media at dentsu Americas, who has been instrumental in the creation and launch of Project Booker, an initiative focused on African American-developed and -owned content that is being distributed on African American-owned radio and is leading the way in how the global media agency community is doing business with African American-owned media.

REGISTER NOW!

Take advantage of Early Bird Registration while it is still available. To secure your seat in New York, simply click here.

He joined Nielsen in July 2016 as its VP of Finance, working his way up to SVP and Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer in December 2019.

Effective November 12, this C-Suite executive will no longer be a member of the Nielsen family.

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As traditional cable and satellite providers struggle to retain customers in the highly competitive and increasingly fragmented streaming media ecosystem, Black audiences, largely known as loyal cable and satellite television customers, are increasingly opting to cut the cord.

That’s the key takeaway from a new Horowitz study, released Wednesday.

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Virtual meetings will remain a major part of how we work for months, or perhaps years.

And, as longtime public relations professional and “Zoom” expert Rosemary Ravinal sees it, this will provide new opportunities for those who acquire the skills necessary to deliver world-class online presentations.

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With the final fate of his former FM radio stations still in limbo, as the FCC has not said yes to a transfer of control of the properties to VCY America from court-appointed receiver Larry Patrick, the most infamous licensee in the American West has moved forward with a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

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Nautel has introduced an online Factory Acceptance Testing program for new transmitters.

“A FAT is a set of predefined tests that many customers must witness being completed in real-time as part of project specifications,” the company stated in an announcement.

[Read: Transmitters Prepped for Turkey]

Test Supervisor Charles Andrews said restrictions on travel because of the pandemic have made it harder for clients to come to the factory.

Nautel said the test team can use online meeting platforms paired with virtual communications interfaces such as Teams or Team Viewer, to allow customers to witness transmitter testing in real time as part of their acceptance process.

“The Nautel AUI and multiple pieces of measurement equipment are employed along with a suite of cameras, wireless microphones and personnel to conduct the tests. Customers are able to communicate with their transmitter(s) via the AUI and view performance measurements throughout the final testing process,” it stated.

The company posted the video below to explain the process.

The post Nautel Introduces Online Testing appeared first on Radio World.

A broadcast company that says it is on the cutting edge of technology and the next generation of content delivery throughout the U.S. has just taken a big leap forward by selecting Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to power its next-generation ATSC 3.0 broadcast internet network — the potentially profit-generating benefit linked to what powers NEXTGEN TV.

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Gordon Smith, president/CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, is one of nine people being honored as “giants of broadcasting” by the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation.

Its list of giants was begun in 2003 and now consists of more than 200 broadcasters. The foundation will salute the new additions in an online ceremony on Nov. 9. (The nine additions are shown at bottom.)

“The Giants of Broadcasting celebration was created by LABF, a charity dedicated to preserving the past, reflecting the present, and informing the future,” the organization stated. “It was created to honor the remarkable creators, innovators, leaders, performers and journalists who have brought the electronics arts to the prominence they occupy today.”

Gordon Smith has led the NAB for the past 12 years. He will step down at the end of this year.

[Related: “The Broadcasters Foundation Honors Gordon Smith”]

Proceeds from the November online luncheon support the work of the LABF, including the Library of American Broadcasting, which is housed at the University of Maryland. It will also support student training and diversity initiatives of the International Radio and Television Society Foundation.

For event information email joyce@giantsofbroadcasting.com.

The 2021 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts honorees:

Emily Barr
President and CEO
Graham Media Group

Frank Boyle
President & CEO
Frank Boyle & Co.

Bob Costas
Hall of Fame sports broadcaster

Russell Perry
Founder & President
Perry Publishing & Broadcasting Co.

