Paul Thurst – Page 12 – Engineering Radio

Watching the weather

The weather affects many things. When the weather improves, outdoor projects like tower work can be completed. When the weather is terrible, we may need to do extra work restoring broadcast signals. Today, I am looking at Hurricane Lee, in the North Atlantic basin. Historically speaking, September is the month when we get Hurricanes in the Northeast.

As of this writing, it is too early to be concerned about Lee. Hurricanes can be very unpredictable and there is a good chance the forecast will change many times over the next week or so. That being said, this time of year is a good time to call the fuel companies and top off the generator tanks since winter is coming in a few months anyway. As the situation develops, I may need to dust off the pre-storm checklist.

The basic pre-storm checklist looks something like this:

96 hours or more before the storm: Schedule fuel deliveries for generators, and top off oil and water as needed. Test generators under load if possible. Check UPS batteries. Make an off-site data backup if it does not already exist.
72 hours before the storm: Coordinate with programming to have backup programs available in the event that the satellite dish is damaged, the internet goes down, etc. Inventory and restock PPE, emergency food, water, blankets, first aid supplies, batteries, etc.
48 hours before the storm: Procure supplies needed to secure buildings and sites (plywood, tarps, sandbags, rope, nails, screws, etc). Work out backups for internet STL systems if possible. Work on access plans to remote sites. Make sure that you have the proper tools available.
24 hours before the storm: Secure your personal dwelling, and make sure you have a plan for pets and loved ones. Secure proper shelter for everyone. Fill vehicle gas tanks, and fill portable gas tanks. Update off-site data backup and secure in a safe location.
12 hours before the storm: Secure buildings, park vehicles in areas where they will not be damaged by flooding or blowing debris, and make any last-minute supply runs for emergency food and water. Have a set or two of dry clothes and shoes in your vehicle (almost nothing is worse than spending 12-24 hours in wet and cold clothes). Coordinate response with other station personnel, prioritize the order of restoration, and coordinate with local authorities on their needs.

A few years ago, I purchased one of these LiPo battery chain saws:

These are great units because you do not have to carry cans of 2-cycle gas around. This model will cut trees 12-14 inches in diameter and I get about 25-35 minutes of cutting time per battery depending on the motor load. I have used it several times to cut small trees from access roads to tower sites.

Above all else, during and after the storm, be safe. Do not take any risks involving downed wires, damaged towers, satellite dishes, etc.

There is a place on Earth called Meddybemps

I might not know that if I hadn’t been there installing a TV transmitter. We installed this GatesAir VAXTE-2 for Maine Public Broadcasting’s WMED-DT.

GatesAir VAXTE-2, WMED-DT Meddybemps, Maine

After the old Harris Platnum transmitter was turned off, the client got a call from the cable company across the border in New Brunswick. Apparently, they take the off-air signal for their cable feed of PBS in New Brunswick.

We also installed a VAXTE-6 at Mars Hill for WMEM-DT.

GatesAir VAXTE-6, WMEM-DT, Mars Hill, Maine

I was reading through the SBE 2023 salary survey and noticed that those engineers who work in Radio and TV make more money than those who do just radio. My experience is that TV is more technically challenging because there are many more building blocks that go into the end product. ATSC has several layers of complexity starting with video and audio codecs. Then there are various transport methods, PSIP (Program information) tables, aspect ratios, degrees of definition, video and audio bit rate considerations, and muxing, which occur before the Transport Stream gets to the exciter.

DTV ATSC 1 modulation analysis; 8VSB eye pattern

One thing I will note, TV is acronym-heavy. There are many combinations of letters and abbreviations. I can work on a list of things that I have learned, but one of the most important measurements for the quality of the over-the-air signal is MER, which stands for Modulation Error Ratio. MER is measured in decibels and low MER usually indicates some distortion problem.

Once the program material hits the exciter, the process is similar but there are a few noted differences. TV transmissions are 6 MHz wide vs. 200 KHz for standard FM. In order to minimize distortion, the signal needs to be precorrected by the exciter for linearity. HD Radio does the same thing to a degree. High-band VHF and UHF stations tend to use slot antennas. These are high-gain broad-banded systems that are generally very simple. The FCC stipulates that spectrum mask filters be used to limit out-of-channel emissions. During the installation process, the filters must be measured and proofed to comply. In addition, the harmonics need to be measured down to -120 dBm because most of them fall in the wireless data and mobile phone spectrum and we know how those folks can be.

