General – Page 18 – Engineering Radio

Trends in Terrestrial Broadcasting, II

Things seem to be relatively quiet these days, with no earth-shattering developments, no big news stories, etc. My workload consists of mostly driving to one location and cleaning things up, then driving to another location and cleaning more things up. Nothing really new to write about. However, industry-wide, there have been some developments of note:

More AM HD radio only testing out in Seattle. We hear that these tests are phenomenal but have yet to see any data. The HD Radio proponents keep pushing for an all-digital transition. To that I say good, let those stations (AM and FM) that want to transition to all digital do so, provided they conform to the analog channel bandwidths and do not cause interference to analog stations. It should also be an either/or decision: Either transmit in all digital format or revert to analog only format, with no more interference causing hybrid analog-digital.
BMW depreciates AM radio in some models. It seems the all-electric car generates too much electric noise to facilitate AM reception. My question; are these mobile noise generators going to cause reception problems for other vehicles too? What if I want to hear the traffic on 880 or 1010 and one of these things roles by? There are larger implications here and the FCC should be concerned with this.
General Motors pauses the HD Radio uptake in some models. No real reasons were given, but more emphasis on LTE in the dashboard is noted. We are reassured by iBquity that this trend is only temporary.
Anxiously awaiting this year’s engineering salary survey. For science, of course. Here is last year’s survey.
Clear Channel is no more! They have gone out of business and a new company, iHeart Media, has taken over. Things will be much better now, I can feel it.
John Anderson finds a chilly reception at the last NAB confab: An Unwelcome Guest at the NAB radio show. This is not surprising but kind of sad. John has been a reasonable critic of IBOC and wrote a book titled: Radio’s Digital Dilemma.
Not too much going on with the AM revitalization. Tom King of Kintronics notes that the fault is in our receivers.
Government shortwave broadcasters continue to sign off permanently. Radio Exterior de Espana ceases operations.
European long wave and medium wave stations are also throwing the big switch; Atlantic 252 (long wave), as well as German long wave stations on 153, 177, and 207 KHz, medium wave stations 549, 756, 1269, and 1422 KHz also are signing off. Those 9 KHz channel spacings look strange don’t they. What fate awaits US AM radio stations?
I am reading Glenn Greenwald’s book, No Place to Hide. I knew this, you should know it too.

Transportation

Broadcast Engineering from a contracting standpoint requires a lot of driving. I mean a lot of driving. Since switching from full-time Director of Engineering to a contracting field engineering position, I have already worn out two vehicles. Having reliable transportation is a key component of this job. Of course, the other consideration is the price of gasoline which can range from expensive to horribly expensive depending on the warring or not warring that is currently taking place.

Thus, when it came time to replace my strange-looking but roomy and reliable Scion xB, I did some research. My complaint about the xB, other than the looks, was the lack of ground clearance and lack of all-wheel or four-wheel drive. After a bit of reading, it seemed the Subaru Crosstrek XV was a good choice. Long story short, I got my car last week and got a pretty good deal, as the car dealer was looking to get rid of all their 2014 stock.

As I was leaving the dealership, the salesman had one final question. The conversation went something like this:

Sales guy: “Mr. Thurst, can I ask what it was that sold you on this car?”

Myself: “Sure, it was the oil filter.”

SG: “What?”

Me: “The oil filter.”

SG: “No, I heard that, I just don’t understand. It wasn’t the price or the fuel economy or the features?”

Me: “Nope. To be honest, you did give me a good price, I like the all-wheel drive, the ground clearance, the gas mileage, and all that. But when I popped the hood to look at the engine and saw the oil filter, I was sold.”

SG: “No one has ever said that before. Welp, good luck, and thanks for buying your car from us.” (now walking backward into the dealership, smile fixed on his face and nodding slowly)

Here is a picture of the Subaru FB20 boxer engine:

Oil filter location on a Subaru FB20 engine

See the oil filter right next to the oil fill plug, up right and easy to get to. Not only that, some design engineer put a catch basin around the filter mount, knowing that when the filter was unscrewed, all the oil would run out of it. Without the catch basin, that oil would run down the engine block creating a mess that would get worse with each oil change.

Little things. Little things mean a lot.

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.