Industry News

The author is vice president of business development for Orban Labs.

We all know that engineers have way too much on their plates and may not always have the time to check things thoroughly, especially with equipment that may, at first glance, appear to be operating correctly.

After spending a fair amount of time at multiple AM transmitter facilities recently, I have some observations on things that really should be checked more often.

MODULATION MONITORS

Out of the dozen or so AM sites I have been to since March of 2019, I haven’t found a single modulation monitor that was accurate.

For the sites I visited in this report, I carried a Belar AMMA-2 that I had calibrated by Belar just prior to the start of my visits (thanks Belar!) and I am certain it’s accurate. That being said, there are a few issues with mod monitors that I have found:

— Non-MDCL/AMC capable modulation monitors should not be used on transmitter

s running MDCL/AMC. Typically, I found these types of mod monitors were reading upwards of 40% higher than the actual modulation when compared to my AMMA-2. In some instances, the AMMA-2 showed 75% positive modulation on a transmitter running MDCL where the onsite modulation monitor was showing 115% positive.

— Modulation monitors out of calibration or broken. If your modulation monitor is going on 10+ years old and hasn’t been back for a calibration, odds are it’s not going to be accurate. I highly recommend sending it in periodically to make sure it’s operating correctly and in calibration.

— Incorrect setup, or making measurements off air. Most AM modulation monitors need to have the RF input set correctly. There is usually a “Cal” or “RF” level adjust for this. If this isn’t correct, your readings are going to be meaningless. While you are at it, you might want to check to make sure that the sample port output of the transmitter from which you are feeding the mod monitor is good. A scope will go a long way to check that the sample port is operating correctly. And, please, “just say no” to making AM modulation measurements off air …  it’s not going to be remotely accurate.

TRANSMITTER PROBLEMS

I “broke” a couple of 1990s-era 50 kW AM transmitters during my tour. Both of those weren’t happy to begin with, and my attempts to get them to make full power at 125% positive modulation were met with a number of PA faults.

Once the PA problems were sorted out at these sites, I found that both of these were happier at 120% positive mod than 125% positive modulation. It might be that your aging transmitter simply won’t handle the higher positive modulation levels anymore.

Additionally, I found a couple of transmitters that had the audio polarity reversed …  and that will also lead to a lot of unhappiness with trying to get positive modulation over 100%. I found a backup transmitter with its audio polarity reversed too. The main transmitter had the correct polarity.

If the transmitter with which I was working on my tour had a digital audio input available, I always used it. I typically found that peak control was within 0.5% using digital inputs.

And that brings me to LF tilt on analog transmitter inputs: a scope and a square wave generator will tell you quickly if you have an LF tilt issue on the transmitter. Put a 50 Hz square wave into the transmitter and take a look at the output of the transmitter on a scope. Adjust the transmitter LF EQ in the processor to minimize the tilt.  I usually found I needed +3 dB at 3 Hz to flatten the square wave on older transmitters.

You also might run into modulation overshoots (bounce). Bounce is typically a nonlinear problem caused by a sagging or resonant transmitter power supply found in older transmitters. Newer transmitters fed via a digital audio input typically do not have this issue.

If you are running MDCL, your transmitter may have issues of which you are unaware. It’s a good idea to periodically disable your MDCL and check your power output. It’s possible that your MDCL operation could be masking issues that may be coming into play.

AUDIO ISSUES

The biggest problem I found with audio was that the audio processor’s input levels were set incorrectly and as a result the processor’s AGC wasn’t operating optimally. This causes the AGC gating to misbehave, resulting in “pumping” and “breathing.” Check your specific audio processor manual for proper AGC setup.

In almost all cases, you want the AGC to be operating in its “mid-range” with nominal program levels. On current Orban processors, that is about 10 dB of AGC.