Robin Roberts
Co-anchor, “Good Morning America”
President, Rock’n Robin Productions

Marion Ross
Emmy, Golden Globe nominated Film and TV Actress
Cast member Marion Cunningham. “Happy Days”

Neal Shapiro
President & CEO
The WNET Group

Sen. Gordon H. Smith
President & CEO
National Association of Broadcasters

Jordan Wertlieb
Senior vice president, Hearst Communications
President, Hearst Television

 

The post Gordon Smith Is Among the New Broadcasting “Giants” appeared first on Radio World.

Sean Edwards

The author is director, RF engineering at Shively Labs.

We all want to get the most value out of money spent.

RF system repair can be costly. However, a well-implemented maintenance program can greatly reduce the need for repairs — and when there is damage or degradation to a system, that program can detect and address the issue early, when repair costs are low.

One very useful tool in RF system maintenance is baseline measurements.

Taken at the time of acquisition or system commissioning, these provide a snapshot of the condition of the RF system. They can then be compared to later measurements and reveal trends in performance.

These measurements might include transmission line sweeps, transmitter operating parameters, forward and reflected power samples, thermal readings of filters, transmission line and connections, current and resistance measurements of deicer systems, RF spectrum measurements, pressurization and signal coverage.

The hardware between the transmitter output and the antenna radiator is the final stage of the FM transmission system. This part of the transmission system can contain RF switches; directional couplers; elbow complexes; band-pass, band-stop and notch filters; long transmission line runs; power splitters; “T”s; matching networks; feeder cables, etc.

It’s crucial to the delivery of signal to your coverage area to take the time to get this section right and then keep it right.

During antenna installation, the tower crew and site manager rely on manufacturers to show clearly the antenna position and orientation on the tower.

I’ve seen this exchange break down, resulting in antenna parasitic elements mounted in the wrong position, causing both high VSWR and poor coverage. Fortunately, it was a quick fix to correct the VSWR and signal coverage. Unfortunately, it required a tower crew and two engineers to visit the site.

If care is taken with the details during installation and the system is optimized, it’s at its best and should provide years of service.

(I left the “trouble free” part out intentionally. RF system maintenance … what can break? It’s just bent pieces of metal, right?)

Proactive mindset

Just about anything can happen to cause failure in an RF system.

Installing coax hangers.

Antenna damage from wind, falling ice, lightning, tower work, vandalism, loose connections and aging components are just a few. When an engineer has multiple systems to take care of, something always seems to be in need of attention.

One way we have some control over such failures is regular system maintenance.

Have you ever checked site parameters after a significant weather event and found that some parameter had changed — not to the point of failure, but enough to prompt an investigation? Then upon a closer look you found damage that needed repair?

Or perhaps on a routine site visit, you discovered excessive heat on one or more components, and upon further investigation found an elbow that was nearly kaput — it would have failed catastrophically within weeks or days.

This is proactive maintenance and repair. If these near-misses haven’t happened to you, they likely will.

Had you been unable to check those readings after that storm and thus could not notice increasing VSWR, or had you not visited that site and noticed the hot elbow, the condition would have persisted, worsened and eventually failed, taking your station off the air.

That call usually comes at midnight on Super Bowl weekend.

Burns are visible where wire had been used to secure a flexible 3-inch line.

Checking sites that have suffered through extreme weather events is a prudent practice. So are regular visits, even to sites that may be considered trouble-free. The periodicity will vary — more frequent for trouble sites, perhaps quarterly or even semiannually for more reliable sites.

Annual tower climbs are great if it’s in the budget, but when they are not possible, we come back to intimate knowledge of system performance and those baselines, and running history logs that allow us to review for any indication that a problem has started and at what rate it is changing.

This can be useful information when determining if you need to scramble to make a maintenance visit immediately or can schedule for a later date.

Sample issues

Some things to look for when inspecting for damage in the antenna:

• Loss of dry air pressure, whether entirely or through a slow leak.
• Missing or damaged radiators. Pay close attention to the ends of the radiator and the feed points.
• Kinked, compressed or burned cables.
• Broken or unsealed radomes and/or plugged drains that cause water to collect.
• Parasitic elements in place and undamaged.