Like other segments of the broadcast engineering profession; TV is struggling to find competent technical staff, so if you are willing to learn new things, consider doing some work in television.

Mars Hill also has many of these giant things:

I’ve never seen one up close, and I will say they do make a fair bit of noise when it is windy. I also noticed that air density makes a difference in the noise levels. When it is cooler or more humid, the noise level goes up. There are twenty-eight 1.5 MW GE wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power 18,000 average homes annually. Maine has several wind turbine farms in various parts of the state. I believe Mars Hill was the first, completed in 2006.

Repairing an RF module for a DX-50

I like these types of posts. Many people are intimidated by component-level repairs. I write this to show that it is possible, with minimal test equipment and easy-to-understand directions, to make repairs and get things back in working order.

Every year, we lose two or three RF amplifier modules from the DX-50s. Normally, this happens after a thunderstorm. Sometimes it is a spontaneous failure.

The project starts here; faulted RF module

These are fairly simple medium-wave RF amplifiers. There are no adjustments or tuning circuits on the amplifier board itself. They use eight IRFP-350 RF devices. There are two fuses to protect the transmitter power supply against device short circuits. If a fuse blows; Section C, RF amplifier Modules, of the DX-50 manual has a good troubleshooting guide. There is a very good chance that one or more of the RF devices is bad. Unfortunately, they have to be removed to be tested.

Gates Air recommends that if one device is failed, all four devices from that section are replaced at the same time even if they test good. The IRFP350s are inexpensive devices and it is easier to replace everything at once. The Mouser Part number is 844-IRFP350PBF and they are $3.81 each as of this writing. The PBF suffix means it is lead-free.

The other part that can be bad, but it is unlikely, is the TVSS diode across the gate and source (CR1-4). These are inexpensive as well. Mouser part number is 576-P6KE20CA and they are $0.38 each. It is good to have a few of these on hand.

The most difficult part of this is dealing with the heat sinks. The devices get stuck to the heat sink pads after so many years, so it takes a little effort to get them separated. The manual recommends gently prying the device away from the heat sink with a small screwdriver. They can be reused if you are careful and do not rip the insulator pad. However, if the insulator pad rips, it needs to be replaced. Mouser part number 739-A15038108 ($0.86 each).

To test each IRFP350 after it has been removed, use either a DVM with greater than 3 VDC on the resistance setting or a Simpson 260 on the Rx10,0000 range. Connect the positive lead to the Drain, the negative lead to the Source, and then use a jumper connected to the Gate to turn the device on or off. Alternatively, you can use a 9-volt battery to turn the device on and off.

If the device does not turn on or off, it is defective.

The TVSS diode should measure open (>2M) in both directions. Anything other than that, the unit is defective and needs to be replaced.

The first step is to remove the heat sink. I used a small screwdriver under the leads to gently pry the MOSFETS off of the heat pads. If you are careful, all of the heat pads will survive. Once the heat sink is off, I remove all four of the suspected MOSFETS. The leads are heavy gauge, so it takes a little bit of work with the solder pump and solder wick. I tested each MOSFET and found one shorted unit, the other three test okay. However, since these are inexpensive devices, I replaced all four.

Good device:

Bad device:

Assembly is in reverse order. Make sure that none of the insulating pads were torn during disassembly. I like to get everything attached to the heat sink before soldering the leads. It helps with lining everything up. Take care and make sure that the ferrite beads on the drain leads of Q3,10 and Q4,11 are re-installed with the new devices. These are necessary to prevent high-frequency oscillations.

Of course, the final test is in the transmitter. Generally speaking, I test the standby transmitter into the test load every two weeks. This is done in conjunction with the generator load test so as not to spin up the demand meter.

Excel spreadsheet formulas for Broadcast Engineers

There are many times when some mathematics is needed in this profession. For one-off situations, the calculator applications found on most smartphones will work just fine. However, sometimes the calculation is complex or is needed to be repeated many times. Excel Spreadsheets have many mathematical functions built in. Plugging a formula into an Excel spreadsheet is a handy tool.