Also check the gate level settings. At one station I ran into a processor that was showing that the gate was on all the time and I thought the processor was broken. Tech Support found that the gate level had been set 6 dB higher than where it should have been set. It had been misadjusted in an attempt to compensate for improper input level. The fix was to adjust the input sensitivity to drive the AGC to mid-range (which was an 8 dB increase) and reset the AGC gate to its nominal -30 dB setting. Recalling a factory preset would have also reset the gate to its normal level. It was a revelation to hear how much better the station sounded once the AGC and gate had been set up correctly.

Make sure you’re using the correct processing settings. Over time, the formats of many stations have changed, car radios have changed and the AM band’s noise floor has increased. What worked for processing when the station was running “Urban” 20 years ago won’t work for today’s talk format — you’re going to need a different processing preset on the processor.

I was recently working with an AM that just didn’t sound all that great, and we decided to start fresh with a factory stock preset. We used the “Music Medium” on their processor and added 2 dB of “brilliance” and the station sounded spectacular.

As part of our testing and adjustments, we listened to radios in both my rental car and the CE’s car, while the PD was driving around town in his vehicle. Sometimes a fresh start goes a long ways to making things sound better.

AM transmitters often sound subtly different from each other because many have levels of nonlinear distortion (THD and IM) that are large enough to be audible. So in terms of processing adjustments, one size does not fit all, and you may have to back off processing (mainly clipping) if the transmitter has higher levels of distortion than a modern transmitter.

The Nautel NX3, for example, specifies 0.8% THD and 0.5% SMPTE IM at 99% negative modulation. For its Flexiva 3D, GatesAir specifies typical THD of 0.3% and 0.4% SMPTE IM at 95% modulation.

Additionally, older receivers with diode envelope detectors produce significantly increased distortion when negative modulation exceeds 90%. This is not true of modern DSP-based receivers, however.

Take a critical listen to your station. Do the announcers sound “crunchy” with elongated, raspy sibilance? If so, it’s probably beating your Time Spent Listening (TSL) numbers to death. If you turn down the clipping, it will help considerably. Also, consider buying a newer processor. An early 1990s AM processor set to “Chernobyl” to try and get over today’s high noise floor environment isn’t going to cut it. And with all due respect, old analog processors just can’t be competitive any longer in most markets.

And then there is the PPM enhancer which many have set way too high — I call that setting “max rock crusher.” At that level, those tend to sound like a steel bowl being scraped with a whisk. A bit of a deft touch is in order to not sound like a Mixmaster with a bad bearing.

If you’re an engineer having problems sorting out your processing or arguing with the PD over proper processing settings, I’d be happy to personally chat with you or your PD. Email me at processing@orban.com.

My opinion is that with proper modulation and processing, AM stations can sound great and can run more efficiently (which will save your station some money!). It wouldn’t hurt to run a quick reality check the next time you’re at the transmitter or adjusting the processing.

Comment on this or any story. Email rweetech@gmail.com.

The post AM Notes From the Field appeared first on Radio World.

The author is a broadcast consultant based in Hamersley, West Australia.

I wish to reply to Frank Karkota’s list of comments in his article “No to Digital AM.”

1. You compared a crystal set and a digital radio. A crystal set consists of an aerial, a tuned circuit for station selection consisting of an inductor and a capacitor, and diode demodulator, perhaps another capacitor and a pair of headphones. By comparison a software-designed radio consists of a much smaller aerial, a filter containing an inductor, and the capacitor is on board on a DSP chip specifically designed for digital radio. The DSP chip is doing all the tasks required of digital to produce an audio signal, just like the diode in the crystal set. I suppose you could attach a pair of tuning switches and plug a pair of headphones into the analog output, although the high-impedance headphones of the past are now not available. The main difference between the two is that the digital radio has stereo sound, and the distance to the transmitter can be considerably greater for everyday reception.

