General – Page 63 – Engineering Radio

WBCQ The Planet

File under: What I wish I could do, if I had the money.

Imagine, as an engineer, owning and running your very own radio station. Not just any radio station, but a 50,000-watt flame thrower heard over most of the eastern US. Dude! Only one minor detail, it is a Shortwave station, which, by FCC regulation is only supposed to be listened to outside of the US, hence the official FCC name, International Broadcasting. As I said, minor detail.

Anyway, WBCQ is heard at various times on 5110, 7415, 9330, and 15420 kHz both in and outside of the US. Their full schedule here. Last night I was treated to the Lost Discs radio show, featuring rare tracks not often found or heard anywhere. It sounded like they were having a lot of fun and it was entertaining, which is why I continued to listen for well over an hour. Besides this, they played a cover of one of my favorite songs, Wish you were here, as played by Kris McKay.

I put up the video for the song that was in it, and, no, I don’t know who those grainy people are.

It seems that the owner, Mr. Weiner is a fellow radio engineer and long-time radio enthusiast. He was and still is a strong proponent of radio for the good of the public. Most of his earlier attempts to own radio station fell on the other side of the legal line, being not quite sanctioned by any government authority. At first, he did attempt to obtain a license and was turned down by the FCC, prompting him to write this reply (shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia):

…we went about a year ago … to apply for a license. Our attempt proved quite humorous to your employees, who sent us away with word of “Forget it.” Further investigations showed us why our attempt was then so comical. Licenses were so expensive and hard to get that even small stations were being sold for millions. Broadcasting was reserved for power men.

…We are not disputing, however, your right to assign channels and set aside bands for the prevention of interference. We certainly, however, are disputing your right to reserve broadcasting for the well-to-do only.

So, I applaud Allan Weiner and his never say never attitude. Perhaps one day, I’ll apply for an international broadcasting license and do something similar. I wonder if he gets many RFI complaints from people living around his transmitter site. I once had one from somebody who was receiving the radio station on the outlets in their kitchen. Seems Larry King was not their thing…

More failure, please…

Sounds kind of silly, but in some cases, failure is good. Companies that are inefficient, poorly run, poorly conceived, have substandard products, do not serve their clients, and so on should be able to fail. This allows good companies, that do things right, to thrive.

Too big to fail is too big and those companies should be broken up. This holds true in the radio business as well as the banking industry, the auto industry, and so on. What is truly unfortunate is that the people most responsible for the failure, the upper management, and CEOs, often get away with millions while the people who had their back into it get to go to the unemployment office.

That being said, radio is in for some drastic changes soon.

NO BAILOUTS FOR RADIO

Enough already with the bailouts. Radio is not some precious national resource, it does not function for the betterment of society, nor does it provide vital information in the time of emergency. It stopped doing those things years ago when deregulation kicked in, deregulation which was lobbied for extensively by the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) at the behest of radio and tv station owners, by the way.

Once deregulation took effect, station management went on a hunt for pennies, often tripping over dollars to get them. Through staff reductions and cost cutting, the product was deluded and the medium was marginalized and that is where we are today.

Not everyone followed the above narrative, there are some operators who stuck to the framework of public/customer service and kept good programming on the air. Those stations are few and far between but they are out there. Why should they not reap the benefits of their forward thinking?

A trip to the FM transmitter site

A few pictures from my last trip to one of our FM transmitter sites. This is a mountaintop site, in as much as a medium-sized hill is a mountain around here. This site has a 2.3-mile road through the woods that is almost impassable 3-4 months out of the year.

Previous engineers have walked up the hill with a toolbox. I can say this with all honesty; not me. In the past, they have also rented a helicopter, and used a snowcat, snowmobile, or an ATV with snow tracks. I’d do those things provided they are safe and insured. As I get older (and wiser), I realize that the only person who going to look after my well-being is me.

Anyway, the trip starts here, at the gate:

Then it goes up the hill:

Some sections are worse than others:

Along the way there are some nice views:

City reservior near transmitter site — City reservoir near the transmitter site

Finally, the gate to the tower farm:

There are two digital TV stations, several cell phone carriers, some government two-way gear, some FM translators, Media Flow, and us at this site. There are also some Ham radio repeaters off to the side in another building. All in all, a pretty RF-intense site.

The view from the top:

The reason why we came:

That is a 24-year-old BE FM5B transmitter. The backup is a Gates FM5G, which aren’t we glad we have a solid reliable transmitter selection for such a remote site. Actually, we were supposed to put in a new Nautel V-10 here last year, but the money was spent on computers instead. Oh well, good thing there will be no computer crashes when we go off the air.

A standard maintenance trip consists of meter readings, comparing the reading to the last set of readings, changing the air filters, checking the remote control and calibrating it to the transmitter, checking the tower light sensor, etc.

Normally, the backup transmitter would run into the dummy load, but the backup transmitter no longer works. Parts are not available to fix it, so we operate without a net. One of the previous general managers asked if that keeps me awake at night, to which my answer was no, not at all.

Is internet radio really radio?

Technically speaking, no. Here is how radio is defined in the dictionary:

ra⋅di⋅o

[rey-dee-oh]
-noun
1. wireless telegraphy or telephony: speeches broadcast by radio.
2. an apparatus for receiving or transmitting radio broadcasts.
3. a message transmitted by radio.

Therefore, the internet, something relying on wired connections for the transmission of data, for the most part, is not radio. A radio station that is streaming audio, is a different matter.

Aside from that technicality, there is something else that is important to note. Internet broadcasters (AKA webcasters) lack some other key components that make a radio station a radio station; A specific set of rules that govern their behavior. Things like profanity, copyright infringement, slander, payola, plugola, syndication rights, advertising rules (things like tobacco, alcohol) emergency information, public issues, and so on.

A radio station license is granted in the public interest. Time was that radio stations were required to do a certain amount of public service broadcasting, things like the news, religious programs, and community interest programs. Many stations still do this. An internet broadcaster is under so such constraints. Some would say that is better and it just might be. However, when Tim Westergren says “Don’t call it internet radio, just call it radio,” sir, you are wrong.