These damaged components are an example of the “outside in” sort of burn that can occur when lines pass too close or touch other coax or tower members.

In more complex systems, the power dividers and coaxial lines should be installed without undue mechanical stress on the components.

The coax should have the appropriate hangers and fasteners where they cross tower members or other antenna feed components. Consult the manufacturer for specific recommendations and best practices.

Antennas that have deicers systems usually have an external wiring harness to distribute AC power to each heating element within each radiator. The manufacturer will have the resistive values for each element and current draw to expect.

An ammeter measurement of each leg of the circuit, including the neutral, will give the first clues to the condition of the deicer system.

If the wiring harness was not installed correctly or fasteners have fallen away over time, the harness can hang in the high RF environment. This can cause reflected power issues at the transmitter and changes in coverage; it can cause currents to be induced into the wiring harness, and voltages large enough to cause arcing between the conductors of the wiring harness and tower members or other cables that pass in close proximity.

Visual documentation

Finally, take lots of photos, photos, photos.

This is a great way to document how the antenna was installed and its current state. When you share photographs with the antenna manufacturer, they have very useful information to inform their recommendations.

With a single-radiator antenna it will be obvious when something is not quite right. On panel antennas, the multiple bays, multiple radiators per bay and numerous feeder cables can really mask a problem.

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

This brings to mind a recent incident where a station engineer noticed a slight increase in VSWR from 1.05 to 1.15. This occurred right after a tower crew had been working above the antenna, removing old TV equipment.

The engineer noticed the change and hired a crew to climb and inspect the antenna. They found that a cable had been caught at some point during the rigging and pulled sideways until it caused a severe kink at the point where it attached to the radiator input.

If the indications had not been heeded and the cable replaced, the next indication would have been loss of pressure, resulting from a coax burn. And we know what happens when we let the magic smoke out.

Ultimately, having an intimate knowledge of your system’s performance, both within the RF system and in the coverage area, will serve you well. This knowledge will allow you to prioritize your maintenance schedule by need, effecting maintenance to correct small problems before they become big expensive ones.

The post Tips for RF System Installation and Maintenance appeared first on Radio World.

Audacy has acquired “an exclusive, perpetual license” to WideOrbit’s digital audio streaming technology and the related assets and operations of WO Streaming — a cloud-based distribution and monetization platform for live and on-demand audio streams.

The acquisition, recently hinted at by Audacy, Inc. thanks to an SEC fiing, gives the company formerly known as Entercom control of the WideOrbit digital audio tech business.

President/CEO David Field says it “perfectly complements” Audacy’s organic investments to make the company’s digital platform a top choice for listeners, clients and partners.

Audacy will operate WO Streaming under the name “AmperWave.”

Importantly, the entire WO Streaming team, led by John Morris, SVP of Streaming, has joined Audacy.

While terms of the transaction were not disclosed, the WO Streaming deal is directly tied to Audacy’s October 13 statement that it planned to offer $45 million in aggregate principal amount of subsidiary Audacy Capital Corp.’s 6.500% senior secured second-lien notes due 2027.

The “Additional Notes” served as what’s called on Wall Street an “ad-on offering,” and it was done expressly for Audacy to complete “a small digital acquisition” for approximately $40 million.

That would be the price tag of this WideOrbit deal.

In addition to its radio and digital audio products, WideOrbit is highly active in the broadcast and cable television space, in addition to programmatic TV buying. Led by CEO and founder Eric Mathewson, WideOrbit is now poised to focused solely on visual media.

Audacy Inc. said it has acquired “an exclusive, perpetual license” to WideOrbit’s digital audio streaming technology and the related assets and operations of WO Streaming.

It will operate the business under the name Amperwave.