1. As for the availability of parts, have you gone to a store and tried to buy a new variable tuning capacitor or a germanium diode? The silicon types used in power supplies are commonly available but unsuitable. SiliconLabs is in Austin, Texas, and has 1,500 employees. The parts suppliers who make the chips are not only in China but South Korea, Taiwan and India. The receiver complexity is in one DSP designed radio chip, which replaces the germanium diode. So if it fails you replace the chip as you would have if the diode had failed. They are both “black boxes.” This article shows how to make a modern AM/FM/DAB+ radio. The signal processing in DAB+ is very similar to DRM except for the tuning bands.

1. Infotainment systems in new cars use DSP so it is easy to add digital reception of DRM, DAB+ and HD Radio (with a license fee). This ability is in the radio DSPs already. DAB+ and DRM radios are tuned by station name, not frequency. There is already a DRM radio that contains a Bluetooth hotspot so the radio is tuned by a mobile phone and a box containing the receiver is connected to the antenna and puts out USB or FM stereo. Hybrid radio is pushing the sending of the station logo sent to the radio via mobile broadband, which is not necessary in DAB+. DRM can already do this. The HD Radio receiver will switch to mobile broadband instead of AM or FM when the digital signal contains too many errors.

1. DRM sound quality has been upgraded through the use of a new compression algorithm called xHE AAC. Listen to this on a good pair of stereo headphones. The Dream software has only recently been able to decompress xHE-AAC signals.

1. As the signal quality deteriorates, the AM signal becomes noisy but the stereo DRM signal continues until the AM is unlistenable, then it will start muting on errors. It is also good at rejecting adjacent-channel interference. As you point out, it removes the phasing effects caused by multiple reflections from the ionosphere due to error correction.

1. You can keep your car for 10 years if you wish and buy an adaptor to connect between the aerial and the existing car radio. You may need a mobile phone or a clip on a dash-mounted controller to tell the adaptor what program to listen to. Norway now has no AM/FM broadcasts by major networks, only DAB+. Ratings have returned to normal since conversion..

I would like to add the following comments of my own:

1. In Europe, AM has been disappearing, so much that many radios are either DAB+ digital and FM, or FM only.

1. I would like to suggest that in the Americas, that the virtually deserted TV Channels 2 to 6 could be used for DRM. There are enough channels available for all AM and FM broadcasters; and because there are no overlapping channels, high power can be used to give larger coverage areas than FM.

1. AM started broadcasting 100 years ago and is very inefficient compared to DRM, where the electricity consumption is reduced by >67 % because it has no carrier.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

[Related: “BBC’s Fry: Digital on AM Is the Way Forward”]

The post Letter: Don’t Shrug Off Benefits of AM Band in Digital appeared first on Radio World.

Console maker Lawo has released the Mix Kitchen, a console remote control system.

The Mix Kitchen uses the Mackie HUI control surface protocol to provide the ability to remotely control Lawo mc2 console systems via any Mackie HUI-compatible control surface. Besides physical fader control, Mix Kitchen provides access to other things such as processing, bus control, presets, etc. It is both Windows- and Mac-compatible.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

Lawo Senior Product Manager Audio Production Christian Struck said, “The Mix Kitchen setup works almost out of the box: no additional Lawo hardware, retrofits or upgrades are required. Audio engineers can work with an inexpensive fader panel that supports Mackie HUI, e.g.Icon Platform X, Behringer X-Touch, their laptop, a mouse and a tablet.”

Info: www.lawo.com

The post Lawo Adds Remote Console Operation appeared first on Radio World.

It appears that despite its appeals, Florida Community Radio won’t able to get the noncommercial station that it had planned to build in Horseshoe Beach, Fla.

This is a case at the Federal Communications Commission that involves the legal concept of “tolling.” FCC rules specify time limits on construction permits but also provide for them to be “tolled,” meaning extended, in certain circumstances like natural disasters.

