tech stuff – Engineering Radio

Audio Processing

Any radio station’s on air signal is its biggest marketing tool.

What sounds bad:

Over use of compression (gain reduction)
Over use of high frequency EQ
Over “equalization” on all frequencies
Over modulation
Overly aggressive composite clipping
Improper use of FM pre-emphasis
Poorly tuned transmitters (tube type)
Poorly matched antenna systems (all types)
Poor quality audio input
Over use of bit reduction on the STL
Analog STL’s that are off frequency
Playback of bad audio recordings

What sounds good:

Moderate use of compression to bring up audio levels for in car listening
Using equalization that suites format (e.g. more mid-range for all talk, more bass for urban, etc.)
Properly adjusted processor output levels for the correct modulation levels
Setting the pre-emphasis correctly
Tuning tube type transmitters for minimum distortion
Tuning antennas for adequate impedance and bandwidth
Making sure that audio input levels are correct, the audio is properly distributed and terminated with the correct impedance
Using STLs that have enough throughput that either no bit reduction or minimum bit reduction is used
Regularly check analog STL frequencies and re-adjust as necessary
Get rid of all bad audio recordings in the automation/playback system. Make sure that new files are from good sources and/or are re-recorded correctly

I took a little road trip between Christmas and New Years (Happy New Year!). I cannot help myself, I ended up tuning around the radio to see what was on. Suffice to say, I found the usual formats and a few locally focused stations. What struck me was the sound of some of the stations. While most sounded acceptable, if not somewhat generic, there were a few that had ear splitting, headache inducing audio. These stations were often over modulating and way over processed. It would have been better if there were no processing at all.

That got me thinking, what is or rather what should be the point of audio processing? Way back in the day, there were loudness wars. These were often program director ego induced efforts to sound louder than the competition because if you were louder, it meant you had more power. As listeners tuned their analog car radios from station to station, the signal that “jumped out” was mostly likely to attract more listeners. At least that was the way it was explained to me in the by a program director in the late 1980s.

We are no longer living in a listening environment where loudness is of huge importance. The number of audio sources has increased greatly; iTunes, Amazon Alexa, Spotify, Tune in, Pandora, YouTube Music, Sirius XM, iHeart, and AM/FM radio. Audio levels can be anywhere and listeners have gotten into the habit of raising or lower the volume as needed. Outside of program directors, (or whatever they are called these days) offices, loudness means next to nothing. If you asked an average audio consumer how loud their program sounded, they would not likely know how to answer you.

I believe what most people are looking for is an enjoyable listening experience. The most important quality of any type of audio processing is that the product sounds good. The problem is “sounds good” is very subjective. Perhaps a better term would be technically sounds good. The audio should be free from distortion and artifacts of CODEC bit reduction. Overdone AAC or HE-AAC has this strange background swoshy platform behind everything which is headache inducing. Instruments should sound as they do when heard live. In other words, Susan Vega’s voice in the original Tom’s Diner should sound like Susan Vega.

Next would be compensating for difference levels in program material. A bit of gain reduction so that those in mobile listening environments can hear all of the program material. Finally, some format specific equalization can be useful. That is it. Moderate use of various audio processing tools can certainly accomplish those things. Like everything else, too much of a good thing is bad.

WKIP; tune up on shorter tower

This tower was previously part of a two tower DA. The taller tower was taken down and slowly replaced with a monopole to facilitate vertical real estate development. The shorter tower was retained as the radiator for WKIP-AM, 1,450 kHz, Poughkeepsie, NY.

Knowing that the tower is 85 degrees at 1,450,000 Hz, I calculated the height above the base insulator to be 48.816 meters. The tower face is two feet or 0.6096 meters (this becomes important). Using the chart, we can see that the theoretical resistance should be about 25 – 30 ohms:

The bottom or X axis on this graph is the ratio of the antenna height over the antenna diameter or 48.816/0.6096 meters or 80.

The reactance is slightly less clear according to this chart:

Between 80 and 90 degrees, a large phase shift occurs due to resonance. That means the reactance could be either negative or positive, but will likely be a low number, say +/- 5 ohms. That may be why this height was chosen for the second tower in this system.

And now for a bit of reality; all of that theoretical information is nice, but a measurement under power is where the rubber meets the road. Using the trusty OIB-3, I obtained a reading of 48 ohms base resistance and +j 37.6 reactance. Thus the base current should be 4.56 amps at 1,000 watts.

