Engineering Radio

Excuse me while I gag…

Okay, that’s a little better.  I was just reading up on the newest, greatest, holy cow, gee whiz, gotta have that expensive box processor, also known as the Omnia 11.  I have to hand it to Mr. Frank Foti and his marketing team.  They have created one heck of a buzz about this thing, and it seems like folks are jumping on board to shell out $10 – $12 K for the box.  But let us review a few things.

I will admit most freely that I tend to be an audio purest.  I do believe that a limited amount of processing has its merits, especially for those listeners in high noise environments like automobiles, work sites, etc.   With sloppy DJ’s working the consoles, there is a minor need for some limiting, gain reduction and so on, just to the air product levels aren’t all over the place.  Those are the real world considerations.

Does and Ipod have an air chain processor? No, if the Ipod user want more loudness, they turn up the volume.  Since most Ipod users are normal people and not some burned out DJ with bad hearing, the volume control on an Ipod has plenty of head room to satisfiy.  Does a Droid or a Blackberry or whatever else people are listening to these days have an air chain processor? No.  And most users/listeners of those devices are perfectly happy with the quality and quantity of audio.

Back in the day when loudness meant a bigger transmitter, more carrier power, bigger signal, was easier to tune manually with the non-digital dial readout, etc., perhaps a loudness war with the cross town rival was part of the game.  Nowadays, nobody cares except the program directors.  I repeat, NOBODY CARES.  Ask anybody on the street what the loudest radio station is.  They very likely won’t even understand what you are trying to ask and you likely could not explain it in terms that would make them understand, much less care about.

The average person doesn’t give a rat’s ass about loudness.  Nor do they really care about how deep and full the DJ’s voice is, or how well the noise gate works, or the six band EQ or any of that crap.  In fact, if the music sounded just like it does on the Ipod, e.g. completely unprocessed, they probably wouldn’t even notice.  The competition has changed and radio is being left behind because many people are stuck with old ideas about how things used to be.  Times have changed, what should be the driving force in radio, the listeners, want to hear the music that they like.  That is what the program director should be worried about, finding and playing good music that the listeners want to hear.  Or having the best talk show, the most interesting news, or whatever other programming the station carries.

If the programming content is good, compelling radio, they will listen.  Never mind the air chain processor, the mic processor, the limiter, how loud the station is, what power the transmitter is running at, etc.  That is for the Engineers to take care of.

Every now and then something goes wrong.  One of the nicer features of a solid state transmitter is a soft failure mode.  For example, the loss of a single RF module may bring the transmitter down to 95% power vs 100% power.  In a tube transmitter, the failure of the tube would mean 0% power.

This happened recently when a transmitter was turned off for tower maintenance.  Upon restart, an RF module failed.  Unfortunately, the spare RF module had already been used due to a lightning strike in early July.  So we were down a few percent on the output meter until another RF module was ordered and installed.  The station was running at 94% power according to the external watt meter.  That equates to about half a dB power reduction over normal operations, which is really insignificant.

Naturally, the fact that the transmitter was at low power gave the program director another excuse to pile on.  First I received this e-mail:

Getting reports out of both XXX and XXX that it’s nothing but the The (competing station) on 1xx.1 – the tropo is going pretty good right now.  I’ll monitor on the ride in but needless to say we can’t fix this soon enough. We’ve been bad in XXX County for the last two weeks and I just assumed tropo and stayed quiet – could this module have been out for a while?

Where are we on a software controller  so we can log in and monitor stuff like this?

To which I responded:

The module problem arose after the transmitter was turned back on, so no, this has not been a problem for the last two weeks, it has only been a problem since Sunday Morning at 11:42 am.

As I said below, the new module was ordered and as soon as it arrives, it will be put back in.

I then received this e-mail:

With all the shadowing in our contour and the short-spacing, we just can’t afford to loose 1db without tangible effects.  We need every nanowatt possible everyday – especially in the summer.

So, Mr. Smarty paints there thinks that 0.00000001 watt makes a difference.  The absurdity of that statement is un-measurable.  Why not a femto watt or a yacto watt?  Here was my politically correct response:

1. I understand you want the transmitter fixed.
2. I have done everything humanly possible to effect repairs including calling Harris on my day off to order parts and have them shipped.
3. e-mails of this type do not make things go any faster, and are in fact, counter productive.

I hope one day, he reads this blog.

If you work at a radio station that still has a local program director instead of one at the corporate programming lair (I know, sooooo old school), then you might be interested in this.  I compiled a list of things that radio station program directors like:

1. Good ratings.  A good rating book means that they are great program directors and they really know their stuff.  Bad ratings means that engineering dropped the ball (again) when the station went off the air for 30 seconds during afternoon drive.
2. Taking credit for anything good.  Sort of goes with the good ratings above, but this extends out to all other aspects of a radio station, promotions, sales, news, and even engineering.
3. New Processing.  Any new gizmo or gadget that changes the sound of the microphone or entire station, for better or worse, is good.  The more flashing lights the better.  The more knobs to adjust the better.  Things that can be plugged into computers and remotely controlled are the ultimate.
4. More.  More of anything is better, more compression, more expansion, more highs, more mid-range, more lows, more gain, more de-essing, more loudness, more power, more punch, more reverb, more crack, more more more.  If they could just have a little more, the station would be number one.
5. Any other new piece of equipment.  Watching a program director look at a new studio is like watching a two year old open presents on Christmas morning.  I know, I have a two year old.  Unfortunately, the studios don’t stay new looking for long.
6. Taping notes up in the studio.  I have one studio where every stationary piece of equipment has a note taped to it.  Mind you, the notes have nothing to do with the equipment they are covering up, they are more like general directions, phone numbers, and other miscellaneous pieces of information.
7. Free stuff.  Used to be called payola  or plugola, now it is a free lap top, or a trip to Disney paid for by the record rep.  I’ve even seen some mysterious mike processors show up (see number 3).
8. Rigging up lights to alert operators.  This is a great one, the studio operator does not know if the Marti (or Matrix or ISDN) is active, so they want a light to indicate there is someone there.  Or a light on the phone hotline, or a light for the EAS machine, the back door, the coffee machine, the silence sensor (never mind they are in the studio, they still need a silence sensor light)
9. Blaming other people when things go wrong.  The program director is infallible.  If something goes wrong, it is somebody else’s fault.  Always. And forever.  Amen.

Some one suggested that I put up the video “More, more, more” by Andrea True Connection to go along #4.  Well, okay, I guess.  It is not a terrible song but the video kinda suxor.  From what I can tell, Andrea True is a former p0r n star that turned signer for just this one hit. Looks like it was filmed on a p0r n set too.

Feel free to add anything else that I may have forgotten.  Of course, this is all in good fun.  I’ll to a “stuff radio engineers like” post as soon as I figure out what that is.