In 2015 the FCC issued a CP for a new FM to be called WRDB, with a three-year deadline. Shortly before it expired in 2018, the applicant Florida Community Radio asked the Media Bureau for a delay, citing the effects of Hurricane Irma and the FCC’s decision to eliminate the main studio rule, which meant it needed to do more engineering analysis for an STL. The bureau gave a six-month extension, but only for the second reason.

[Related: “Radio Eyes Advantages of Deregulation”]

Then in October 2018, Hurricane Michael hit. FCR requested another delay based on the impact of that hurricane on its ability to construct the station; this too was granted.

Shortly before that extension ran out, FCR submitted another tolling request so it could perform an analysis of whether station power lines should be underground rather than on a pole and to do a structural analysis of the potential impact of a future Category 5 storm on its antenna. At this juncture the Media Bureau said it asked for specific information explaining how Hurricane Michael had prevented FCR from meeting its latest deadline but that FCR did not provide it.

The bureau denied the extension request, saying the studies involved could have been done within the extended construction term. This would mean no new station.

The applicant asked for reconsideration but the FCC denied it late last year. FCR, still hopeful, then came back with an application for review by the full commission, asking it to overturn what the Media Bureau had decided.

It said the CP deserved further postponement because the tower that FCR wanted to use is in a FEMA-designated floodplain area, and that the FCC is required to evaluate the effects of proposals in floodplains, “especially when such alternative steps being proposed … are meant to reduce or mitigate the risk of damage in anticipation of an act of God.” It raised other objections to the bureau’s earlier actions.

Now the commission has turned down this appeal. It said the latest argument tried to raise new matters that its staff never had the opportunity to address (but would have rejected anyway). It also said the appeal tried to reintroduce an issue it had already decided when it denied tolling after the earlier hurricane. And, among further reasons, it said FCR has not shown impediments caused by Hurricane Michael “but instead now predicates its argument on potential future acts of God.”

In short, the commission has dismissed or denied all the arguments in the application for review; so barring further actions, there’ll be no CP for Florida Community Radio, and WRDB’s call letters now bear the dreaded “D” prefix for deleted.

The post FCC Rejects Appeal From Florida FM Applicant appeared first on Radio World.

Talk about a product fit for our times. Riedel Communications has come out with a “distance monitoring device” called DisTag that you stick in a pocket or wear around your neck.

It says media professionals are among those who could benefit from it.

“DisTag is a reliable and precise instrument that immediately alerts its wearer via haptic, visual and acoustic signals whenever the mandatory minimum distance to other people is about to be breached,” states the German company. (We wonder if the gizmo can be made to shout “Danger, Will Robinson”…)

You can set the proximity limits per your local situation and regulations for social distance. Battery life is 10 to 12 hours before recharge via micro USB. We asked the company for its price and will post it here when confirmed.

Riedel says possible users include those who work in “media and event production, industrial operations, retailers, medical facilities, public and cultural institutions, and schools and universities.”

The company makes various types of audio, video and data gear for specialty markets, including intercom systems.

The post Come No Closer: Riedel DisTag Keeps You at a Distance appeared first on Radio World.

One of the more notable jobs in the U.S. public radio sector is that of VP radio at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington. CPB now has named Jacquie Gales Webb to fill that role.

She succeeds Erika Pulley-Hayes, who in January became the president/CEO of WMFE/WMFV in central Florida.

The VP radio is responsible for CPB strategies to “strengthen the ability of public radio stations to create high-quality, multi-platform content and to grow their audiences.”

Gales Webb is not a stranger to prominent projects. She has managed grants on a number of familiar ones including the StoryCorps Mobile Booth and One Small Step projects, WGBH’s World Channel, the Urban Alternative music format, radio station engagement for the PBS series “Country Music” and NPR’s international coverage.

“She has been integral to the development of projects to help minority and rural stations increase content production, community engagement and revenue capacity,” CPB stated in the announcement. She also helped shape the Texas Station Collaborative, now the NPR Texas Hub, and managed other journalism collaborations.

