Radio World

Master Control studio

KING-FM had occupied its studios in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle for more than two decades when its landlord informed management that the building would be torn down for condos.

The station began looking for a new long-term home.

Meanwhile the Seattle Opera had just moved into a new nearby building on the Seattle Center campus near the Space Needle, a building with multiple performance venues and space set aside on the second floor for a future tenant. Their desired tenant would be aligned with the goals of the arts community and pay rent that would help the opera meet operational costs of its $60 million facility.

The space was a perfect fit for Seattle’s famous nonprofit, listener-supported classical music station. KING-FM.

The Seattle Opera building on Mercer Street is the station’s new home. It’s close to the Space Needle (left) and features large, highly visible performance spaces.

CEO Brenda Barnes said in 2019, “We are thrilled to be moving into this beautiful space, and to be in such close proximity to one of our most important partners.”

The station moved in February 2020.

Project team
Utter Associates was the turnkey system integrator. It is a Seattle-based engineering and consulting firm whose clients including broadcasters, corporations, educational facilities, government entities and architects.

Founder Erik Utter was design lead on the project.

“KING-FM broadcasts on 98.1 with an analog, HD1, HD2 and seasonally an HD3,” he said. “They also stream the same services to a variety of platforms. They host live concerts and events both in the building performance venues, and from remote locations such Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony.”

The technical scope of the project included broadcast studios for air, production, interview, voicetracking and editing; a technical operations center room; processing, codecs, RF distribution and related broadcast facets; all IT infrastructure; links to performance venues; and a live performance system.

“Our scope of work started with consulting to set the project operational requirements, technical requirements and developing a budget,” Utter said.

“We worked with Chief Engineer Michael Brooks — who was the SBE Chapter 16 Engineer of the Year — and Operations Manager Rachele Hales.” Other key leaders were General Manager Brenda Barnes and board member Jim Duncan.

Chief Engineer Michael Brooks works in the Technical Operations Center.

“Once the project requirements were defined, we made recommendations on technology, which culminated in a trip for the client to the NAB Show to confirm final selections and set the final budget.”

An architectural, consultant and construction team then was named by KING-FM; these included Owen Richards of ORA Architects; Basel Jurdy of Stantec for acoustics; and Sellen Construction.

“This was a wonderful team to work with,” Utter said. “In all honesty, this was the smoothest project of its type we have been involved with.

Building for change

Utter worked with that team to develop the physical layout of the studios, mechanical systems for equipment cooling and backup cooling, electrical systems including power, backup power and low-voltage pathways.

“We also worked with the acoustical consultant to work through the acoustic requirements and design details. This is a critical phase of the project.”

Through the lifetime of using the space, he said, technology will change and probably evolve in ways not yet evident.

“Correctly designing the core infrastructure to ‘get it right’ in the first place will make it easy for these changes to be implemented in the future with minimal cost and disruption.”

This hallway view gives a sense of the open feel and the treatment of walls and ceilings. Note the decorative classical music theme.

Simultaneously to the architectural work, Utter began a detailed technical design in AutoCAD. Once the final detailed designs were approved, Utter began the procurement process, completing an inventory of all items received and configuring as much of the equipment in its shop ahead of the installation as possible.

When the construction was complete and a certificate of occupancy issued, the team began the integration portion. The installation phase took about two months, followed by testing, commissioning and training.

“We place a heavy emphasis on ergonomics, modifying casework and carefully adjusting equipment placement and sightlines as needed,” Utter said.

“The changes to the RF system and microwave STL were straightforward, with new STL and receive antennas placed on the roof and only a short initial hop to the KING-TV tower of about eight city blocks. Harrington Tower completed the STL antenna work. IP circuits were provisioned for the feeds to the primary and backup transmitter sites, relegating the microwave to backup purposes. Of course, we were there for the cutover, which went flawlessly.”

Data patching in the TOC.

