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SOPA/PIPA protest

Paul Thurst — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:08:56 +0000

Yesterday, January 18, 2012, I blacked out engineeringradio.us for the day in protest of the internet censorship bill working its way through congress colloquially known as SOPA or PIPA. There were some 17,000 or more others that did the same.

SOPA PIPA protest screen shot

If the internet is indeed the new media, destined to replace the old media, then having in place draconian restrictions that allow the government to block websites and content with no due process for the website owner is censorship, plain and simple. Imagine a country where the government can come in and shut down any newspaper, TV station or Radio station, give no reason other than some weak statement about copy write laws. See also: China, North Korea, Cuba, Soviet Russia, etc.

It is important to check the corporate power in this country. It is widely reported that Congress has a 9% approval rating. It is also hard to imagine their approval rating is actually that high. While signing petitions and writing senators and congressman may provide some relief, the shortest path to ending this is to boycott the corporate sponsors of the legislation. Hitting companies bottom line will speak louder than any internet protest, petition, letter writing campaign, etc. Thus, if so inclined, here is a list of producer companies that like the idea of internet censorship.

Courage is Contagious, AKA Occupy Wall Street or whatever

Paul Thurst — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:21:23 +0000

Off topic warning: this has little or nothing to do with radio engineering and represents my personal view of the current demonstrations on Wall Street and other cities around the US.

I have been busy running from here to there and taking care of business, such as it is these days. That, and I spilled a full glass of water on my laptop keyboard. It’s been acting squirrely ever since, which makes it hard to type these posts. In between all that, I have been watching the Occupy movement with some interest.

I, or you, may not agree with what those people are saying, however, I support one hundred percent their right to say it. That goes as far as to say the US Constitution makes it perfectly clear that they have that right including the right to peacefully gather without the requirement for a permit and/or adherence to a curfew.

We have become soft and fearful in this country. There are certain factions in government who are aware of this weakness and exploit it at every opportunity. Don’t want to renew the constitutionally questionable, miss-named Patriot Act? Look out, the “terrorists” are going to get you!!!1! But wait, isn’t that the definition terrorism itself?

ter·ror·ism [ter-uh-riz-uhm]
noun
1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
2.the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3.a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

When the head of the Department of Homeland Security, during congressional hearings on the use of invasive screening procedures at the country’s airports gives the cheeky answer as to why those procedures are required:

I can say the answer in one word, and that’s Abdulmutallab

Who is, of course, the famed underwear bomber, allowed to board a plane fly to the US in spite of being on the no fly list. Time to trot out the bogey man again…

It’s time to set fear aside. Someday, all of us are going to die, that is a fact and the common tread that binds every living thing together. I’d rather face the threat of a terrorist attack and have my constitutional freedoms than live in a police state. My personal preference.

Then there is this guy:

Standing in a cloud of tear gas by himself holding up a copy of the constitution and a flag: I took an oath, I believe in that oath and I am willing to put myself in harms way. That’s guts.

I’ve taken some time to visit two of the closest Occupy movements; Albany and NYC. While there, I noticed that there were indeed some hippie dreadlocks wearing drum circle types (mostly in NYC). There were also some calling for the end of Capitalism, pay my student loans, class warfare, tax the rich, etc. Then there were a surprising number of people who were focused on the money in politics issue. The fact that most of congress is bought and sold by big businesses. The fact that the Federal Reserve and it’s private bank sponsors operate beyond the law. The fact that the perpetrators of the greatest fraud in the history of mankind not only walk free among us, but received bonuses. The fact that the majority of people have lost their voice in government. That is what the people I spoke with are really upset about and I agree.

The news media has been notably absent from the demonstrations. When they do show up, they tend focus on the hippie communist factions, often finding the least literate persons and interviewing them at length. In the end, that type of crony journalism is likely to backfire. There are more than enough eyewitness accounts, facebook pages, you tube videos, blog posts and other sources to refute this narrative. The legacy news media has relegated itself to political punditry and when it really counts, irrelevance.

