November 2010 – Page 2 – Engineering Radio

Where are, repeat, Where are all the dead birds?

I am reading up on American Bird Conservancy v. FCC. I must admit, I am a bit ignorant of all this bird v. tower stuff. After all, in my 25 to 30 years of working in radio, in and around towers almost every day, I have rarely seen a dead bird. By rarely, I mean I recall seeing exactly three dead birds at the base of towers. One, a mysterious-looking songbird under a 1000-foot tower in Harrisburg, PA. Another was a Pileated Woodpecker that flew into a chain link fence. The third was a half-eaten dead crow that likely met his fate at the hands of the resident Red-Tailed Hawk, who hung out on the tower looking for meals.

Even so, the FCC is going to hold hearings on this important matter, because it is so important. They also have finished all their other work and have nothing else to do.

According to the website Towerkill.com, millions of birds have been killed because they have flown into communications towers. In the FAQ section:

Thousands of migrant songbirds killed in a night at a single 1000-foot high television tower

I couldn’t reach BioFile Services, the domain owner, on their cell phones for comment.

I have been to hundreds of tower sites in states up and down the eastern seaboard, California, and Guam. In all that time, I can only account for one bird that may have died by flying into a tower. Where are all the other ones? Surely, when they hit the tower, they fall almost straight down, on account of gravity and the other laws of physics. That means the terrible carnage would be evident near the base of the tower, right?

The above-mentioned website states that tall towers that are in foggy areas and are lit at night pose the greatest risk.

Case in point:

1. WBNR, which has two 405-foot towers, is located along the Hudson River so it is often fogged in at night. The towers have four levels of lights with flashing beacons at the 200 and 400-foot levels. The site is also on a major N/S migration route for birds. Further still, it has a lawn extending 200-300 feet from the base of all the towers. This was the former studio location from 1959 until 1998. In the ten years, I worked there, I did not see one dead bird, nor did the tenant that lives in the building. No employees who worked at the former studio location recall seeing any dead birds either.

2. Mount Beacon, a group of 5 towers ranging up to 300 feet tall near the summit of Mount Beacon, around the 1200-foot AMSL. Certainly, these towers stick way up into the flight paths of migratory birds. One tower is lit at night with a red beacon light and it is often foggy. The area around the base of the towers is gravel/dirt and cleared away for at least 100 feet. Still, no bird carcasses. Nearby, however, there is a group of Bald Eagles, which have taken up residence in some of the craggy rocks.

3. Illinois Mountain, Highland, NY: Same story

4. Clove Mountain, Uniondale, NY: Same story

5. Mount Zion, Highland, NY: Same Story

6. Helderburg Escarpment, New Scottland, NY which has towers for the following stations: WRGB, WRVE, WFLY, WYJB, WPYX, WGNA, WMHT, WTEN, and WXXA: Same Story

7. Mount Equinox, Manchester, VT: Same Story

8. Pico Mountain, Rutland, VT: Same Story

9. WHP transmitter site, Enola, PA, six towers 410 feet tall: Same Story

10. WGY tower site, Schenectady, NY: 620-foot tower, same story

11. WHP-TV/WITF Harrisburg: The only place I saw a dead bird was at the base of a tower.

I could continue with the no dead birds found and include tower sites for WROW, WRZN, WDVH, WKZY, WXPK, WLNA, WKBO, WTPA, WIZR, WENT, and so on.

I would testify to these facts under oath.

There may actually be a few towers out there that are located in a position to inadvertently kill birds and that is unfortunate. The majority of towers, however, are no more deadly to birds than other man-made structures like houses and office buildings. I can think of at least two dozen times that I have been working in the office or sitting at home and there is a great big “THUNK!” Outside there is a dead bird under the window. While that is regrettable, I am not going to take the glass out of my windows.

I also see many dead birds on the side of the road when I am walking or riding my bike.

Human pets, especially cats take a huge toll on wild birds.

Loss of natural habitat from development takes a toll on birds.

This is a Red Herring. It is time to put this foolishness to bed and get back to the business at hand.

