The FCC has announced that stations have 180 days from today to implement CAP (Common Alert Protocol) which makes the expiration date March 29, 2011. This is exciting! Don’t you feel excited? I thought so.
More of a CAP description here.
Good luck!
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DigiKey has a mobile app for you. Its not that I like Digikey better than any of the other major parts dealers like Mouser, Newark, Allied, etc. They seem to be the first ones with a searchable mobile app and it seems to work well and it saves time. One of the things that I do not have very much of these days is time so anything that can move a project or repair along is welcome. I also don’t have anything against Radio Shack, either, they have simply moved away from the parts business. What could be so bad about going to an AM transmitter site on an peninsula off of the Long Island Sound. Sounds pretty nice, right? It began just so, driving through the town of Stratford Beach parking lot to the construction gate, the towers were visible off in the distance. A nice crushed gravel road across the barrier island, I have certainly been to worse places.  WICC towers Pleasure Beach Island, CT And then, things begin to look a little bit different. It is really hard to put into words, seems like some other country.  The beginning of the Pleasure Beach Bungalow Colony It turns out this is not quite the nice trip after all.  Pleasure Beach Lawless Zone I’ve been to several so called “developing areas” like Port Au Prince, Hatti for example. Nothing ever looked this bad.  Pleasure Beach Ocean Side Bungalow I can imagine some family coming here every summer to spend time at the beach.  Burned out bungalows What anarchy looks like.  Pleasure Beach burned out cottage The back story is this: From the 1920′s up until 1996, Pleasure Beach was a nice seasonal oceanside bungalow colony, complete with an amusement park. These cottages (but not the land they were on) were owned by people from the surrounding cities and towns and the entire area appeared to be quite nice in it’s day. Then, in 1996, the wooden bridge that connected Pleasure Beach to Bridgeport burned. There are several theories; crack heads, radical environmentalist, etc. The city of Bridgeport did not rebuild the bridge, which meant the only access was by walking from the Town of Stratford beach parking lot, at trek of at least a mile or longer. In 2007, the town of Stratford decided not to renew these land leases and the building owners were forced to remove any remaining items they wanted by barge. Soon thereafter vandals began walking down the peninsula from Stratford. Slowly, most of the bungalows were broken into and several were burned. This is mostly the work of “kids,” who, because they are under the age of 18, get a slap on the wrist and returned to their parents. Oh, those wacky kids, what will they do next? Truth be told, they should be the ones out here cleaning this up, for free. Finally, this year, the city began tearing down and cleaning up the remaining buildings, trying to put the former bungalow colony “back to nature.”  WICC transmitter building The transmitter site for WICC moved here in 1932. This building contained a night time operating studio, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. I can imagine hanging out here some summer night, spinning tunes and having a good time. The former amusement part is just out of the picture to the left. At the amusement park, there was a carousel, a big snack bar, a dance hall and an area for portable rides like Ferris Wheals and such. Now the building is full of disused gear, old carts, transmitter and tower parts, the water has been shut off and I’d not want to be out here at night under any circumstances.  WICC north tower The antenna array consists of two 300 foot Milliken towers, originally from WNAC. Many people mistakenly think these are Blaw-Knox towers. Milliken preceded Blaw-Knox by several years. They built and designed towers around the world for radio and electric transmission. In the late 1930′s they were bought out by Blaw-Knox, which kept the design. I love these tapered self supporters, they have survived several major Hurricanes since 1932. The south tower is about 150 yards from the Long Island Sound. Salt air seems to do them no harm, either.  WICC Milliken south Tower, looking up The station operates at 1 KW day, 500 watts night, DA2. The towers are 60 degrees tall, space 149 degrees. That is a little short, however, they are surrounded by salt water, so the signal goes like gangbusters. Because they are short, the impedances are low, about 10 ohms for night time and 30 ohms for daytime. Since the towers are so wide, the impedances are flat far beyond 50 KHz either side of the carrier, which makes it a nice broad banded antenna system. The 1932 phasors and ATUs were redone in 1972. All of the common point impedance measurements are still posted on the wall.  WICC Harris SX-1A, Phasor and Harris HC1H The main transmitter is a 1990 Harris model SX-1A. It seems to be reliable enough, my experience with the SX-1 is it has an overly complicated control system. The back up is a Harris BC1H, a sort of hybrid solid state tube unit, which is also reliable.  WICC frequency and voltage meter This high tech test and measurement center is attached to the incoming electrical service. Over the years, there has been some quality control issues with the incoming electrical service, mostly due to Osprey’s building nests on the cross arms. During rain storms, these nests catch on fire and kill the power to the site. The power company is in the process of redoing the electrical service to the building. This is a video of the former amusement part and cottages shot two years ago, when the cottages were more or less intact. It is a bunch of stills set to Pink Floyd music: Looks like they all just got up and left. There seems to be a growing trend lately; Stations that had previously separate programming being simulcast. There are two big ones around here: WGY and WHRL and WPLJ and WXLM. Lets begin with the first one: WGY, now WGY AM/FM. WGY (Clear Channel Communications) has been the regional power house since it’s inception in 1922. It consistently ranks in the top 5 arbitron ratings for Albany/Schenectady/Troy NY and is well received in the community. It carries the standardized Clear Channel talk radio format of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, etc. As of September 20th, WHRL 103.1, class A licensed to Albany changed it’s call sign to WGY-FM and began simulcasting WGY 100%. 103.1′s 60 dBU contour is entirely within WGY 2.5 MV/M contour. It would seem that radios, even bad radios, would have no problems picking up WGY’s signal within the 103.1 listening area. According to Clear Channel Management:
There is some small amount of truth to that statement; the younger segment of the population generally never listens to AM. Yes. The reasons, however, are not just because it is AM and they are prejudice. More likely, there is nothing on the AM dial that interests them. Satellite syndicated talk is not everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak. The other side of the coin is the former WHRL had an alternative rock format, which never did all that great (I have a theory on why Alternative Rock, AAA and other such formats never get good ratings, but not right now). They also had a station staff, which by the time they pulled the switch, was down to one person. The Capital District Business Review notes:
Which is really not bad for a class A FM in market #63, during a recession. Apparently, not good enough however. The second example in our little story is that of WPLJ and WXLM. WPLJ 95.5 (Citadel Broadcasting) is of course one of the heritage FM stations in Market #1. WXLM 104.7, now known as WELJ broadcast from the far eastern end of Long Island (Market #18), so the respective coverage areas do not over lap. Prior to September 24th, that station was doing a News/Talk format. That end of Long Island is pretty affluent, a local (unique) station might even prosper. In fact, up until 2003 it did quite well for itself, then known as “The Beach.” However, nothing lasts forever and in 2003 Citadel Broadcasting purchased the station. It has gone through a number of changes since then, most recently a syndicated news talk format. Unless I am missing it completely, the last ratings period, this station did not even show up in the book. As of September 21, it began to simulcast the co-owned out of market AC station, likely for the drive by PPM listeners in it. Again, no word on the fate of the former radio station’s staff (if there was one). So what gives? Consolidators have already cut staff levels to the bone with voice tracking, syndication and automation. Even a voice tracked syndicated station still need some staff members; the occasional morning show, somebody to do promotions, some form of program direction do to things like music logs and other such behind the scenes work. Staff require salaries and salaries are expensive. Anyone that has ever looked at a companies P&L can tell you, salaries are the number one expense. If, however, the entire format is blown out, and something can be plugged in to fill the void that costs nothing and has no overhead and no staffing, well, now they are really saving money. That money from reduced expense is much better (far easier) than actually earning more money and it goes right to the bottom line. This never ending drive to reduce expenses at the expense of everything else drives programming quality and thus entertainment value down. Who wants to listen to radio and be bored? Not I. This continuing trend is what will ultimately spell the end of terrestrial radio. I am not sure what the purpose of this is for, or who put it there:  Mystery 66 block The mystery type 66 punch block mounted high up on the wall in the hallway. The contractors are removing the carpeting on the wall and drywalling over it, when they reached this, they just cut around the block and kept going. On one side is a teflon jacketed 25 pair category 3 phone wire, which goes back to the rack room, somewhere. The rack room is a little disorganized and it is difficult to mess around with the various bundles of wire without knocking a station off the air. On the other side is a bunch of 1N1004 diodes punched down. Perhaps some sort of door light circuit? Or maybe a remote channel selector for one of those old Scientific Atlanta 7300 series satellite receivers? I don’t know. I used my big wire loppers and cut the cable. There were no sparks and everyone stayed on the air. I pulled the whole thing down and removed it, so the drywall contractor can finish patching the holes. The entire facility is getting gutted and redone soon. I give to you, the original Texar Audio Prism:  Texar Audio Prism I love the sound of these units when coupled with an Optomod 8100A. Many people have (or rather, had) difficulty setting these things up. I found them to be very easy to deal with, just follow the instruction manual. If that doesn’t sound good, then there is something wrong with the unit. Over the years, there are only a few consistent problems. The first thing is with the voltage regulators. They have heat sinks attached with nylon screws. The screws get brittle and fall apart, making the regulator overheat and go bad. I have taken to replacing the nylon screws, and if the heat sink has fallen off, the entire regulator. There are also a few electrolytic capacitors in the power supply and on the audio board, it is always a good practice to replace those. Otherwise, unless the unit has been blown up by lightning, it should work. As for set up, follow the directions in the manual:
The rest of the settings are on the Optomod:
Then set the L-R null. To do this, make sure the program material is in mono, then adjust the L or R input attenuator for minimum reading. Also, if the Audio Prism has PR-1 (phase rotators) installed, bypass the phase rotator in the Optomod. There is also a replacement card 5 made by Gentner called the RFC-1 for the Optomod 8100A. I notice little difference between a stock Optomod and on RFC-1 Optomod. That is a good starting point. Most people are quite happy with this, but if needed, the high and low settings on the Prism can be adjusted slightly to suit the station equipment. When properly adjusted, this equipment rides gain, adds a certain amount of loudness, while keeping the programming material natural sounding. Further, unlike some “modern” air chain processors, it does not boot up and it does not occasionally loose its mind, requiring a reboot. The best paragraph in the manual, or any broadcast equipment manual is this:
It will also greatly enhance your buzz, dude. It was the 70′s.