It will be interesting to see what impact all of this has on the two party system in the coming elections. We live in interesting times.

The malfunctioning STL antenna

Paul Thurst — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:50:03 +0000

Right after Tropical Storm Irene, it was noted that the STL signal strength at the WHUD transmitter site was low. Normally it was 300+ µV, now reading around 100 µV, which is a problem. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that the STL transmitter on the intermediate hop had higher than normal reflected power.

Time to call the tower crew.

The STL transmit antenna for WHUD’s STL (WPOU464) hop is a Scala Paraflector (PR-950), mounted at the 280 foot level on this tower:

Scala PR-950 on a guyed tower

The fact that it happened after a major storm and the transmitter was showing higher than normal reflected power indicates a problem with either the antenna or the jumper between the 7/8″ Cablewave coax and the N connector on the antenna. A measurement with a spectrum analyzer shows very high return loss:

WHUD STL antenna return loss

This shows distance to fault 413 feet, with a return loss of -7.4 dB. That distance is either near or at the antenna and -7.4 dB indicates a lot of reflected power. We had the tower climber take apart the jumper connections and terminate the jumper with a known good 50 ohm load. The return loss did not change. We then had him swap out jumpers and reconnect to the antenna. That did the trick:

WHUD STL antenna with new jumper

Much better, most of the power is now being radiated by the antenna, the VSWR is 1.02:1. The impedance bump at 51 feet is a sharp bend in the coax where it is attached to an ice bridge. Reconnecting the transmission line to the transmitter and turning it on confirms that all is normal again. The problem with the jumper was found in one of the connectors, it was full of water.

Water contaminated Andrew flexwell connector

I cut away the boot, water had entered the connector from the back because waterproofing and tape was not applied all the way to the coax. This was installed in 1998 when the station moved from Peekskill to their current location in the town of Fishkill. The fact that it happened now in the nice weather when Mt. Beacon is still accessible and not in the middle of winter means the radio gods are smiling on us.

Donating old equipment

Paul Thurst — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:00:55 +0000

There is a propensity among radio engineers to save old equipment. Sometimes I look at something and think, “Man, that cost a lot of money ten or twenty years ago.” Truth be told, much of what is saved will never be used again. This equipment should be scraped or donated to someone who might find it useful. One thing that is most appreciated by Amateur Radio (AKA Ham) operators are old 1 KW tube type AM transmitters. Ham operators love these things, and with good reason.

A fair amount of repair work, some cleaning and a bit of reworking will turn what might have been a useless dust collector into a 160 or 80 meter AM rig and with a good story to boot.

Personally, I’d rather see a Gates BC1T or RCA BTA1R off to a new home than off to the scrap yard. To that end, today we unloaded the BC1T at WLNA to a willing ham. This particular transmitter had last run in 2001 or so and was used as a spare parts supply for other BC1T transmitters owned by the same company. There was no way it would ever work again and truth be told, it really wasn’t needed any longer anyway. Since the Harris MW5B was replaced as the main transmitter by a BE AM6A, the backup transmitter was never used.

Gates BC1T transmitter

John Aegerter, a frequent commenter on this blog, drove all the way from Madison, Wisconsin to pick it up. Prior to pick up, I removed all of the tubes, transformers, crystals and glass envelope time delay relays. I packed up the glass objects in a box.

Gates BC1T tubes, transformers and spares

There were several spare tubes and parts which are no longer needed. These went with the rig, along with what ever manuals I could find.

Gates BC1T loaded into pickup truck

The transmitter was then loaded into the back of a Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck and tarped for it’s trip back to Wisconsin.

Newest Radio Thing

Paul Thurst — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:00:54 +0000

Just in time for the NAB, I’ve been working on this design since my college days. To give you some idea of how long that is, I am nearly 47 years old. I believe it has finally been perfected, now I just need to find somebody to make it. I guess I could send it off to China and get circuit boards made, but they would steal the design.