(On the RF side, the station’s main site is West Tiger Mountain, where a Nautel GV30 runs an HD1 and HD2. KING-FM is a Class C station operating at 68 kW ERP due to HAAT. The transmitter feeds an ERI master antenna, model ERI-1082 4CP-DA. The station runs its HDs under an experimental license allowing asymmetrical power of –10 dBc on the lower sideband and –14 dBc on the upper. An Inovonics Justin 808  keeps the HD aligned. A Continental 816 transmitter is on standby and an aux transmitter site is atop Cougar Mountain.)

Hardware choices

Wheatstone and its WheatNet-IP network were chosen as the backbone studio system, including two LXE consoles, two L8 Consoles and a series of Blades.

“We made extensive use of the technology for such things as audio processing, scripting and utility mixers for intercom, automated alarming, etc.,” Utter said. “We also used Dante for live performance mixing and venue interfacing.”

Key components also include RCS Zetta automation, Comrex Access NX Rack codecs, AKG C414 microphones, Neumann KH 310 and KH 120 audio monitors, Wheatstone furniture, Inovonics monitors for modulation and streaming, Intraplex HD Link and legacy gear for STL, and HPE/Aruba networking.

Studio accessories include ESE master clocks and Yellowtec mic arms and copy stands. The TOC has Middle Atlantic racks, Broadcast Tools DA, Sage EAS gear, Bittree patch bays, Burk transmitter control, a Marti system and Nielsen PPM gear.

KING-FM host Dave Beck handles the inaugural live broadcast.

The initial consulting for the project started in spring of 2019, and the cutover was in February, just prior to COVID.

“An interesting thing about that,” Utter said. “Prior to COVID the remote production capabilities of Wheatstone and Zetta were mostly novelties. Very quickly they became critical features that make operations now much easier.”

Utter related that shortly after everything shut down for the pandemic, KING-FM continued to provide live coverage of the Sunday night Compline Choir from St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle.

“The choir was singing to an empty cathedral and broadcasting live on KING-FM as a public service, providing relaxing meditative music during a time of fear and uncertainty. The lone board op at KING-FM called me on a Sunday night, four minutes to air, explaining that she couldn’t get the remote source to come up on the LXE console.

“I was able to connect with my laptop and resolve multiple issues, and finally pot up the source on the console, just in time. Something unimaginable just a short time ago.”

Planning for worst-case

“One of the reasons the project went so well is that the systems integrator was brought in very early, just after the project was conceived,” he continued.

“This allowed for a deep partnership and understanding of the client’s needs. This also allowed us to bring up design considerations with the architectural team early enough to easily address, resulting very few compromises in the facility design.”

Utter is a big fan of WheatNet, saying it simplifies future routing changes and that its distributed architecture provides robustness.

In order to keep workmanship orderly in the long term and allow for inevitable changes to wiring, Utter connects all I/O of a Wheatstone Blade to a Bittree E3 bulkhead panel, passing through that to the equipment.

“The connections on the rear of a Blade are just too dense to be making changes while keeping up the level of workmanship and neatness in a larger facility.” Future equipment additions or wiring changes can be done easily on the E3 panel.

“As an engineer, I still need to imagine and prepare for what a worst-case failure situation may look like. … All critical portions of the air chain are brought out to patch, so that if there were a massive networking failure, signal could still be quickly patched to air.”

KING-FM was founded in 1948 by Dorothy Stimson Bullitt; it is among the longest-running classical radio stations in the country.

Radio World welcomes suggestions for facility and project profiles. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

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Radio Guadix’s Rodrigo Poyatos at his home command center with ForumVirtual software on the laptop next to him.

AEQ’s VirtualForum software has proven a boon for Radio Guadix in Spain. Well before the coronavirus pandemic radically changed radio workflows, General Manager Rodrigo Poyatos began working remotely from home. Using the VirtualForum software he was able to control studio-based equipment such as AEQ Forum mixers, thus being able to produce radio programs and commercials.