“This acquisition gives Audacy control of its product roadmap to deliver enhanced consumer-facing streaming features for its 170 million monthly listeners,” the media company stated in the announcement, which was made by Chairman/President/CEO David Field.

WO Streaming is a cloud-based distribution and monetization platform for live and on-demand audio streams. Field said the acquisition is a complement to Audacy’s existing investments in digital audio.

In this deal, Audacy is purchasing technology and the assets and operations of WO Streaming, which is a separate business unit within WideOrbit. WO has other products including radio automation, traffic, business intelligence and sales services that are not involved in this transaction.

Audacy will operate WO Streaming under the name AmperWave.

“The entire WO Streaming team, led by John Morris, SVP Streaming, has joined Audacy,” it stated. A spokesperson declined to say how many people that entails.

The post Audacy Acquires WideOrbit’s Streaming Business appeared first on Radio World.

As announced in May, Gray Television has agreed to acquire Meredith Local Media. One month later, after an unsolicited counteroffer emerged, Gray sweetened its deal, agreeing to pay $2.825 billion in cash.

Now, in order for Gray to satisfy terms that call for Meredith Corporation shareholders to receive $16.99 per share in cash and 1-for-1 equity share in post-close Meredith, it is amending and restating its senior credit facility while concurrently seeking an additional incremental term loan valued at $1.5 billion.

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A user screen on BE’s AudioVAULT V11.

Broadcast Electronics introduced its first AudioVAULT automation system in 1989. The company is now part of the Elenos Group.

Bob Demuth is business development manager, studio systems. 

RW: What trends in automation stand out for you?

Demuth: Automation suppliers have two kinds of clients: larger enterprise clients and smaller, more mom-and-pop clients. Both want the ability to do more with fewer people, to empower the staff they have to do as much as they can and from anywhere. 

Even mom-and-pops might have a station in Keokuk, Iowa, and a station in Moline, Ill. They aren’t iHeart or Beasley but they still have multisite operations, and they’re looking to maximize their efficiency and labor force. 

Our development is geared as much as possible to provide remote voicetrack capability, remote production capability, remote scheduling capability, which might be from home or another location. 

RW: When you’re sitting down with somebody who’s considering a system and they say “Well, I hear I need to be thinking about the cloud,” how does that conversation go?

Demuth: I’m in development and I also run international sales for BE, so I get both sides of this. 

Nobody wants all their eggs in a cloud basket. That’s the overwhelming response that I get.

They’re happy to have the cloud as a backup, as a storage or transfer point for audio, but nobody wants their final playout audio coming from the cloud at this point.

This is a personal opinion, but the next war is not going to be bombs and missiles, it’s going to be an attack on infrastructure. And the major infrastructure that we all use every minute of every day is the internet. 

Playout from the cloud is only as good as that connectivity. If that goes away, what do you do? 

So most of my customers look at the cloud as more of a backup and a transfer medium rather than a primary playout source.

I’m an old-school radio engineer, I would rather invest my time and money with a playout system at my transmitter site that’s fully linked. If I lose my connectivity, whether it’s IP connectivity or traditional microwave, at least I have something that’s still running on its own. 

We’re working now on one of the largest AudioVAULT projects BE has ever done, a major customer that runs a couple of dozen networks. They’re uplinked, streamed and delivered via set-top boxes around the world.

One of their design criteria was that we did not depend on their corporate VPN for the distribution of the audio. This is a large company with a lot of resources and some of the best connectivity, but they are not prepared to make their primary, or even backup, broadcast functions dependent on that connectivity.

This article is excerpted from the ebook “Automation: The Next Phase.” Click the cover to read it.

I know National Radio Systems Committee working groups are looking for a cloud-based solution for HD Radio, a solution that takes the hardware out of it and puts the software on the cloud for encoding of HD1, HD2 etc., and centralizing it. But it seems to be driven by the larger corporate broadcaster companies more than the average broadcaster.