The announcement was made by CPB Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Levy, who praised Gales Webb’s earlier work as an award-winning producer as well as her accomplishments with CPB.

She’s also the longtime host of a gospel music show on WHUR in Washington; CPB said she is recognized as a national authority on gospel music.

The post Jacquie Gales Webb Is New VP for Radio at CPB appeared first on Radio World.

Broadcast software developer ENCO has announced the appointment of Shane Finch as sales director for the broadcast and pro AV markets.

[Read: Gene Novacek, Founder of ENCO, Dies]

Finch previously worked at software developer MusicMaster where he liaised with ENCO in product development and distribution as vice president, business relations. He has also worked as an on-air broadcaster and in radio station management.

ENCO President Ken Frommert said, “Shane’s experience with sales management and customer relations, along with his direct familiarity with ENCO’s technology and business culture, makes him a natural fit for this important role in ENCO’s continued global growth.”

The post ENCO Appoints Finch appeared first on Radio World.

In what it is calling a “new chapter,” the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has announced its SMPTE 2020 Annual Technical Conference will take place as a “remote experience” when it gets underway in November.

“We are thrilled to deliver an immersive, world-class experience to our community around the world and we encourage each of you to think of this as YOUR SMPTE 2020 — regardless of where you live,” the announcement reads.

SMPTE continues that the remote experience is eliminating the traditional barriers of travel, accommodations and scheduling conflicts, while also offering an interactive experience with learning and networking opportunities for a “broadly accessible and truly global conference.”

This is another major conference that has opted to go the virtual route in place of a traditional physical conference this year, following in the footsteps of NAB — for both its spring Las Vegas show and fall New York event — as well as IBC and more. SMPTE made no mention of the coronavirus pandemic in its official announcement, but SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange mentioned it during a video on the remote experience; the other conferences cited the pandemic as a key reason to go virtual.

SMPTE did share what they will be offering during this remote experience. The theme for this year’s conference is “Game On,” and a full day will be focused on the convergence of esports/gaming and media technology.

The virtual environment that attendees will have access to is expected to include a main conference hub, meeting rooms, theater space for sessions and an exhibition hall with private meeting space. Attendees can create their schedule based on their interests and schedules, SMPTE says.

The SMPTE 2020 Annual Technical Conference will be held from Nov. 10–12.

The post SMPTE 2020 Says “Game On” to Remote Experience appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is automotive partnerships director for Radioplayer.

Audi and the VW Group recently renewed their partnership with Radioplayer to continue supporting their brilliant hybrid radio (FM, DAB and IP seamlessly working together with no need for users to choose platforms) and to collaborate on the development of future in-vehicle radio experiences — ensuring Audis, VWs, Porsches and Lamborghinis will all continue to have the best radio experience in their dashboards.

The new deal builds on a successful collaboration that’s been in place since 2017 and lays the foundation for a longer-term relationship. It’s a great example of Radioplayer’s partnership model with the automotive industry — providing a high-value, low-cost partnership direct with broadcasters to develop world class radio experiences in the car.

To do this Radioplayer provides official broadcast metadata direct from thousands of radio stations, technology development support and user-interface design consultation, all free-of-charge wherever possible.

In return, we ask to collaborate on development of the future radio experience. Collaboration with car manufacturers and technology suppliers is essential if radio is to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded dashboard.

We believe that hybrid radio offers the best radio experience today and that’s where our focus is. To ensure continual improvement of radio’s dashboard experience we need constant discussion between car manufacturers and broadcasters to agree and deliver a joint roadmap that keeps pace with both listener expectations and in-car technology. Radio broadcasters must be at the heart of these discussions spanning metadata, technology and the user-interface (UI).

Our official broadcast metadata is of vital importance to a good user experience and as more countries and broadcasters join Radioplayer it will keep on improving. We’ve seen too many instances where unofficial metadata from third parties is either wrong (station logos) or altered (broadcast streams), leading to a poor user experience, so we make it as easy as possible for broadcasters to get their official metadata to us. We’re also proud and active members of WorldDAB and we’re supporting their forthcoming campaign to raise awareness among broadcasters of the importance of making metadata available for car dashboards.