Radio Industry Technology Study

Wheatstone, Inc has sponsored a radio industry future technology study which brings into focus some of the connections between technology and radio business models. It appears to be very thorough, polling radio professionals on all aspects of technology development and management.

According to Josh Gordon:

While it is hard to predict which of the radio industry’s newest business models will succeed in generating new revenues, we can better anticipate the winners by measuring how fast the technologies that enable them are being adopted.

To find out, we surveyed the radio professionals involved in all aspects of technology management (engineers, and operations and technical management). The results reported in this study can serve as a benchmark for managers to evaluate their own organizations’ progress.

The first graph tells:

Almost everyone believes that the internet will play a greater role in radio (and all media). This goes against the “radio with its head in the sand” idea that can be found in some corners of the internet (I’d provide a link, but the site has turned on a paywall).

The question is, what are management-type people doing about it? Some have good ideas on how to bridge the gap between making money the old-fashioned way; selling spots, to making money the new way; brand imaging, media promotion, and personal contact through new media. While it is generally agreed that radio stations should stream their audio, many, if not most, make little or no money on this. If radio is going to make some revenue on internet applications, obviously some new ideas are needed.

Unique local content seems to be the most sought after, things like local news podcasts, or new music, e.g. studio sessions with up-and-coming bands and musicians, locally produced shows that are area specific, etc. Put a 10-second sponsorship in front of those and people will get the message. Other things like value-added contests can only be heard on the internet. Interactive radio station apps that have streaming, now playing, recently heard features that link to a .mp3 store for iPhone and Android operating systems. Text link adds on radio station web pages, etc.

On the flip side of this, huge, great amounts of bandwidth will be required if the internet streaming is going to approach the same number of off-the-air listeners. Depending on how the radio station has the stream set up, anywhere from 20 to 64 kbps of data transfer is needed for each listener. For a station in a large metropolitan area, multiply that by 500,000 to 4,000,000 listeners at any one time, and data gridlock ensues.

On the in-house side, the red hot, cutting-edge thing these days is AOIP (Audio over IP), which Wheatstone is heavily invested in with its E console series. While some might not think of AOIP as a traditional Internet application, it nonetheless uses the same transport protocols as other Internet applications. AOIP offers some great advantages over other routing systems, as both private (internal) and public (wide area) networking can be used to transfer audio in real-time. Of course, this is not as easy as plugging the new computer into an ethernet jack, it takes more planning than that.

Wheatstone has published an excellent white paper on Network Design for Ethernet Audio. Well worth the read.

As AOIP technology develops more, web streams could come directly from the console and be customizable according to destination. Further, IP logging can create stream user profiles and customizable greetings, listening preferences, and so on. This would require that the web streaming server be in-house and that the studio facility has enough bandwidth to handle all of the outgoing streams and other content.

Certainly an in-house IT/Web developer will be needed to manage and maintain such a system.

You can download and read the entire studio at Alethea/Wheatstone Radio Survey. The cliff notes summary is this:

Finding #1: Almost all radio tech people believe the Internet will play a bigger part in the future of radio.

Finding #2:Of the new revenue generating technologies, streaming a station’s signal has the biggest earning potential.

Finding #3: Technologies that require little or no capital investment are being deployed at similar frequencies by both stand-alone and group owned stations.

Finding #4: A technology gap is emerging as stand-alone stations deploy revenue generating technologies requiring investment at only half the frequency as group owned stations.

Finding #5: The revenue generating technology that most group owned stations plan on deploying next is a mobile app, while for stand-alone stations, it is broadcasting in HD Radio, with mobile apps coming in a close second.

Finding #6: There is a big divide between radio stations that are now, or will soon be, making money from streaming their signal over the Internet, and those who likely never will.

Finding #7: The day will come slowly, but in 15 years a majority of radio stations expect they will have more online listeners than RF listeners.

Finding #8: Despite the expected decline in over the air listeners, few stations expect to turn off their transmitters.

Finding #9: Three years from now, radio station technology will be more IT centric with more automation, as well as more networking between stations, IT networks, and office and audio networks.

Finding #10: Three years from now, the stability of each radio station network will be more important, as will networks with no single point of failure.

