Paul Thurst – Page 53 – Engineering Radio

Transmitter repair

Sometimes it is obvious and relatively easy, other times not so much. This summer we have had wave after wave of afternoon thunderstorms. It is almost like living in Florida; almost, but not quite. Anyway, with the storms occasionally comes some lightning damage. At most of the transmitter sites we service, every step has been taken to ensure good grounding and adequate surge suppression. This is especially true of sites that have been under our care for a few years. Even so, occasionally, something gets through. After all, those five-hundred-foot steel towers do attract lightning.

Broadcast Electronics AM5E output tuning section

This is the output section of the BE AM5E transmitter at WROW. The transmitter got pretty trashed; a bad PA module and power supply and this capacitor in the output section. This particular transmitter is 14 years old and this is the first major repair work we’ve had to do it.

Broadcast Electronics AM5E output tuning capacitor

The capacitor was fairly easy to change out. As a general precaution, both capacitors were changed. There was a spare PA module and power supply on the shelf, thus the transmitter was returned to full power relatively quickly.

Broadcast Electronics AM5E output forward and reflected power meters

The rest of the antenna system and phasor were inspected for damage, a set of common point impedance measurements taken, which showed that no other damage was sustained.

Next, the 30 year old Harris SX2.5 A transmitter at WSBS. This failure was slightly more exotic; the transmitter started randomly turning itself off. The culprit, in that case, was this:

Harris SX2.5 remote control interface bypass capacitor

Literally, a two cent part. The transmitter remote control uses optoisolators. The inputs to these opto-isolators are RF bypassed to ground on the back of the “customer interface board.” After determining that the remote control was not malfunctioning, it was down to either a bad opto-isolator or something really silly like a bypass capacitor. This capacitor was on the ground side of the remote off terminal. It shows short on the capacitance meter and 4.1 K on the ohm meter, just enough to randomly turn the opto-isolator on and shut down the transmitter. Being a Harris transmitter, removing and replacing the “customer interface board” was no easy matter. Overall, it took about three hours to find and repair this problem.

Fewer owners means more diversity!

Alternate title: Less is more (and other nonsense)!

The NAB has come out with its latest interesting opinion on radio station ownership in comments to the FCC regarding the 2014 Quadrennial Regulatory Review. They state that “Retaining the local radio ownership rule unchanged would be arbitrary and capricious” because the audio marketplace has changed radically over the last ten years. The introduction of online listening via Pandora seems to have created a competition that can only be adequately dealt with by further consolidation, it seems. Also, the Commission cannot demonstrate that the current rules promote localism or viewpoint diversity. That last sentence is a fair statement. What the NAB does not say is that there is no evidence that further consolidation will promote localism or viewpoint diversity either.

The comment then goes into a lot of information and statistics on smartphone usage; who has them, what they are using them for et cetera. It is very interesting to note that there is no reason given for the sudden and alarming upswing in mobile online listening. But, let us examine a few interesting data points first:

Mobile data is not free. There are very few unlimited mobile data plans out there anymore, most everyone now has some sort of data cap. Extra data can be purchased, but it is expensive
Online listening uses data at a fast rate. According to Pandora, they stream at 64 kbps, or 0.480 megabytes per minute or 29 megabytes per hour. Spotify uses quite a bit more, 54 megabytes per hour.

Let us assume that the average commute to work these days is one hour. That would mean two hours per day of driving and mobile listening. That adds up to 1.16 GB of data per month just in online listening. Assuming that the smartphone functions as more than just a radio and will be used for email, maps, news, web browsing, and other downloads, a fairly hefty data plan would be required of the smartphone user to accommodate all this data. Why would somebody pay considerably extra per month just to listen to online radio?

Do you get where I am going with this? Good, compelling programming is what people are searching for. If they cannot find it on the radio, they will go elsewhere. Nature abhors a vacuum. Want to compete against Pandora, Spotify, XM, or whoever? Offer up something good to listen to. These days, competition seems to be a dirty word. Yes, competition requires work, but it, in and of itself, is not bad.

The NAB seems to be saying that relaxing ownership rules and thus, presumably, allowing more consolidation will promote diversity. In my twenty-five years of broadcasting, I can say that I have never seen this to be the case. Some of the most diverse radio stations to be heard are often single stations, sometimes an AM/FM combo, just out there doing their thing. Stations like WDST, WHVW, WKZE, WHDD, WJFF, WTBQ, WSBS, WNAW… I am sure that I am forgetting a few.

You can read the entirety of the NAB’s comments here.

On being responsible

No two days are alike. Sure, there are days that are similar in nature, office work, filing, FCC compliance, etc. However, there is always something different, some new problem, person, fault, error, client, site or situation to deal with. It helps to be well-versed.

So, when the tower climbers started climbing a 1,000-foot (304 meters) tall tower to find a damaged section of the transmission line, I thought it; Just a routine day.

Even when they encountered a hornet’s nest at 50 feet (15 meters) AGL, still, fairly routine:

Tower climber applying bee spray to paper wasp nest

Tower climber A received a nasty bee sting to his left arm. He climbed part way down the tower and is in the lower part of the picture hugging the tower’s face. Tower climber B moved up and killed the nest with Wasp and Bee killer. All is well and work resumes, right? Except, no. Tower climber A is apparently allergic to bees. He states he is not feeling well and his arm begins to swell up. He comes down the tower and I start looking for Benadryl.

Now, we have a problem. This is a mountaintop tower site, there is a long dirt road with a locked gate at the bottom of the hill. There is almost no way an ambulance will be able to find its way up here. The tower climber says that he has not been stung in many years. I also notice his face is beginning to swell up. Right, so lock the door, in the truck and get to the bottom of the hill as fast as possible. It took about five minutes, but at the bottom of the hill, we were in a much better position if things got worse and an ambulance needed to be called. Fortunately, his condition was the same, so we drove to an urgent care facility where he was treated.

Benadryl, is something else to add to the go bag.

Always keep ahead of the situation. Even if we drove to the bottom of the hill and his symptoms completely disappeared, it still would have been the right decision.

I wonder

Update: Apparently the pictures in this post have upset some people. Even though there is no identifying information; no call letters, no company name, and no location given certain folks have been putting a lot of pressure on the guy I work for. I do not want to make any problems for him, so I removed the pictures. After all, the last thing we would want to do is acknowledge there is a problem. The commentary stays.

Well, we have returned from our semi-vacation. Sumat to do with the other side of the family; a road trip to Canton, Oklahoma, a brief study on mineral rights, then a family reunion. On the return home, several side trips to interesting things like the Abraham Lincoln museum in Springfield, Illinois, and the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. We also stopped in Springfield to see Santa Anna’s leg, which seems to be generating some controversy of late. I do not like to announce such things ahead of time because it seems like an invitation for a house break-in.

But, all good things come to an end, so back to work it is.

And then there is this:

A transmitter site for a group of stations not too far from here.

Class B FM station (50,000 watt equivalent) running 100 watts.

And filth, lots of filth.

As more full time broadcast engineers drop off line, we seem to be picking up more and more work. That is good for business, but some of these sites are downright depressing.

It is very sad to see such disrepair and makes me think that we are in the last days of terrestrial radio. Truth be told, the end may be many years off, but the decline gets steadily steeper every year. In the end; Television, Video, Satellite, the internet and took small bites of radio, but radio owners are the true culprits when it comes to who killed radio.

It is hard to make predictions; so many have failed in the past, but ten years maybe. Perhaps a few more. It will depend on whether or not business still find value in radio advertising. Right now that looks pretty far fetched, but who knows…