Now with the Radio Guadix studios often empty of personnel in the pandemic, Poyatos has used the remote management aspects of VirtualForum to a greater extent. He can buzz-in show guests; turn on lights; fire up consoles, mics, codecs, etc., and produce the whole program from home. He only asks the guests to make sure the door locks on their way out.

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

Radio Guadix is part of Cadena SER. Its sister SER stations Radio Aracena and Radio Motril have added AEQ Capitol IP digital consoles to better fit an increasingly IP-based plant.

Another sister, Radio Rioja in Logroño, replaced an older automation system from another vendor with AEQ’s AudioPlus automation. A release says the remote control tools available in AudioPlus were attractive to Radio Rioja. In addition AEQ customized some operations to match third-party commands that were requested by Cadena SER.

Radio World invites both users and suppliers to tell us about recently installed new or notable equipment. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

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Smart speaker maker Sonos will be using the Powered by Napster digital audio platform as a service for its new Sonos Radio HD high-definition audio streaming service.

A release explains what a “platform as service” does: “[the] platform offers companies a full suite of technologies and solutions that includes licensing and rights holder management, media streaming and download infrastructure, applications, personalization, recommendations, customer billing, and royalty administration capabilities.”

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

Powered by Napster is a service from Rhapsody International. That company’s Bill Patrizio, president and CEO, said, “Our ongoing work with Sonos signals the continued significant growth of digital music and the demand for high-definition audio streaming.”

The new Sonos Radio HD service will provide the basic free Sonos Radio stations in high-definition, CD-quality 16-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC audio. The ad-less stations provide curated stations along with thematic stations along with 60,000 local radio stations worldwide and specialty sounds such as sleep and pink noise.

Sonos smart speaker owners can subscribe to Sonos Radio HD for US$7.99/£7.99 per month after a free 30-day trial.

Radio World invites both users and suppliers to tell us about recently installed new or notable equipment. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

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All across Louisiana — whether your station is behind prison walls or in a tiny village in the middle of the Pelican State — failing to file a license renewal application on time can result in a monetary forfeiture.

That is the case for the so-called Incarceration Station. KLSP(FM) is a Class A station run by the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the nation’s largest maximum-security prison. Angola Penitentiary, as this former plantation is known, was designed to function as small, self-sustaining community complete with a fire department, a dairy and a radio station — making Angola the only penitentiary in the U.S. to be issued an FCC license to operate a station.

Established in 1986, KLSP (whose call letters denote the Louisiana State Penitentiary) is 100-watt station that operates on 91.7 from inside the prison. Those broadcasts can be picked up by the 6,000 prisoners and 1,800 staff spread across Angola, a compound larger than the island of Manhattan. Interestingly, former prisoners include musicians Lead Belly and Freddy Fender.

[Read: Arizona Licensee Gets Green Light on License After Agreeing to $15K Consent Decree]

But whether inside or outside of prison, FCC rules are rules. And the Media Bureau delivered a Notice of Apparent Liability and Forfeiture to the station in mid-November for apparently violating a section of the commission’s rules that requires a licensee to renew its broadcast station license within a specific timeline. That deadline is no later than the first day of the fourth full calendar month prior to the expiration date of the license.

For the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the application for renewal should have been filed by Dec. 2, 2019. According to the Media Bureau, the application was not filed until May 29, 2020, and the licensee provided no explanation for the lateness of the filing.

In this case, the FCC chose to set a $3,000 monetary forfeiture, which is the base forfeiture amount that the FCC can set in cases like these.

The situation was similar for station KVDP(FM) in Dry Prong, La. The licensee of the station — Dry Prong Educational Broadcasting Foundation — also allegedly failed to file a license renewal application. In this case, the application should have been filed by Dec. 2, 2019, but was not filed until May 22, 2020, with no explanation for the late filing.

As a result, the FCC has notified Dry Prong Educational Broadcasting Foundation that it has an apparent liability for forfeiture in the amount of $3,000.

