Author: Paul Thurst

VNC for Android phone

With the advent of computer file storage and automation came unmanned operation.  Unfortunately, what often happens with unmanned operations is somehow the engineer becomes responsible for station operation and ends up getting all the phone calls when anything goes wrong:

  • Traffic forgot to transfer the Sunday log and the station is off the air at 12 am Sunday morning.  Call the engineer.
  • Part-time DJ didn’t read the directions on merging logs, call the engineer.
  • Windows has encountered a problem and needs to reboot, call the engineer.
  • The server has locked up, call the engineer.
  • Silence sensor, engineer’s phone number

I got sick of driving to the radio station when things got out of whack with the AudioVault, so I installed VNC on all the machines.  From that point, I could log on from home and see what the problem was.  It was great, when traffic goobers up the log transfer, I called the traffic director at home and had her go in a fix it.  Untrained operators, called the program director.  Unfortunately, I don’t have Bill Gate’s phone number, so the Windows issues are still on me.

All of this was great as long as my laptop was around.  Being married, however, I had to occasionally listen to my wife, who insisted that we not take the laptop to dinner or the movies with us.  There were those occasional times when it would have been nice.

With the purchase of the Android phone, however, I no longer have to worry about that.  Android VNC is a free app that allows an Android phone to connect to any VNC server application.  The user can save all the VNC connection information on the phone.  It has several mouse options including a touch pad, touchpad mouse, mouse trackball, etc.  It connects to most VNC servers: incl TightVNC, RealVNC on Win and Linux, x11vnc, and Apple Remote Desktop on OS/X. 0.4.3.  Special commands such as ctl-alt-del are available through the menu.  It is also fully zoomable.  All in all, I can do almost anything with the Android phone that I can do on the laptop.  My wife is thrilled.

It is a time saver.

Oh. My. God. Becky, look at her butt…

This is The Stairway to Heaven for a different decade.

It is so big. She looks like, one of those rap guys’ girlfriends. But, you know, who understands those rap guys?
They only talk to her, because, she looks like a total prostitute, ‘kay?

Ordinarily, I don’t much go in for such things as rap music.  But this is entertaining and somewhat universal.

Hard to believe that it was almost twenty years ago. Almost every lyric in that song is innuendo for some sex act. Like it. Dislike it. No rules were broken when making this song. It went to number 1 on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1992 and no radio station anywhere ever received a fine for playing it.  It was quite scandalous at the time, of course, we were young and naive then.   Things have changed.

To the beanpole dames in the magazines: You ain’t it, Miss Thing!

It occurs to me that part of the reason that the radio industry sucks is that the music industry sucks.  The radio and music industry used to have a symbiotic relationship, each benefiting greatly from the existence of the other.  Of course, the greed and poor business practices of the last decade have driven every fun and thus entertaining element away from both industries.   Leave it to the bean counters, who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Sadly, no hit that I have heard on the top 40 stations these days even comes close to the entertainment value of this 18-year-old song.

IBOC update

Harris Dexstar exciter
Harris Dexstar Exciter

I was reading several very interesting IBOC-related articles and posts today.  First of all, if Tom Ray, an engineer from WOR and a strong proponent of AM HD Radio seems a little reticent lately, well, perhaps this explains a few things:

Tom Ray finds himself discouraged based on a Ford shopping experience.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing, however, here are some of the highlights:

  • Fear of HD radio going the way of FM Quad and AM Stereo
  • Asks for an HD radio at the Ford dealership, no one can figure out what HD radio is
  • WOR news director states “HD radio sucks” then asks to have his car radio programmed for analog-only
  • HD radio less known than Apple iPad product
  • Joe consumer would not be able to make heads or tails out of it.

RBR has more here.

It is telling that one of the most vocal proponents of IBOC would publish an article such as this.  It seems to be diametrically opposed to the latest press release from iBiquity insisting all is well, never fear, etc.  Perhaps it is meant to spur things on, rally the troops as it were.

The second item I found very interesting, Paul Riismandel from Radio Survivor fools around with a Sony XDRF1  HD receiver.  He posts a great deal of information about his experience.  It is a good read.  To summarize some of the points of this story:

  • It is difficult to receive HD radio signals in the Chicago Suburbs.
  • When FM HD radio is in use, it is difficult to tell the difference in sound quality between analog and the IBOC programming
  • Secondary channels have low bit rates and are not suitable for listening to music

Finally, Radio World, again, states that after six months 86 FM stations have completed the allowed IBOC power upgrade.  That information is from the NAB.  I cannot find any official FCC information regarding this, I would like to know if any of those 86 stations are around here.  By the way, 86 out of 1,524 stations representing 6 percent of existing IBOC stations have been upgraded.  That makes 0.9 percent of the total number of FM stations licensed to the US running -14dBc IBOC carriers.

I will allow the reader to draw his/her own conclusions.

Upgrading National Weather Service Radio transmitter

If you have ever wondered about those ubiquitous NOAA all hazards radio (formerly National Weather Service radio) stations, wonder no more. These stations transmit on one of five frequencies in the 162 MHz band with power ranges between 250 and 1,000 watts.  There are over 1,000 transmitters scattered throughout the country including outlying territories like American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

The original 1958 plan was for these stations to transmit Aviation and Marine weather forecasts.  The system was expanded for use by the general public in the early sixties.  Since that time, it has been slowly expanding, with the most recent survey concluding that NOAA weather radio station can be received by 95% of the US population.

One of those stations in my neck of the woods is due for a transmitter upgrade. WXL-37 uses two Scientific Radio Systems SR-416P  transmitters, as a main and a standby.  The programming audio comes from the NWS office in Albany, New York, via TELCO line.  The old transmitters are tube type made by in 1976.   They are reliable transmitters, however, after 34 years of continuous use, they are getting a little tired.  They are also big and bulky and since Scientific Radio Systems went out of business, not been supported.

This year, NOAA is replacing these transmitters with a Nautel NG1000.  I have worked with Nautel’s military-grade transmitters before and found them to be extremely rugged.  Those transmitters are what the original AMPFET design was based on.  Nautel is not the only vendor that NOAA is using however, others include Armstrong Transmitters and Crown Broadcast.

Scientific Radio System SR416P transmitters
NOAA Scientific Radio Systems SR416P VHF transmitters

The Nautel NG1000 is a little thing, taking up about half an equipment rack with an outboard cavity filter and dummy load.  There are two drawers, a controller an antenna switch, and a remote control.  Each drawer is its own 1 KW transmitter.  The GUI is on a laptop, which is what I prefer.  If there must be some sort of computer-driven GUI, then make it removable, so that when lightning strikes the 1,000-foot steel lightning rod 25 feet away, it doesn’t get blown up.  Each transmitter is connected to a 30 AMP 240 Volt breaker via a 4-prong twist lock plug.

Nautel NG1000 transmitter
Nautel NG1000 NOAA transmitter

The antenna for this station is near the middle of this 1,000-foot tower, thus the station gets excellent coverage with a TPO of 1,000 watts.

American Tower, Highland, NY
American Tower site, Highland, NY

On a related side note, the computer synthesized voices normally heard on NOAA stations took several years to evolve.  Remember when this began back in the mid 1990’s with “Paul.”  Several years later, “Craig” and “Donna” were introduced.  Finally, “Tom,” is able to change voice inflections for emphasis.  When I was in the Coast Guard, we did high seas synopsis and forecast on HF without aid of computers.  At times, especially during typhoon season, it got a little busy in the weather broadcast position.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods.  Personally, I’d rather hear a human voice, especially in a crisis.