Currently our cloud offering is about transferring assets via the cloud, with automatic or on-demand uploading, storing and transferring, making those assets available across an organization’ s locations. We will be coming out with a cloud-based playout system for backup use later this year. There is no technical reason this couldn’t be used for on-air if there is enough internet bandwidth available for the desired audio quality. But I do not see many people looking for that as their primary cloud source.

RW: Do you see more joint projects happening, for instance between automation and the AoIP network?

Demuth: Absolutely. We need to be doing more than just pumping out automation over AoIP, meaning playing audio over a WheatNet, Livewire or Dante audio driver. We need more of an integrated functionality with console providers.

Why don’t we see more joint development? Some of us try to cooperate, but if a company like Telos Alliance decides to do joint development with BE, how do they deal with RCS or with WideOrbit? Will Wheatstone continue to cooperate and develop with BE?  

Pick one and you alienate the other. That’s the biggest block to all working together is our natural, competitive nature. That, and how do we deal with proprietary information and “trade secrets.”

Yet there is more going on than some engineers might realize. For instance, we offer complete remote control capability with both Axia Livewire and WheatNet, we’re doing more than just sending AoIP out of our playout system and plugging it into an Ethernet switch. We’re also able to send control commands to control surfaces, whether they’re virtual or hardware consoles, whether it’s Axia or Wheatstone or Lawo.

RW: Engineers need to know about a supplier’s tech support.

Demuth: We have a team of experienced customer service people, some who’ve worked there since the beginning of AudioVAULT. As a customer I bought my first AudioVAULT around 1995. We have had some people working since 1990. There’s experience, accessibility, knowledge, also IT skills. 

We all depend on the operating system, and if the operating system has issues, or if the local installation has issues, we have to be able to identify those and point the engineer in the right direction and not just kiss it off and say, “Hey, that’s your network switch, you’ve got too much traffic.” We have to be able to help them troubleshoot it without fixing their IT issues for them.

We are fully manned in Quincy, Ill., 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central time. Outside of those hours, we have a callback system and try to respond to any emergency call after-hours within 15 minutes. Our average callback is between 15 and 30 minutes. 

I used to run engineering for Beasley Broadcast Group from 1990 to 2007. I chose AudioVAULT back in 1990 and I never regretted it.

RW: What other factors should buyers be considering?

Demuth: If I take my sales and development hats off and go back to my engineering hat, the question is reliability and redundancy. 

Is your audio stored in multiple places? What happens if you lose one of those places? Can you get seamless continuity of broadcast operations from this system? 

There will always be hardware failures; how does the automation system deal with those failures and provide the broadcaster with rock-solid, reliable playout no matter what happens?

Obviously we can’t control power, e can’t control connectivity; that’s the customer’s responsibility. But assuming they can provide continuous power and provide continuous connectivity, how do we keep continuous audio play?

AudioVAULT offers the ability to store audio on separate servers. So if Server A dies, Server B is reading ahead on that same, or the cloud engine is reading ahead on that Server B. And you can reboot Server A and there’s not even a pop or a click, when Server B picks up. 

That’s the kind of system you want. If your main playout engine fails, you want not to have to use a silence sensor to switch over to a backup playout engine that’s playing within a half a song of your main one. Ideally you want to go seamlessly to the backup playout system, without any interruption in programming, so that your listener wouldn’t even notice; that’s what AudioVAULT provides. 

You want tools to maintain and operate your system from anywhere. To do production, to do scheduling, to do cloud control, automation control and maintenance from anywhere.

This would be the same if I’m a mom-and-pop or if I’m iHeart.

I’m a very small part-owner of two little radio stations in Aspen, Colo., and I chose AudioVAULT back in in 2005. We have a main system in the studio room, a backup system in the studio room and a tertiary system at the transmitter site, which is at a 10,000-foot elevation.