Both Dry Prong and the Louisiana State Penitentiary have 30 days from the delivery of the Notice of Apparently Liability to pay the forfeiture or file a statement seeking reduction or cancellation of the forfeiture.

 

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Téa Gennaro

The National Association of Broadcasters has named Téa Gennaro as its new CFO.

President CEO Gordon Smith said Gennaro will come on board as executive vice president and chief financial officer of the organization later this month.

She joins at a time when the NAB, and associations in general, have been challenged financially by the business impact of the pandemic and the dramatic reduction in major in-person events.

According to a recent communication to its members, NAB this year has instituted cuts to executive compensation, “significant” budget reductions and a hiring freeze.

Its board recently approved a one-time assessment on members “intended to make up for lost revenue due to the cancellation of NAB Show, which accounted for 70% of NAB’s operating budget, as well as the expected decline in future convention revenues as the result of COVID-19.”

Gennaro is former chief financial officer of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC National) in Washington. She has also worked as a controller in the Outsourced Accounting Client Service branch of Tate & Tryon, a CPA firm.

“As EVP of Finance and CFO, Gennaro will lead NAB’s financial operations, including internal and external reporting, audit, tax, financial systems and the budget process,” the association stated.

She succeeds Trish Johnson, whom NAB said has transitioned into a consulting role.

 

 

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GatesAir has promoted Mark Goins to vice president of North American sales.

This follows the recent announcement that Joe Mack has taken the new role of chief revenue officer and that Rich Redmond has left the company. Goins reports to Mack, who in turn answers to CEO Bruce Swail.

“Mark will lead an experienced team of North American representatives across regional sales management, key accounts and inside sales, and work with GatesAir executives to develop annual strategic initiatives for improved growth and support,” the company stated in an announcement.

[Read: GatesAir Names Joe Mack as CRO]

Goins joined predecessor Harris Corp. 19 years ago.

“He has gradually worked his way up the ladder, beginning with an inside sales position and becoming senior director, North America sales upon transitioning to the GatesAir team,” it stated.

“In between, he served as strategic account manager and regional sales manager, which provides him the diverse experience required to successfully lead the current North American sales team.”

It said areas of focus for Goins will include NextGen TV, HD Radio adoption, single-frequency networks (SFNs) and also GatesAir’s Intraplex range, “as business models and networking opportunities expand with the Audio over IP transition.”

 

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This commentary appeared on the Inside Music Media website on Nov. 12 under the headline “iHeart Moves to Eliminate Engineers.” Because of its relevance to engineering readers we reproduce it with permission. Radio World has invited comment or reply from iHeart and will share any we receive.

Eventually it had to come to this — elimination and for now at least a major reduction in the number of engineers it takes to keep iHeart stations on the air.

This promises to be a major RIF in addition to the firings of last week and the ones I have written about this week that will constitute “The Big One.”

Spread over the entire chain of stations and their clusters, eliminating engineers — long a goal of iHeart management — could get them closer to their 5,000 total employee number from an estimated 12,000 at the start of 2020.

The engineering firings are risky, more widespread than originally thought and, in a sense, creative.

For anyone who has ever worked in a radio station, the details about to be shared are, to say the least, scary.

• Start with a standardized digital studio console – It will reportedly be networked to the transmitter site and the new remote consoles that they are installing will allow more remote control of the transmitter by the emergency operations center.
• Emergencies will be referred to “The Tiger Team,” which is a group of engineers in the company that can jump on a flight at a m oment’s notice to go fix the engineering issues at the station. Keep in mind that the “Tiger Team” as they are called will only be able to respond to problems that don’t threaten to knock a station off the air.
• A list of local contract engineers will be kept close by – Part of the reason will be to make things look safer in case of devastating engineering issues that either keep a station off the air, force a reduction of power or have to deal with a massive issue such as fire.
• Major markets will retain an iHeart-employed chief engineer – This says a lot about how iHeart views its platform. Some 35% of all their revenue comes from 10 or fewer major markets and apparently iHeart does not want to jeopardize operations there. Expect a chief engineer to be retained and perhaps even an assistant if the chief is lucky.
• The MO is to have complete remote control of the station’s transmitter and air chain without a local engineer – just a contract engineer or “Tiger Team” replacement. This also reinforces rumors that iHeart wants to standardize their studios so that this skeleton system makes sense.