I recently acquired this rather nice precision power meter:

It has an input power range of -60 to +20 dBm with a stern warning not to exceed +23 dBm. Since we will be using this for a variety of applications, I thought it might be useful to know approximately how much power will be presented to the instrument in any given situation. For example, we are installing a 30 KW FM transmitter soon. The directional coupler that will be used has a coupling factor of -48.5 dBm. The TPO is 28,000 watts.

The formula to convert Watts to dBm is dBm=10 X Log10(Pw) + 30, where Pw is power in Watts. Thus dBm=10 X log10(28000) + 30 or 74.4715 dBm minus the 48.5 dBm coupling factor which is 25.9715 dBm. That is too much input for this power meter. A 20 dB attenuator will need to be used.

Since I will be using this meter in other places, rather than doing that calculation over and over again, why not build an Excel spreadsheet? That would make it easy to check.

A simple Watts to dBm calculator in Excel looks like this:

=(10*LOG(C6))+30

This is copied into cell C11. C6 is the cell in which the Transmitter output power in watts is entered. The other cells contain the coupling factor (C5) and external attenuation (C7) In application, it looks something like this:

Excel spreadsheet power meter calculations

You can arrange these any way you like, just change the cell numbers to suit your needs.

I like to make the data entry cells green. You can lock the formula cells so that the formulas don’t get changed accidentally. Below the Approximate port power cell, is the IF statement that will return either a “LOW”, “HIGH”, or “OK” depending on the result value in C11. That looks like this:

=IF(C11>C9,"HIGH",IF(C11<C8,"LOW","OK"))

The spreadsheet itself is downloadable: Power meter port calculator

It would be very easy to make a system gain/loss calculator for using the licensed ERP to calculate the proper TPO.

Other examples of useful Excel spreadsheet formulas:

To convert from dBm to watts:

=10^((B22-30)/10)

B22 is the cell in which the power in dBm is entered. These can be any place you want on the spreadsheet.

Radio Frequency to Wavelength in Meters:

=299792458/B10

Where B10 is the cell in which the frequency in Hz is entered. 299792458 is the speed of light (Meters per second) in a vacuum. If you wanted the input frequency to be in kHz, simply move the decimal point for the speed of light three places to the left, e.g. 299792.458. For MHz move the decimal four places to the left, GHz five places, etc.

Convert electrical degrees to Meters:

=(299792.458/B10)/360*B11

Where B10 is the frequency in kHz and B11 is the number of electrical degrees in question.

An example of that in an Excel Spreadsheet can be downloaded: Frequency to Wavelength converter

Audio Frequency to Wavelength in Meters:

=(20.05*(273.16+B11)^0.5)/B12

Where B11 is the air temperature in degrees Celsius and B12 is the frequency in Hz. Room temperature is normally about 21 degrees Celsius (about 70 degrees Fahrenheit). Humidity and altitude can also affect the sound wave velocity, which will affect the wavelength.

Base (or common point) current calculator using base impedance and licensed power:

=SQRT(B12/B11)

Where B12 is the License power in watts and B11 is the measured base impedance of the tower (or common point impedance of the phasor).

Convert meters to feet:

=B11/0.3048

Where B11 is the length in meters

Convert feet to meters:

=B12*0.3048

Where B12 is the length in feet.

Convert degrees F to degrees C:

=(B11-32)/1.8

Where B11 is the degrees Fahrenheit

Convert degrees C to degrees F:

=(B12*1.8)+32

Where B12 is the degrees Celsius. In this case, the order of operations will work without the prentices but I kept them in place for uniformity.

Convert BTU to KW:

=B11/3412.142

Where B11 is the BTU/hr

Example of an Air Conditioner load estimation:

=(B11*B12-B11)*3412.142

Where B11 is the TPO, B12 is the transmitter AC to RF efficiency. The output is in BTU.

There is an entire list of Excel functions here: Excel Functions (alphabetic order)

You get the idea. Yes, there are smartphone applications as well as online calculators for most of these functions. However, I have found smartphone apps are becoming more painful to deal with as time goes on, mostly due to the ads. App developers need to make money, and you can buy apps for things that are often used. However, it is nice to have these types of calculators available offline. Besides, it is fun to play around with Excel formulas.