In the winter, the only way to get there was with a Sno-Cat. I wanted a system that could give me that main, give me that backup and give me that tertiary system, and a transmitter in case I lose all connectivity and can’t get up there for 72 hours or whatever. As long as I can send my logs out 72 hours in advance or I could send them out seven days in advance and I’m still on the air. That’s what I want.

RW: One engineer said about automation, “If I can’t install it or fix it, maybe I shouldn’t have it.”

Demuth: That’s just guys who don’t understand their own limitations and the difference between hardware and IT, software-based, solutions. Hardware is easy to self-install, but software requires specific configuration and integration with IT infrastructure.  There is too much risk that an engineer will miss something that will compromise the reliability of the system. 

You want the automation supplier to install the system and configure it and teach you how to do it properly. You don’t want someone who’s not familiar with the software to be doing this on their own. 

You want them to be integrally involved with the installation, whether it’s done remotely or on-site; there’s no substitute for the on-site engineer and production people. But all of this stuff is too complex for someone to take a piece of software, run “install” and expect to use it and get the best results. 

RW: Virtualization?

Demuth: Virtualization is really important to larger customers because it allows them to reduce their hardware profile. For the larger systems that I’m putting in — I’m not going to say they’re exclusively virtual, but virtualization is the future of computing. 

It raises some challenges, because if you’ve got four virtual servers on one piece of hardware, you only have one video output. How do you deal with some of interface challenges? Your software has to work a little differently. But I believe it is not only the wave of the future, it is the current best practice for larger operations.

RW: Another engineer told me, “I don’t like it when suppliers go back to the well all the time with upsells.”

Demuth: AudioVAULT is all-inclusive software. You buy a license and you get all of our tools. 

There are some options that are add-ons, but we are upfront about them. An example is our remote access stuff. It requires a separate gateway server, because if you’re going to open up your automation system to the internet, which is what you have to do to remote voice track and remotely operate, you need an interface sitting on a firewall. 

So the internet traffic talks to the gateway server, and then the gateway server talks to the automation system, so the outside world can’t get to your automation system. 

Another example are our cloud-based tools. They are extras, because not everybody wants those functions, but that’s not an upsell. We’re straight about that from day one, we don’t hide anything.

But we don’t sell the production screen separate from the import screen, separate from the automation screen, etc. It’s a single, all-inclusive, license for all normal station functions. 

RW: And what about low-cost or free software that’s out there?

Demuth: What is your tolerance for being off the air? That’s the answer to these cheap automation systems. 

The post BE’s Demuth: Reliability and Redundancy Are Crucial appeared first on Radio World.

Larry Langford

A young chief engineer who knew a lot more about computers than transmitters and analog audio systems recently asked me for help in tracking down on-air distortion that had affected his mom-and-pop station for some time.

The station did have on-air distortion. It was not terrible, just bad enough to notice, though the longer you listened, the more it irritated — a real turnoff for Time Spent Listening.

It sounded to me a bit like the audio was going through an amp with bad power supply filters, and it had a raspy edge on voice. But identifying the source of the problem by ear was difficult.

This was an AM station that had an FM translator mounted on the hot tower, a situation that can present its own set of challenges. The distortion was evident on the FM. But a critical listen revealed that it was present on AM as well!

This pretty much ruled out my thought that high RF at the tower was being rectified on the audio input to the translator and showing up as audio distortion. So it was time to take a look at the audio chain.

Clamp!

Pretty straightforward: Program was being delivered from the studio miles away, with digital uncompressed audio sent over fiber. It sounded good going in, and it sounded good coming out. Yet the on-air product definitely was distorted.

The audio was fed to the FM via a buried 1,000-foot cable to the tower. That line was driven by a pair of old super-quality Western Electric 111C repeat coils set up for 600 ohms in and 600 ohm line out with center tap grounded — the perfect way to send audio in an RF field. This arrangement no doubt had been set up by a previous chief who knew the magic of repeat coils for long lines.