While this economy of scale is dangerous and ill-advised, iHeart is one of the most debt-ridden groups with revenue problems some but not all of which are caused by the coronavirus economy.

If the remote-control operator cannot verify that the transmitter shut down due to an issue with the antenna and they try to switch to a backup and put it on the “bad antenna” they can cause a higher problem.

Or if the transmitter did a safety shutdown due to a power supply or tube issue, they can make the problem worse by tinkering with it remotely and not having boots on the ground to confirm the issue.

Jerry Del Colliano is a professor at NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions Music Business Program. This commentary originally appeared at Inside Music Media and is republished with permission.

[Related: “How Will iHeart’s ‘Centers of Excellence’ Strategy Play Out?”]

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Angry Audio Bluetooth Gadget Front Quarter View

It’s more than likely that a broadcast engineer or multimedia tech professional will be called on at some time to connect a smartphone into a broadcast plant or multimedia studio.

The Angry Audio Bluetooth Gadget makes that process much less stressful while providing great capabilities for the reception and transmission of audio, whether that audio is basic cellphone grade, or from a codec app like Cleanfeed, Luci Live Lite, etc.

Making connections

The Bluetooth Gadget uses Bluetooth 3.0 to receive and transmit audio. The device will select from one of three codecs (AAC, aptX or SBC) to optimize the connection’s audio quality.

Connections for a mix-minus analog input and the left and right channel analog outputs are balanced +4 dBu XLR on the rear panel. There’s another XLR output on that rear panel. It’s a transformer balanced XLR male digital audio connection that can feed an AES digital device.

On the front along with the lights and switches there’s a TRRS jack wired to the CTIA standard for connecting a smartphone directly, so a hot switch between a Bluetooth paired smartphone, and a wired smartphone connection can be made without reconfiguring connections.

Rear view

Audio from the TRRS jack is unbalanced, with RFI filters on each input. Angry Audio provides an adapter for phones that use the OMTP standard for wiring. The device has a small antenna to help with reception; stated range for the device was 50 feet.

Versions for North America (115 VAC) and export (230 VAC) are available along with plugs for Europe, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The Bluetooth Gadget is AoIP-friendly. Angry Audio includes a StudioHub XLR to RJ-45 adapter pair for the left and right outputs, and an XLR-to-RJ45 adapter that can be used for the mix-minus input.

Simple operation

I tested the Bluetooth Gadget analog style with my Allen+Heath ZED 10 studio mixer and my Samsung Galaxy A6 smartphone. The balanced, mix-minus audio came from the ZED 10’s FX send bus’s TRS jack; the balanced audio connected to an input channel via analog XLR.

Pairing the Gadget to the phone involved flipping a switch on the front panel, and selecting the device on my smartphone. Once levels were set, making calls and recording them was simple.

Basically, if the smartphone has service, a standard cell call can be recorded or broadcast.

Angry Audio’s Michael “Catfish” Dosch said other applications besides putting calls on the air were considered when developing the Bluetooth Gadget.

“Most Bluetooth audio devices are receivers (sinks) only, useful for playback, but we thought a bidirectional interface would let you use your smartphone as a phone and put calls on the air. Plus, you could use other communications apps such as Skype, FaceTime, SIP clients, Zoom and even some social media apps like LINE and Facebook Messenger.

“Once we started development, we added some new ideas like the high-fidelity audio codecs, the split analog and digital outputs and the wired smartphone connection.”