We are technology/platform neutral, and are big supporters of open standards such as RadioDNS and DAB+. We closely monitor technological developments and intervene when we feel radios prime position in the car could be impacted.

One current example is Google’s Android Automotive Operating System, which is starting to grow in importance as it’s adopted by more car manufacturers. We began work in late 2019 on a project to ensure hybrid radio is technologically possible in Android Automotive and the capability is baked into the core source code (known as AOSP) and available to everyone. It’s a complex, emerging area but we’re leading on behalf of our broadcasters and are open to wider collaboration, hopefully including Google, as it could have huge benefits for the radio experience.

We’ve also seen that the standard broadcast radio user interface in Android Automotive is currently poor, a list of FM frequencies, no station names, no station logos, no now-playing information. So at the same time as working on the hybrid capability we’ve also developed a great user interface within Google’s template guidelines which we hope will demonstrate what can be done. Our UI designs are based on the WorldDAB Automotive User Experience Guidelines which we ask all our car manufacturer partners to respect.

In the future there will be other UI design challenges as we merge on-demand and podcast content with live radio and create a personalized experience for listeners. We intend to be at the center of that to help our broadcasters and automotive partners benefit from each other’s expertise. To get it right we’ll need to work together.

As the broadcast and automotive sectors emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic into a difficult economic climate, we believe that deeper collaboration offers a win-win that will undoubtedly improve the radio experience in connected cars. We also want to help ensure radio development projects, particularly on hybrid radio, remain on-track and unaffected.

Of course, we know the pandemic is likely to impact wider automotive trends. Understanding these trends and the implications on longer-term planning for the in-car experience is an important part of how we intend to work to foster collaboration with car manufacturers and keep broadcasters at the heart of radio’s dashboard development.

[Related: “Hybrid Radio Picks Up Momentum”]

The post Broadcasters Must Be at the Heart of Radio’s Dashboard Development appeared first on Radio World.

The author of this commentary is director distribution of the BBC World Service.

In response to Frank Karkota’s commentary “No to Digital AM”:

The AM radio band represents a very valuable resource to society and to broadcasters. It offers the opportunity to transmit programs over large areas and well beyond line of sight.

In the present age, digital technologies present a threat and an opportunity for radio broadcasters. Digital technologies generate radio frequency noise that degrades the audio performance of analog AM services (drive past an ATM listening to AM radio and you’ll know what I mean) but also an opportunity to transform the quality of service delivered in the AM band.

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) supports such a transformation. It not only makes the transmitted signal more resilient but allows much lower power level to be used to cover the same area as an analog service. At the same time it delivers additional information to the listener enhancing the service that can be offered and making services accessible by brand and not just frequency.

Broadcasters can achieve reduced operating costs and deliver higher value services to their audience, which remain free to consume (this is important in many markets where the population cannot afford to access internet services). Commercial receiver solutions are being worked on and being improved all the time. There is an effective aftermarket solution (to retrofit in existing vehicles), and the latest information can be found at drm.org/receivers.

We have recently presented improvements to the open source DREAM software that allow it to work with the readily available Raspberry Pi device. As such it provides an entry-level receiver ideally suited to the hobbyist.

We live in a digital world, and kids today are equipping themselves with the skills and tools needed to live in it and shape it. Broadcasters can take many benefits from that same technology, and we owe it to society to continue to use frequency bands that support audiences remote from or not linked to other forms of connectivity and not allow populations to be constrained by line-of-sight services. DRM digital transmissions in the AM band are the way forward.

[Read more articles and commentaries about digital radio trends and technologies.]

The post BBC’s Fry: Digital in the AM Band Is the Way Forward appeared first on Radio World.