Audio from the codec was connected to a Broadcast Tools switcher, then to the program line that fed the AM processors and the FM line to the tower.

I grabbed a handheld oscilloscope — something the young chief had never seen — and pulled the output connector from the switcher. I gave it a look on the scope with a 600-ohm load, and it showed nice clean peaks at about +8 dBm — looked good, sounded good.

I plugged it back in and bridged the line with the scope. Aha! The scope showed clipping with the peak levels closer to +3 dBm and a definite ceiling.

There was trouble here, but why?

Audio level on the coils was well under the +30 dBm (1 watt) design limit for the rugged four-pound 111Cs.

Still searching for the problem, I spotted a couple of black boxes where the cable leaves the building. These were Grommes~Precision TLS lightning suppressors.

When I looked up their data sheet, things started to make sense.

The TLS contains multiple stages of lightning protection. This unit is designed for protection of audio paging circuits with an RMS audio level of 1 volt. On a 600-ohm line, 0 dBm (1 milliwatt) is .774 volts, so with a level of +8 dBm (1.94 volts) the line level was crossing the clamp point for the TLS.

While the spec sheet shows a switching to ground level of 25 volts, the unit starts clamping just over one volt.

Us old guys

While finding this problem was a bit of a challenge, fixing it was a snap. With the drive to the line reduced to –3 dBm (.5 volts) on the PPM meter, things sounded great.

Another solution would have been replacing the TLS units with LLS models that have a pass rating of 6 volts (17 dBm), which is better suited for broadcast levels. But we work with what we have.

Now you might ask, why did the AM sound bad if the problem was on the FM stereo pair?

The Broadcast Tools switcher derives its mono output (used by the AM) by passive combining of L+R internally from the stereo output. So if the stereo line gets clamped, so does the mono line!

I suggested and installed a set of 1000-ohm buildout resisters on the output of the switcher, the better to isolate the FM feed, just as a precaution. With the 111C coils set up for center tap ground, the TLS might not have been needed at all; but better too much protection than not enough.

With the elimination of the distortion, the station was able to process a bit harder, increasing the loudness while improving the sound quality — a win-win for sure.

While I was there I couldn’t resist teaching my young friend to reduce the AM modulation peaks from 130 percent positive (yikes!) 100 percent negative, to about 90 percent symmetrical. He heard the difference and agreed to keep it that way.

The takeaway here is simple: Read spec sheets, and know how adding devices will affect your overall sound.

My assist call also underlined a growing problem in broadcasting. “Us old guys” know analog audio and issues peculiar to AM. The new “engineers” are not getting that knowledge, learning only about digital and computer networks. I hate to say it, but institutional knowledge is dying as more of us become silent keys.

Solution? Us old guys need to take every opportunity to reach one, teach one.

The author is chief engineer and owner of WGTO Cassopolis, Mich., and W246DV South Bend, Ind. Read more of his past articles.

Share your own tech tips or stories about how you solved a problem. Write to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Distortion Detective: The Case of the Irritating Audio appeared first on Radio World.

The pages of RW Engineering Extra are where the finest engineers hang out! Engineers like Stephen Lockwood, Cris Alexander, Jeff Keith and Jeff Welton, whose latest stories you’ll find here.

The FCC recently adopted new rules regarding RF human exposure limits. Lockwood, president of Hatfield & Dawson Consulting Engineers, discusses what radio engineers should know about them.

Keith of Wheatstone writes that there are many tools available to help quantify the performance on your air chain. Good Engineering Practice doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Alexander reminds us not to overlook the possible simple solution when we’re confronted with a problem. And Jeff Welton explains the beauties of ferrite toroids.

Read it here.

The post Inside the Oct. 20, 2021 Issue of RW Engineering Extra appeared first on Radio World.

An AM/FM combo, along with an FM translator, serving a small Ohio municipality is being spun.

That could explain the buzzards flying around the building, if you will.

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