It was a little tricky setting up the OIB-3. The only place for it was far back in the ATU meaning I had to be careful reaching around active components while getting a reading. That being said, it is only 1,000 watts and in the end, no new RF burns were acquired.

The new Delta Electronics base current meter confirms the measured base resistance with the use of Ohm’s Law; I = √(P/R).

The theoretical information is useful for checking the component ratings in the ATU. The series capacitor on the output leg needs to handle the full carrier current plus 125% modulation. I calculate that to be 10.125 amps, so the 12 amp capacitor is sufficient. In the end, the actual base current was about half of the theoretical, so all good. The ATU is a standard T network with a capacitive leg to ground.

While construction was underway both taking down the old tower and putting up the new monopole, the base impedance of the radiator changed several times. Thus, we waited until all of the construction was completed and the monopole was detuned.

The skirt wires on the monopole are doing double duty. They are first, detuning for the AM tower located about 57 meters (186 feet) away. Next, they are a backup antenna system in case that main tower becomes unusable. This can happen from time to time as the swamp floods or if any type of tower work is needed. To do that I installed another J plug with the detuning network, which will be the normal position. To switch to antenna, it is moved to the antenna position. The base current meter is on the output leg, so it can be used to detune the monopole or measure the station output power.

I used the analyzer to get the detuning network close to resonant. The second step involved using the base current meter to touch up the tuning with the transmitter running into the tower 57 meters (186 feet) away. This is necessary because the two structures are close together. The skirt wires on the monopole pick up a lot of RF, therefore the stray capacitance on the inductor coil plays a role in the circuit. The net result is less inductance is needed when the transmitter is on. The resonance point will shift somewhat with ground conditions, but as long as the monopole impedance is high (above say 2K ohms) the structure should be invisible to the nearby 1,450 KHz radiator.

Monopole detuned for 1,450 kHz; impedance is 4.07 K ohms, at or close to resonance

The ATU for the monopole looks like this:

The operating impedance measurement shows a 47 ohm impedance, making the daytime base current 4.61 amps. It is coincidental that the two tower impedances are that close.

The new base current meter agrees with the impedance measurement.

Distance to Fault Measurements

The ability to do a Distance to Fault Measurement can greatly speed up the troubleshooting of potential antenna and/or transmission line problems. DTF measurements take on one of two forms; Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and Frequency Domain Reflectrometry (FDR).

TDR is the traditional method of measuring Distance to Fault. The test equipment sends short DC pulses down the cable and measures any return loss or SWR. Energy reflected back toward the instrument will plotted based on the time difference between the transmitted signal and the received reflection, similar to RADAR. This works well finding opens or shorts, but may not see lesser faults that could still be causing problems.

FDR is now common in most field models of Vector Network Analyzers. An FDR sends a frequency sweep down the cable then uses an Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) function to convert the information into a time domain. FDR can more reliably detect smaller issues with cables such as kinks, sharp bends, water in the cable, poorly applied connectors, or bullet holes. The piece of dented cable above would not have given a large reflection on a TDR, but on an FDR it would show up very nicely.

Like a VNA, an FDR needs to be calibrated for the sweep frequencies in use. The frequency span or bandwidth of an FDR has a major role in DTF measurements. A wider span will result in more precise fault information, however, it will reduce the over all length that the instrument can test. For most broadcast RF applications, cable lengths are less than 670 meters (2200 feet). Many instruments will adjust the maximum distance automatically based on the chosen span and velocity factor.

For my equipment, a Siglent SVA 1032X, the maximum distance for any frequency span can be found with this formula:

Maximum Distance (meters) = 7.86 x 10⁴ x Velocity Factor/Span (MHz)

Thus, to get best resolution sweeping a cable that is 670 meters long with a velocity factor of 86%: 7.68 x 10,000 x .86 / 95 MHz = 695 Meters maximum distance.

The resolution for any frequency span can be calculated with the following formula:

Resolution (meters) = 1.5 × 10² × velocity factor/Span (MHz)

In this case, the resolution would be +/- 1.35 meters. For shorter cable lengths a larger span can be used for better resolution.

My preference is to center the sweep frequency around the channel or frequency of the system under test.

To use a DTF function, a few inputs are needed:

The velocity factor of the transmission line
Cable attenuation for the swept frequency in dB/Meter
The approximate length of the line under test

The cable velocity factor and attenuation can be obtained from the manufacturer’s data sheet. Keep in mind that the manufacturer’s data is an estimation. These are usually pretty close to the actual number, but may vary due to tight bends in the cable, any splices, transitions to different cable, etc.