He does a great job explaining things like Skyking, numbers stations and so forth. It is a great show, I can imagine this story being told on Halloween. You can listen to the first episode here, its about an hour long: http://www.g4aqg.sussex.ac.uk/IRT.mp3 This is a great example of local radio doing local things. I have no idea if the other episodes are going to be put up on line. I see this statement being made on various forums, blogs and other places. As some would like to believe, the problem with HD radio is that people don’t like change. A Look at the early days of FM radio in the 1950′s is a good example of this. FM radio took decades to catch on, HD Radio is no different. Currently, HD Radio is experiencing “growing pains” and the occasional “bump in the road.” Except; no, not really. Here is a side by side comparison:
The FM roll out in the late forties and early fifties is vastly different from the HD Radio rollout in the zero zeros. Due to fear of competition and patent disputes, RCA in conjunction with the FCC did all they could to squash the new technology. That is why FM radio took so long to be accepted by the general public. For those not versed with the history of FM development and FM broadcasting in the US, see Empire of the Air, by Tom Lewis. See also: Edwin H. Armstrong. It is a good read for those radio obsessed. HD Radio is failing because the consumer is not buying it, I see little to change their mind.
The goal of DRM is to establish a world wide open standard for digital broadcasting in the LF, MF, HF, and VHF bands. In the early years of development, DRM was designed for digital broadcasting on the bands below 30 MHz. This system is now known as DRM30. Since then, the DRM consortium has expanded that to the VHF band (up to 174 MHz) as well (meaning where the current FM band is located) and have called that system DRM+. DRM uses COFDM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) modulation, which is the same as IBOC HD radioTM. This is a robust modulation system that employs multiple carriers at lower power (than an analog carrier) spread across the entire alloted bandwidth. One of the claims is DRM transmits less power and is more energy efficient. In general, digital radio modulation does transmit less power, that is true. However, transmitters have to be run more linear for digital due to the increased bandwidth. This may not translate to greatly increased efficiency from the AC mains to RF standpoint. Because of that, there is more waste heat, and thus more air conditioning is needed to cool the transmitter room. Some of the advantages of DRM over Ibiquity’s HD radioTM are:
In addition to that, DRM30 station have the ability to transmit low frame rate H. 264 video. This is a distinct advantage for short wave stations that are seeking a way around fire wall blocking. The video image is small, 176 x 144 pixels, and it is 8 frames per second, which is about as good as can be expected using a 9 KHz channel. In some cases, DRM is capable of a hybrid mode (ed note: DRM calls this “Simulcast mode”), but what have we learned about hybrid mode digital radio: It doesn’t work very well. In short, it would be better if DRM were employed in the digital only mode. To many, this is a distinct disadvantage, but I don’t see it that way. There have been many that have made the IBOC roll out/FM broadcasting roll out annology. Frankly, those arguments don’t hold water. When FM was introduced, no attempt was made to shoe horn it into the existing AM (Standard Broadcast) band, it was not designed to interfere with other stations or itself, power levels were sufficient for good reception using existing technology, quality over AM was markedly improved and programming was often separate (simulcasting with existing AMs did not start until later). My point here is that any digital broadcasting should be introduced on a separate set of frequencies. Some have proposed using TV channels 5 and 6, which makes some good sense. Whatever the outcome is, we have learned, the hard and expensive way, that hybrid digital broadcasting does not work well. A brief video about DRM30. Currently, DRM30 is only allowed on shortwave broadcast frequencies in the US. I asked a product development engineer from a major reputable broadcast transmitter manufacture about this, his response was:
It might be fun to apply for an experimental license to broadcast somewhere in the 1600-1700 KHz range with DRM30 only and no analog modulation, except for an hourly station ID in morse. A 1/4 wave tower in the middle of that band would be 141 feet tall. With use of a skirt, a grounded tower can be employed. That and a few above ground radials and the system would likely be pretty efficient. Part of the experiment would include driving around and taking signal strength readings while recording the programming material. This would give some real world testing on how the system would perform in wide spread use. Of course, this would require a major about face by the FCC, which is not likely unless someone there grows or somehow acquires a back bone. Some people question the need to do any type of digital broadcasting. I am a realist, in one way, shape, or form, digital radio broadcasting will (or already is) take(ing) place. It would make the most sense if the best system were used, which is not necessarily the first system proposed. The big question is, will today’s terrestrial broadcasters be involved, or out of business. I was doing a weekly visit to one of our FM transmitter sites the other day when I noticed this:  Dented deadbolt lock at transmitter site Looks like somebody has been whacking the deadbolt lock with a hammer or a wrench or something. Pretty sure that was not like that the last time I was here. Time to get one of those IP cameras and set it up on the tower. |
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