From the website xkcd.com, which has, perhaps the best website ever published in the history of the internet, here.

Oh yeah, and April Fools!

Radiation levels: Compare and Contrast

Paul Thurst — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:00:07 +0000

Not related to radio engineering, however, I’ve been doing daily radiation measurements at my house (upstate NY) since the Fukushima disaster. A few bits of house keeping information first: This is a CD V-700 radiation meter, which is a model 6 manufactured by Anton. It was last calibrated in 1986. When I place the Geiger tube over the operational check source, it goes up to about 2 mr/hr as described in the owner’s manual. It may not be completely accurate, but it is accurate enough for this experiment.

This video was taken on March 17, 2011. It sets a good reference for normal background radiation levels:

This video was taken on March 27, 2011. It shows a significant increase in background radiation. Further, much of this appears to be gamma radiation, as the gamma shield is closed during this video:

Both of these videos were taken on the most sensitive (x1) setting. It shows that the radiation level is about 8 to 10 times above normal. It is a cause for concern, but not alarm. Not yet. If it continues at this level for several days or weeks, then the overall radiation exposure will begin to accumulate. Right now, it is about the same as taking two NY to Los Angles flights per day, according to this chart (0.35 mr/hr = 3.5 uSv per hour x 24 hours = 84 uSv per day):

Radiation Chart

As of March 28, 2011, the wind has shifted more to the south west and the levels have dropped somewhat. From our beloved press corps, there have been a few reports here or there on this, most with the standard “this is nothing to worry about” disclaimer. I have also noticed a series of stories and reports that radiation is not all that bad, don’t worry about it, living next to a nuclear plant is fun(!), and we don’t know as much about radiation as we thought we did. I don’t know about all that, I’d rather base my opinion on the scientific body of evidence gathered over the last one hundred years or so. The conclusion of that information is that radiation is bad for human physiology and exposure should be limited.

There is also a crowd source website called “Radiation network,” which is showing all the levels across the US are normal. This makes me wonder about their instruments and or candor, you can draw your own conclusions.

Goodbye NY Times mobile edition, I will miss you

Paul Thurst — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:40:43 +0000

The New York Times wrestles with a New Media business model. I have been reading the NY times on line edition for years. I find their articles interesting and often more comprehensive than other media counterparts, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the point of view. When I got my Android phone, I downloaded the NYT mobile application and enjoyed reading up on the latest news as time permitted. It became part of my morning routine.

On March 28th, all of that will change. The NYT will put up a paywall, charging $15 to $35 per month for anyone going past a twenty article threshold.

I have no plans to subscribe to any of these plans. I will limit my NYT reading to the twenty articles per month and then get my news elsewhere. This goes to show, once something is given away for free, it becomes very hard to charge for it later on.

This is a problem that new media types, myself included, have yet to figure out; how to make money with it. This blog is a good example; I work away, trying to come up with original material or expound on other’s work from an in the trenches point of view. I have a core group of regular readers (thank you!) and quite a bit of search engine traffic just passing through. Every once in a while, I get a good link in from slash/dot, boing boing, or dig, but those are rare. Some small amounts of money are made here and there, but could I live off of this? No. It is a labor of love more than anything else. Something to keep my mind occupied while in between my children’s pickups and drop offs. This is good because otherwise a fair amount of trouble could ensue.

While I empathize with the New York Times, those rates seem a bit exorbitant for an online distribution system.

The Nautel ND-5 transmitter

Paul Thurst — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:58:05 +0000

This transmitter is about 10 years old. In ten years of service, there have been no failures. Not one transistor has gone bad. It is connected to a three tower directional array on 920 KHz.

WGHQ Nautel ND-5 transmitter

Sadly, this model transmitter is no longer made. They were built like tanks, heavy gage steel cabinets, well designed, well grounded circuit boards.