The Bluetooth Gadget gives great flexibility, for instance, if a program is being transmitted to one source on a wired connection, and a second, studio quality feed (backup or second destination) becomes necessary. Connection through an app like Cleanfeed or Luci Live Lite, etc. makes that possible. So mission-critical audio transmission becomes less stressful.

The Bluetooth Gadget has a suggested retail price of $349. An optional rack mount is $39. Online documentation from https://angryaudio.com is straightforward and answers the questions engineers and technologists ask when installing devices.

Paul Kaminski, CBT, is host of msrpk.com’s “Radio-Road-Test,” and has been a Radio World contributor since 1997. Reach him on Twitter: msrpk_com. Facebook: PKaminski2468

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The recently formed Independent Broadcasters Association said it is taking note of the “massive terminations” in radio recently and has a new program to help.

IBA is partnering with Vipology in what they described as a rapid response opportunity for radio people losing their jobs.

[Read: New Association Tackles the Needs of Independent Radio Stations]

President and Executive Director Ron Stone was quoted in a press release: “We are living in the most challenging economic times since the great depression 100 years ago, literally since radio began. To see so many broadcast professionals terminated during the worst of times is hard to digest.”

IBA did not mention iHeartMedia. Recent headlines have focused on staff reductions at that company.

Vipology is the company that manages IBA’s website. Stone said the site is being tweaked “to provide opportunities for those impacted to ‘meet up’ with potential broadcasters that may either be searching for new talent or perhaps be interested in engaging these folks for tracking positions.”

Look for the Talent Available page on the site. The service is free and is not limited to IBA’s 1,300 members.

As we have reported, IBA launched recently with a focus on independent broadcasters that Stone feels tend to get left behind by large-scale industry initiatives and events that target large publicly held companies.

 

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Baby steps at this time but early December may bring an early Christmas for college basketball fans if AdLarge and the National Sports Network have their way.

AdLarge signed a deal to be the exclusive sales partner for NCAA college basketball games appearing on the National Sports Network for the 2020–2021 season.

 

The first game, Dec. 8, is a high-profile contest between the Creighton Bluejays and the perennial power Kansas Jayhawks.

Other teams scheduled to play through the season, depending on COVID pandemic interference are Duke, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and UCLA.

The post AdLarge and NSN Prep for College Basketball Season appeared first on Radio World.

StreamGuy SGplayer coding

Radio broadcasters that also stream audio are one of the business segments targeted by an alliance of StreamS and StreamGuys.

They said they’re working together to provide “next-generation, high-performance live audio streaming using fully compliant standards-based CMAF HLS for low-latency, adaptive-bitrate HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).”

They said they can offer a reliable and scalable streaming solution with remarkable audio quality, noting that CMAF HLS is the technology used by video providers for OTT and other direct-to-consumer services. StreamS provides encoder software, systems and pro audio processing. StreamGuys provides server infrastructure for content delivery as well as business analytics; reporting software for logging, compliance and audience measurement; and eventual ad insertion options.

[Read: WWOZ Used StreamGuys CDN for “Jazz Festing in Place”]

They said that the standardized container of the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) allows content providers to reach more types of devices with a single file set. This, they say, results in more efficient content delivery, reduces streaming costs and increases audience. They said they’re partnering to bring these benefits to audio providers including radio broadcasters that want to expand their streaming presence.

They said that CMAF HLS allows users to scale with greater strength and cost efficiency than with older protocols and “leverage the latest high-efficiency codecs, such as xHE-AAC and the broader AAC family, to cover everything from high-quality voice to high-quality 7.1 surround. The ability to stream real-time extensible metadata alongside pristine audio adds greater value for content providers and audiences.”

Kiriki Delany, president of StreamGuys, was quoted in the announcement saying, “HLS is getting a whole lot better with CMAF. We are excited to support ultra-low latency and simplify deploying HLS.” (The press release contains more detailed comments from Delany on the technical benefits.)

Greg Ogonowski is president of StreamS-Modulation Index.

 

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A slew of historic radio programs from a well-known public radio station in New York City are now available to stream.

