About community radio

Because of this post, I have received some e-mails asking why I am against community radio.  I am not.  In fact, I support community radio.  I think that community radio done well is a wonderful tool in our democracy, giving a voice to those that are watching the government.  It also promotes other locals’ interests, events, music, etc.    I would like to see more failing stations bought by community broadcasters and turned into something that is a public trust and responsive to the local population.

What I was trying to get at in the previous post was that overcrowding the FM band with more and more small signals will degrade it.  There are no ifs, and, or buts, removing third adjacent protections on the FM band will increase the noise floor.  This will lead to more interference on the average FM radio, which will lead to more people getting fed up and tuning out.

Here is why:  You cannot change the laws of physics.  FM transmitters have output filters that attenuate sideband energy, that is to say, energy transmitted on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd adjacent channels.  A 50,000-watt FM station on 100.3 MHz will have sideband energy on 100.1, 99.9, and 99.7 MHz as well as 100.5, 100.7, and 100.9 MHz.  Due to the limitations of the components used to construct those filters, they can only be designed with the accuracy of the components used.  In other words, most electrical components have a tolerance given in percent, for example, +/- 10%.  That means that the value of the component will change, usually because of heating.  Therefore, output filters cannot be constructed to limit emissions to only the main channel and say one adjacent channel, they would drift off frequency.

Also, creating a brick wall filter that cuts everything off at the second adjacent channel will cause distortion of the RF signal on the main channel.  With analog AM and FM transmitters, it cannot be done.  Digital transmissions are another story, but that is not what we are talking about here.

That is an engineer’s point of view.

One other thing about adding hundreds more LP FM signals.  There should be something that stipulates most (say >50%) of the programming be locally originated.  Recorded for later playback is fine.  Having thousands of LP stations broadcasting the same syndicated shows or running voice-tracked automation 24/7 would be a recreation of the AM band as it currently exists.  If you want to listen to that, then it already exists, help yourself.  I, on the other hand, would like to avoid the AMization of the FM band.

That is all.

Working with Tower Companies

Almost all radio stations use a tower of some sort to support their transmitting antennas.  These towers need maintenance from time to time and only qualified people should perform maintenance on towers.  Hence, the tower company is formed.

405 foot guyed tower with ERI FM antennas
405 foot guyed tower with ERI FM antennas

Over my years of experience, I have dealt with many different tower companies, from one-man operations to big corporations that have multiple crews out in the field on any given day.  I have discovered that not all tower companies are created equal.  Not only do tower climbers need to be in good physical shape and be trained correctly in all tower climbing safety procedures,  they also need to be good mechanics so they can actually repair things on the tower.   Climbing a 470-foot tower to repair a strobe light is all well and good.  Once the climber gets to the strobe light, he needs to be able to disassemble it without dropping parts or breaking things, troubleshoot if needed, install new parts, and re-assemble the unit, again without dropping or breaking anything.

Applying RF connectors, installing an FM antenna or STL antenna, and repairing light fixtures or conduit all require some amount of manual dexterity and concentration.  Assembling high-powered antennas requires close attention to detail.  Any pinched O rings, cross-threaded bolts, bent bullets, and the antenna will have problems, likely at the worst possible time.

The sign of a bad tower company is if its climbers cannot carry out those tasks with one or at most two climbs.  I have a situation on a tower where our FM station is a tenant.  The tower has a strobe light failure near the top of the tower where our FM antenna is located.  They have climbed the tower no less than four times to repair this, and it is still not fixed yet.  Each time they climb, the station has to reduce power to protect the tower climbers from excessive RF exposure.  Each climb it takes them several hours longer than anticipated to finish their work.

A good rule of thumb, If the defective part cannot be fixed in the first two climbs, then the entire strobe unit should be replaced on the third climb.  Even though the strobe units are expensive, by the time they get done paying for all this tower work, they could have bought two new strobes.  Today will be the fifth climb and there is no guarantee that it will be fixed.

I advised the tower owner that they should be looking around for another tower company because these guys aren’t exactly setting the world on fire.

If it ain’t broke, break it

One thing that I find a little annoying is the continuing need to reboot everything at some interval.  Computers in the studio, audio vault servers and workstations, e-mail servers, files servers, network routers, and so on.  Got a problem, first thing to do is cycle the power off and on…

One of the most irritating pieces of equipment is the audio processors on one of our FM stations.  A few years ago, we purchased the whiz-bang Omnia 6 processor.  Every 6 or 8 months the thing losses its mind and sounds terrible.  The station gets all bassy and the high-end sounds distorted.  I have tried everything I can think of to prevent this, including installing a UPS, extra grounding, extra shielding, software updates, etc.  In the end, it just has to be rebooted, which of course, means several seconds of dead air.  Naturally, this processor is at the FM transmitter site, which it is difficult to get to.

Truth be told when it is working, it does sound pretty good on the air, but is it $10,000 dollars better than the older Optimod 8100A?  No, it is not.

The old Orban Optimods sound pretty good as long as they are re-capped and aligned every so often.  If fact, our number one billing station has an AC format and uses an Optimod 8100A and nothing else.  Our other station in the same market uses an Optimod 8100A and a pair of Texar Audio Prisms. In the ten years, I have been working for this group of radio stations, I have never had to reboot the Optimod or the Audio Prisms, they just seem to work continuously without problems. Imagine that.

I have seen this called a “retro audio chain” by some.  Nothing retro about it, but a little care and feeding and I’d stack this equipment up against an Omnia 6 any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

This is a grainy video of an 8100A  in action:

That was taken in our rack room using off-air audio on the rack room speakers and a cheap video camera. You get the idea.

So here is to Frank Foti and his marketing gurus that have sold all of the program directors in America on the need to “update” their air chain processors, because, you know, the Optimod, that is old skool.

How stupid do you have to be?

I read through the news coverage of the vandalism at the KRKO transmitter site.  Apparently, there is some group of idiots people running around insisting that radio towers are bad for the environment and people’s health.  These are the same ones who have torched SUVs and burned high-end housing developments down.  Naturally, no pollution is released into the environment during these acts, or else they would be hypocrites.

They make these claims with no merit or scientific basis, instead relying on base fears to make people go crazy, either temporarily or permanently like.  It is actually a pretty good motivator as both political parties and all sorts of fringe truthier, birthier, and others have discovered.  If enough people insist that it is true, then it must be so.

Unfortunately, there is always some idiot around who thinks it is his or her duty to take action, to protect the rest of us from some terrible fate.

In the meantime, some security cameras at the transmitter site might be a good investment.  Chances are, these Earth Liberators that sneak around with bolt cutters and hack saws will likely think twice if there is any chance of themselves going to jail.

By the way, those KRKO towers looked like self-supporters which would have been very difficult to get down.  Did they rent that excavator, or was some construction equipment left unattended?