It is dirt simple; RF power MOSFETS on drawers, combined and tuned with the output network. A power supply, exciter and simple control logic and nothing else. No serial port to plug a computer into, no ethernet ports, no digital read outs, fancy efficiency optimizing computers, etc. In the mean time, it does what it is supposed to do, stay on the air.

I was reading, with interest, the idea of “energy star” transmitters. I think that good radio station engineers already take the electrical efficiency into account when buying a new transmitter. That being said, electrical efficiency is not the only measure of efficiency an engineer should be considering. Reliability, redundancy, and repairability must also be considered. If the station spends an inordinate amount of time on the old back up transmitter while the new, super efficient main transmitter is off line is counter productive. Not to mention the time wasted trouble shooting which could be better spent on something else.

TIA/EIA 568

Paul Thurst — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 16:48:56 +0000

Radio stations more and more revolve around networked computers. Engineers need to understand computer networking, especially as it relates to audio distribution and playback. Eventually, I see broadcast engineers being more computer science types rather than electrical engineering majors.

What I have found out about computer networking is this: it is not rocket science. In fact, most of it is pretty easy. Physical networking and cabling is similar to audio and TELOC cabling. Automation computer servers themselves are not difficult to understand as most of them run on some type of windows program. Other servers such as Apache for WWW and for FTP and streaming run on some type of LINUX OS. LINUX is also not difficult to understand so long as one knows the right command line prompts.

The first part of understanding computers is networking. Without a computer network, a computer is a glorified typewriter. Almost every automation system and or digital editor requires some type of network. Consoles and computers that use AOIP require well constructed networks in order to operate properly. To that end; cabling choices, network interface devices such as switches and routers, patch panels and so forth need to be specified and installed with care.

Most often, it is the simple things that will trip an installer up. The one area where I have found the most mistakes made is the pairs connection to various termination points. There are two basic standards, TIA/EIA T568A and T568B. Neither is better than the other, both are often identified on terminating devices such as jacks and patch panels. The most important aspect to these standards for an installer is to pick one and stick with it.

TIA/EIA 568 color code

When certifying networks, the most common problem I have encountered is crossed pairs. Almost invariably, one end will be punched down with the A standard and the other with the B standard. Jacks are particularly difficult, as the color coding stickers show both. Many patch panels have a slide out, reversible card with is an either/or situation. For some reason, I have stuck with the B standard and on any project I am managing, I get rid of all the A color codes I can find and tell the installers that B is the only acceptable termination standard. That cuts down on a lot of errors and redos during certification. That is good, it saves time and I hate redos.

Cat 5e wall jack set

You can see that this color code marking can lead to confusion. I take a sharpie and cross out all the the A markings to avoid installation mistakes.

Incidentally, on any new network installation, Category 6 cable should be used. As more and more data through put is required for network applications, Category 6 Cabling has better performance specs and will likely have a longer service life than other cable. It may be a little bit more expensive than Cat 5, however, well worth the investment. It would be a great mistake and waste of money to have to pull out the network and reinstall it in a few years because the cabling doesn’t have the required bandwidth.

Category 7 cabling is in the works.

The Bauer Transmitter

Paul Thurst — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:37:06 +0000

This is a Bauer FB-5000J transmitter, stashed away in the corner of a transmitter site.

Bauer FB-5000J Medium wave transmitter

Sorry I can’t get a better angle on it, as I said, it is stuck in the corner.

I don’t know what vintage it is, it seems to be from early 1960 or so as it has a low serial number. It ran as the main transmitter until the Harris Gates BC5H was installed in 1976. The transmitter is in beautiful shape, almost a museum piece. I don’t know if it still has all it’s original iron, as the modulation transformer may have contained PCBs and been disposed of. Otherwise, it is complete and tuned to 1,460 Khz.

I think the owner might be willing to donate it to a reputable organization, preferably a 501(c)(3).