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) has released a collection of historic radio programs from WRVR(FM), the public radio station once owned by The Riverside Church in New York. This collection includes speeches by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, award-winning documentary coverage of the civil rights movement in Birmingham in 1963, coverage of the Cold War, and material from leaders like Pres. John. F. Kennedy and Indira Gandhi.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Be Thankful for Community Radio]

“Making the Riverside Church/WRVR collection accessible through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting website will aid students, teachers, scholars and everyday citizens in exploring contemporaneous perspectives from religious leaders, political figures, artists and thinkers of the day, especially those trying to inform and influence the politics of the period,” said Alan Gevinson, Ph.D., AAPB project director at the Library of Congress.

The archive is searchable by genre, topic, date, asset type as well as contributing/producing organization. A search of the performance subcategory, for example, brings up a 1966 recording of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Masque of Red Death,” while a search of event coverage pulls up a 1962 speech by FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow.

It was 1961 when The Riverside Church first put WRVR on the air, playing religious programming and coverage of cultural and higher-education events. The station shifted to an all-news format — along with a single jazz program called “Just Jazz with Ed Beach” — from September 1971 until 1976, when the station was sold.

The station was known for its role as a center of activism and social justice. In 2018, a grant was bestowed by the Council on Library and Information Resources to The Riverside Church and the AAPB to begin the process of digitizing the broadcasts of WRVR. Additional assistance came from the New York City and the AAPB, which is a collaboration between Boston public media producer GBH (formerly WGBH) and the Library of Congress. The project involves the digitization of more than 3,500 audio tapes from the WRVR collection.

The station was awarded a Peabody Award for its entire scope of programming, due in part to its documentary coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Materials in the collection are in a variety of languages including English, Spanish, Hebrew, French, Indonesian, German and Gaelic.

More items are expected to be added to the AAPB archive over the next year as items are digitized.

 

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From our Who’s Buying What page:

Calrec said that South African community  station Bosveld Stereo is using its Type R for Radio IP audio system.

The installation was done by the manufacturer’s  partner Wild and Marr.

Bosveld Stereo broadcasts in Afrikaans in the North West Province.

The company said it is the first station in South Africa to use the Type R.

The system consists of a core, two hardware fader panels and one large soft panel. Dante AoIP carries the audio to the RF site.

Wild and Marr Technical Director Anton van Wyk and Broadcast Systems Engineer Dwaine Schreuder pre-commissioned the system off-site.

Send info for Who’s Buying What to radioworld@futurenet.com.

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Project schematic (click to enlarge in PDF)

Our recent contribution to the Workbench column in Radio World about our home-brew construction of an XLR-3 cable tester produced a notable, positive reader reaction.

It seems almost all of us in the profession possess that “maker instinct.”

Although I’d promised in our next article to jump cold into a complex follow-up project of a step oscillator, our distinguished editors thought something as useful as the cable tester but slightly more complicated might be a better next step … sort of an organic progression.

Advancing somewhat by inculcating some simple active circuitry would also be apropos. Staying in the universe of audio, our project in these pages is an elegantly straightforward unbalanced-to-balanced audio converter.

As is often said, the beauty and joy of technical standards is that there are so many to choose from!

This dilemma holds true for the world of audio as well. We often need to make a marriage in our stations between the near-universal broadcast impedances and signal levels with the ubiquitous “consumer” output levels.

Handheld digital recorders, air tuners, computer sound cards etc. need to be taken into the broadcast plant. The situation is complicated by differences in impedances between devices, not to mention the unique characteristics of odd sources such as “pro” audio signals with their slightly higher levels.

On With the Show

We’ve attempted to accomplish several goals here. In our example unit, we’ll use a similar enclosure to the one from our cable tester article so that, at least on our workbench, our new tools will have that matching look.

We’ll provide some flexibility in uses and setup. We’ll keep complexity and fabrication to a minimum and consequently, minimize the cost, especially as we may be making many of these.

