Paul Thurst – Page 183 – Engineering Radio

If it ain’t broke, break it

One thing that I find a little annoying is the continuing need to reboot everything at some interval. Computers in the studio, audio vault servers and workstations, e-mail servers, files servers, network routers, and so on. Got a problem, first thing to do is cycle the power off and on…

One of the most irritating pieces of equipment is the audio processors on one of our FM stations. A few years ago, we purchased the whiz-bang Omnia 6 processor. Every 6 or 8 months the thing losses its mind and sounds terrible. The station gets all bassy and the high-end sounds distorted. I have tried everything I can think of to prevent this, including installing a UPS, extra grounding, extra shielding, software updates, etc. In the end, it just has to be rebooted, which of course, means several seconds of dead air. Naturally, this processor is at the FM transmitter site, which it is difficult to get to.

Truth be told when it is working, it does sound pretty good on the air, but is it $10,000 dollars better than the older Optimod 8100A? No, it is not.

The old Orban Optimods sound pretty good as long as they are re-capped and aligned every so often. If fact, our number one billing station has an AC format and uses an Optimod 8100A and nothing else. Our other station in the same market uses an Optimod 8100A and a pair of Texar Audio Prisms. In the ten years, I have been working for this group of radio stations, I have never had to reboot the Optimod or the Audio Prisms, they just seem to work continuously without problems. Imagine that.

I have seen this called a “retro audio chain” by some. Nothing retro about it, but a little care and feeding and I’d stack this equipment up against an Omnia 6 any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

This is a grainy video of an 8100A in action:

That was taken in our rack room using off-air audio on the rack room speakers and a cheap video camera. You get the idea.

So here is to Frank Foti and his marketing gurus that have sold all of the program directors in America on the need to “update” their air chain processors, because, you know, the Optimod, that is old skool.

How stupid do you have to be?

I read through the news coverage of the vandalism at the KRKO transmitter site. Apparently, there is some group of idiots people running around insisting that radio towers are bad for the environment and people’s health. These are the same ones who have torched SUVs and burned high-end housing developments down. Naturally, no pollution is released into the environment during these acts, or else they would be hypocrites.

They make these claims with no merit or scientific basis, instead relying on base fears to make people go crazy, either temporarily or permanently like. It is actually a pretty good motivator as both political parties and all sorts of fringe truthier, birthier, and others have discovered. If enough people insist that it is true, then it must be so.

Unfortunately, there is always some idiot around who thinks it is his or her duty to take action, to protect the rest of us from some terrible fate.

In the meantime, some security cameras at the transmitter site might be a good investment. Chances are, these Earth Liberators that sneak around with bolt cutters and hack saws will likely think twice if there is any chance of themselves going to jail.

By the way, those KRKO towers looked like self-supporters which would have been very difficult to get down. Did they rent that excavator, or was some construction equipment left unattended?

When batteries explode

This is a picture of an exploded battery on a 45 KW backup generator:

850 CCA battery exploded during generator startup

This happened during a thunderstorm. The smoking crew was out on the back porch, during a thunderstorm (you have to have your priorities I suppose) and witnessed the entire incident. What was told to me was lightning stuck the generator. I find that improbable since there are many metal objects scattered around the area that are much taller. What likely happened was lightning stuck something close by, causing the power to drop out momentarily. This caused the generator to turn over. The battery was likely low in electrolyte, so there was an internal arc and the thing exploded in short order.

These events happened in rapid succession, giving the illusion that lightning struck the generator.

I removed the old battery and hosed the inside of the generator with copious amounts of water. There is nothing that can be done about the spilled electrolyte, since it was likely washed into the storm sewer during the storm. After the replacement of the battery, I tested the generator and all is well.

Book Review: Fighting for Air

I just finished reading Fighting for Air by Eric Klinenberg. It is a good book and a great description of what has happened to radio since the major consolidations occurred in 1999 and 2000. Depressing. Just damn depressing is what it is.

The book chronicles the evolution of the Prophet System and how that system was used to replace entire radio station air staff. It discusses the various failures that radio has produced as a result of automated programming, the complete lack of originality, public safety issues, and how major media companies have stripped the heart and soul out of radio.

Something that the book points out that I never really considered, every one of these unoriginal canned music stations diminishes all radio by some increment. For those that think the Clear Channels, Cumulus, and Citadels are only harming themselves, think again. People who get fed up with radio and buy an I-pod are excluding all radio stations from then on. That is another degree of audience lost to a competing medium.

Having worked for one of the smaller group owners since 1999, one that rarely if ever appears on anyone’s radar, I can say I have seen some minor shades of what has happened with Clear Channel in the company I work for. I think everyone who works in radio has seen some of this in one form or another no matter who they work for.

Radio has never been the most stable of employers. Even in the early days, people moved in and out of radio stations, sometimes taking a job with the competitor across town and sometimes moving across the country. It was understood that sometimes changes needed to be made, sometimes people had to be let go. It was a part of the landscape. The difference is in the post-consolidation radio environment, people are leaving radio altogether, replaced by a mindless computer programmed from afar.

During my time as a radio engineer, I have installed a few of these computer automation systems. I think the first one was in 1993 on an AM station doing all news. We used it for the overnight hours, replacing some minimum wage board operators. The general manager was shocked and a little bit in awe of how well the system worked.

This trend continued in 1994, when I installed a BE Audiovault system at an AM/FM combo. There again, the system replaced an overnight board operator on the AM station. Later, the FM station did a sort of mini-mation where the overnight news guy checked on it every 45-50 minutes. Those stations are now completely voice-tracked and or satellite syndicated.

Through the 90s, I installed first-generation computer-based automation systems mostly on AM stations. Things like Digilink, DCS, ENCO, etc.

In other markets, an automation system was used to resurrect a couple of FM stations, starting out voice-tracked, then adding live bodies to fill in day parts, usually having the 6 pm to 6 am time slot voice-tracked. Having three-day parts live is better than none I suppose.

The AM stations in my market cluster now are running some awful syndicated satellite news/talk programming. Why are these stations even on the air? They should be sold to someone who will operate them locally, or turn their licenses in.

For whatever role I have played in ruining radio, I am sorry for it.

It is a good book, I recommend anybody that works in the radio business read it.