I had this used 1/2 inch RFS LCF12 50J cable in the barn, left over from project. Fortunately this is newer cable and it had the length marked out in meters. The beginning number was 0980 meters, the end was 1021 meters. Each meter marking has an asterisk before the number. I used a meter stick to measure out the distance between the asterisks and they are exactly one meter apart. I then measured the distance between the asterisk and the connector on each and ended up with 1.49 meters (4.9 feet) additional length, making the total length 42.49 meters (139.4 feet). The manufacture’s specification on velocity factor is 0.87 or 87% of the speed of light.

When I test this line with a 50 termination, it looks like this:

FDR DTF, 50 ohm termination at 42.49 meters

When I test the line either open or shorted, it looks like this:

I swept the cable at HF frequencies (3-30 MHz) since I think that is what this is going to be used for. At 3 MHz, the cable has a loss of approximately 0.003 dB per meter, which is inconsequential for this test. The velocity factor of 0.87 is pretty close. A longer run might indicate that it is actually 0.875 or 0.88.

Velocity factor and cable impedance are very important when using the Moment of Methods (MOM) system for AM antenna work. In that situation, both need to be obtained with a VNA for the FCC application.

The best practice is to sweep into a terminated line. In an AM system, a termination can most often be applied at the ATU input J plug. Sweeping into an antenna is possible, however there are several things that may lead to poor results. Most often, an FM antenna will look like a short on a DTF measurement. A UHF slot antenna will look open. In addition to that, the DTF measurement may be corrupted by any signals being received by the antenna while the system is under test.

AM field strength measurements

I have been finishing up a project which required detuning a new monopole installed near an AM tower. One requirement was a series of field strength measurements along six evenly spaced radials around the AM tower. The point is to see if there is any effect in the omni-directional AM signal (there should not be).

For this, I used the venerable Potomac Instruments FIM-41. As I recall, these units are rather pricey. The frequency range is 0.5 to 5.0 MHz. The basic measurement unit is a Volt/Meter, which is an electric field measurement. Something that measures 1 V/M means that the electric potential between two objects 1 meter apart is 1 volt. The meter will also make measurements in dBm, which is a logarithmic electromagnetic field strength measurement.

Before making any measurements, it is a good idea to check the batteries. Also, the hinged lid part is a loop antenna and there are several contact fingers which can get a little dirty which may effect the measurement accuracy. These should be cleaned off with some alcohol and a q-tip. I have also seen a pencil eraser used.

The directions for meter calibration are on the inside of the lid. Even though I have done this type of measurement a thousand times, I always do a quick read through the directions just to make sure I don’t skip any of the steps. Depending on the power of the signal being measured, I like to calibrate the meter at least a mile or so away from the AM antenna system.

Check the battery with the function switch in the Batt position. The meter should read within the Batt range
Tune the signal with the function switch in the FI-Cal-Tune position. This should be done at some distance away from the antenna system. Tune for maximum meter reading.
Rotate the FIM until the signal is below 10 mV/M, switch the full scale switch to CAL and adjust the CAL OSC for maximum meter reading.
Switch the Function switch to CAL NULL and adjust the GAIN control to minimum meter reading.

To take readings put the function switch in CAL TUNE and the Full Scale switch at whichever position results in an on scale reading. On less one of the knobs gets bumped, the meter only needs to be calibrated once.

Measurements should be made three or more hours after local sunrise and three or more hours before local sunset. This is to prevent other sky wave signals from interfering with the measurements. The first measurement should be greater than five times the tower height, in this case more than 240 meters.

I used Google Maps to generate a set of points along each radial then noted the coordinates and a brief description on a spread sheet. Since everything was on Google Maps, it was easy to navigate from one point to the next:

Field strength readings follow the inverse square law. Whatever the increase in the distance factor from the radiator, the electrical field will decrease inversely by the square of that factor. Thus, if the distance increases by 3, the field will decrease by a factor of 9.

This can be seen in a field strength vs distance graph which I plotted on an Excel spreadsheet:

Field strength in mV/M, distance in Meters

You can see around 2 KM away, there is something re-radiating the signal. This was near a college campus with lots of vertical metal structures around. There are two readings which should probably be thrown out to smooth out the curve.

At one point, further out along this radial, my car was attacked by a Rottweiler. The dog owner just stood in his front yard and watched it happen. After he got the dog back under control, I rolled my window down and told him what I thought of his dog. It is for this reason, I have a dash camera in my work vehicles. Too many times things happen while driving.

Repeat this five more times and call it a day!