Finding #11: Three years from now, more audio consoles will be networked together. Also, the bandwidth of those networks will be required to increase.

Finding #12: The top reason group owned stations bought an AoIP network was to reduce maintenance costs. The top reason for stand-alone stations: to share talent.

Finding #13: At stations that have installed an AoIP network, more than a third of stand-alone stations found installing it harder than anticipated, while only 16.7% of group owned stations found installation harder than anticipated.

Finding #14: At stations with an AoIP network, more than one in four stand-alone stations and one in three group owned stations report latency problems.

The study is a good indication of where technical managers see growth. One thing that internet sites like Pandora have shown, radio broadcasters cannot sit back and be content with the status quo. Without technical innovation and some outside-of-the-line thinking, the radio will be bypassed by newer more interactive media services.

Something to ponder.

Cracked Battery Terminal

File under some new every day. Yesterday, there was an area-wide power outage in Woodstock, NY. The backup generator failed to start, however, WDST remained on the air until the UPS batteries ran out several hours later. Then my cellphone rang. Alas, yet another Sunday on the job.

Upon arrival, I found the power had just come back on, so the DJ (yes, there was a live person in the studio, on Sunday) was restarting the NextGen system and getting the station back on the air. I restarted the rest of the servers, streaming computers, and whatnot. While I was there, I figured I might as well see why the generator didn’t run.

Pressing the start switch led to the “click, click, click, click…” which normally indicates the battery is dead. Deciding that I should dig a little deeper, I got the volt meter out. Battery voltage, no load 13.8 volts. A normal reading. Flick the starter switch and measure the battery voltage again, under load 13.7 volts. Hmmmm, now that is not what I suspected. If the battery were bad, the voltage should drop down under load.

I grabbed the negative cable and it came off in my hand. Another one of those “ah ha!” moments. Upon closer examination, the terminal connector is cracked in half.

I went to the local Ford dealership and bought a heavy-duty truck battery cable. Since the battery itself is six years old, I decided to bring it and have it checked, and sure enough, the battery was going bad too. Rather than suffer through another power outage without a generator, I went ahead and replaced the battery.

Why the terminal cracked in half in the first place, I don’t know. Perhaps it was over-tightened, or some type of manufacturing defect.

STL paths

I learned this one the hard way, all climates, and terrain are not equal. An important detail when planning a Studio to Transmitter Link. The RF STL is usually in the 950 MHz band, although lately, people have been using 2.4 and 5.8 GHz unlicensed systems with good results. What works well in the northeast, for example, might not work that great in Florida, where tropospheric ducting and multi-path can create reception problems.

One example of this happened in Gainesville, Florida. A station there had a 15-mile path over flat ground with tall towers on either end. It had full line of sight and Fresnel zone clearance. Ordinarily, the signal strength was -65 dB, which is about 25-30 dB of headroom for the equipment being used. However, in the mornings, most often in the late summer or early autumn, there would be brief dropouts of a few seconds. After two years of suffering through the mysterious morning dropouts, we finally rented a plane and flew the STL path, only to discover there was a swamp right in the middle that was not on the topographical map. On those mornings when dropouts occurred, it was surmised that dense fog would rise up, causing the RF path to bend and creating multipath at the receive antenna. Since it was a Moseley Starlink, the digital demodulator would unlock due to high BER. The signal strength never moved off of -65 dB.

Of course, had this been an analog STL, it would not have dropped out, although it may have gotten a little noisy for a few minutes.

I have learned to be very conservative with my STL path analysis, using software tools like RF Profiler to look at the theoretical path, but also surveying ground obstacles like trees and buildings, which are not accounted for in the USGS terrain database. There are several RF software programs out there that will do the same thing.

Last week, when a station manager insisted that an STL path was possible from a proposed new studio location, I deferred to the path study, which showed only about 50% Fresnel zone clearance. While it was true that the path is less than a mile, and it is also true that one can see the top of the transmitting tower from the roof; trees, buildings, and even an access road create problems that could potentially cause STL dropouts. We are not going down that road again. The station manager, whose background is in sales, was told to find another location or order a TELCO T-1.