General – Page 13 – Engineering Radio

Came as a stock item

So, I wore out another car and it was time to get a new one. Unexpectedly, the new car came with one of these fancy gizmos:

This is not the first HD radio I have owned, the Jeep Cherokee had one that I install myself. This is the first time it came with the car and I didn’t even mention it to the sales guy.

A few observations:

Many stations’ HD1 channels don’t sound very good, they are either shrill and tinny, or not synced with their analog counterpart.
There still aren’t very many stations transmitting HD Radio; FM stations are either NPR affiliates or belong to a few larger corporate owners. The AM stations are few and far between.
AM HD Radio still has numerous problems in the mobile listening environment.
Many of the HD 2/3 don’t sound very good; low audio levels, muffled modulation, low bit rate audio, etc. The only exception that I have found so far is Vermont Public Radio’s classical format, transmitted on the HD2 of WVPS, Burlington.
HD2/3 channels mainly serve as “translator loophole” stations, AKA “Metro Stations”

As far as the new ownership by DTS goes; I will reserve judgment until they do something with it.

Common’ Baby

Who is that old guy standing next to Chubby Checker?

Hey, that’s me!

And never will you meet a nicer gentleman than Chubby Checker.

Microsoft: I am so done with you…

_{Except for the two applications that only run in Windows…}

I lost the use of my Windows 7 partition on my laptop last week after a Windows update. They have been pushing Windows 10 for a while now, but I have ignored it because Windows 7 is just fine for me. I tried to ignore the latest nagging update and: Oh, joy! The computer is stuck in an endless reboot loop. Fortunately, I had a dual boot system and the Linux OS booted right up. Go figure! I was able to mount the Windows partition from Linux and recover all of my files. This is a good reason to have a dual boot system or keep a bootable thumb drive handy. At first, I thought I might be losing sectors on my hard drive, but no. It turns out, one of the files that changed during the update was corrupted. No big deal, I can reload windows and be back in business.

It will only take an hour or so. An hour that could be better used for something else, something akin to billable hours, which is how the mortgage gets paid. My computer is not a hobby, it is a tool. I don’t have time to play around with things for fun.

Then I thought, why bother? I am using Linux with no serious disruptions. In fact, it boots faster, runs faster, is more secure, and generally has fewer hangups. LibreOffice has all of the applications I need for general correspondence and business administration. I can run Win 7 as a virtual machine in VirtualBox as long as I can get the USB device I need to be recognized by Linux and then passed through to the virtual Win 7 OS.

So, to hell with Windows and all its nonsense. Goodbye, you inferior, expensive, and buggy piece of garbage. I will not miss you.

Radio is dead? Don’t tell these guys then…

WXHC in Homer, New York will never be listed on the NY Stock Exchange. Is that bad?

They don’t think so. A small class A FM station, one of many that signed on in the early 1990s as part of the 80-90 drop-ins (FCC docket 80-90, for those unfamiliar). Many of these stations did not fair too well and ended up being absorbed by larger stations and groups starting with the first wave of ownership deregulation in 1993.

WHXC has remained under the same ownership since it signed on in 1991. Eves Broadcasting is a family operation, employing maybe half a dozen people. Their studios and offices are on the third floor of the Bank of Niagara right in the center of town. The facility is very nice. Like any successful radio station, its focus is the community they serve. The format is “Oldies” but they also broadcast high school football, Syracuse sports and so on. They host a yearly Blue Grass festival on the village green.

The air studio has an Arrakis console and uses BSI Simian automation software. They have live DJs from 6 am to 6 pm, local news, weather, sports, etc.

The production room has a BE Spotmaster 8S200A console from 1978. Aside from needing some power supply capacitors, it still works relatively well. However, as the owner’s son said; that thing belongs in a museum.

BE Spotmaster line input card. Probably can still get all these parts if we wanted to.

I forgot to take pictures of the transmitter site when I was there. Next time.

We will be working on several projects for these folks, so I will keep you posted on the progress.