We’ll provide enough design description and suggestions for changes and customization so you can make the project truly your own and as you need the device to work in your plant

Let’s get oriented. A parts list for this project is at the bottom of the story.

First take a look at the schematic at top.

Addressing just levels, consumer audio from something like a CD player is expected to peak at 0.447 volts with an RMS (Root Mean Square) value of 0.316 volts, which is well within the handling capability of an operational amplifier (op-amp).

If our audio is headed to a typical 600-ohm standard broadcast mixer input of +4 dBm, the level at that point will need to be a peak of 1.736 volts or 1.228 volts RMS. As such, the RMS voltage gain will need to be about 3.9, or 11.8 dBV.

Circuit Details

Like most electronic circuits, one can generally divide the beast into main activity and support sections. The main in this case is the signal flow area; the support is essentially the power supply, connectors and enclosure.

Start with main. In our circuit, the unbalanced signal enters the converter and encounters a 10k ohm shunt resistor to ground, which is included as the industry-suggested load impedance that provides the flattest signal response transfer. The 220 uF series capacitor isolates the audio, stabilizing the gain of the first active stage to follow.

The op-amp sections in this device are configured in the inverting format, providing great flexibility and stability.

Breadboarding the circuit.

Many readers will remember that most of my previous audio processing work in these pages used the classic 1458 op-amp, as I had been given and used over 100 of them. Now that I’ve been given an even larger number of the similar but higher performing 5532 op-amps, we’ll start using this new group to a similar depletion.

The 5532 is a self-compensated, dual-section unit. The first op-amp section provides two functions for us. The first is gain, and with that in mind, our required gain might be that voltage gain of 4 noted above to achieve line level output, but could also be a negative gain to help us get down to mic level.

To Invert or Not to Invert

A fundamental facet of a non-inverting op-amp (the alternative arrangement of the inverting circuit configuration used herein) is that one cannot achieve negative gain, which is gain less than 1. The inverting configuration, used here, can accomplish negative gain similar to an attenuator.

The second purpose of this stage is to create one of the two output lines of our active balanced output. As our op-amp is inverting the input signal, the AC audio voltage here would be the inverse polarity of the input. So, we have marked the line – (negative).

The complimentary output line (+) is generated by the second of the IC sections configured once again as an inverter.

We need the mirror imagine of the other line, so we invert with a gain of one. A gain of one is achieved by using the same value of resistors in all positions. Incidentally, the value annotated on our schematic of three 3.3k was determined by the circumstance of being given over 100 3.3k resistors via the largess of a generous friend and that these 3.3k’s were 1% tolerance. This close resistance matching is quite helpful in achieving that perfect gain of one if you’re a real op-amp purist.

One can use three of just about any value, but something between 1k and 10k, at least in my experience, seems to work best.

As noted, we have created a very usable balanced output with the two op-amp sections.

A fundamental characteristic of all op-amps is a very low output impedance such that these active devices approach being a perfect current source.

Coming together …

The author has been blessed with a great number of knowledgeable and generous instructors, and I’ve honored them often in these pages. From the wisdom of my mentors has come a world of wise words. One of my favorite quips, on this very subject, is: “Because of that low impedance, an op-amp can almost drive anything right down to a short … if there is even a little bit of resistance in that short.”

With this in mind, to create a source impedance for best and flattest power transfer, we insert resistors in each of the output of these op-amps to match the impedance of the input to follow, hence, the 300 ohm resistors in the + and – sides, which provide a 600 ohm source. Shunting these individual resistors with 100 ohms results in 75 ohms on each side, dropping the source impedance to 150 ohms and mimicking a mic output.

Flexibility

The changing of the output resistance between these two choices is accomplished by a DIP switch on each resistor. Another DIP switch changes the gain from a nominal 10 dB to –40 dB, bringing the output level down to about microphone level.

The gain of an inverting op-amp is set by the relationship of the input and feedback resistors. The 10k 20-turn trimmer fine adjusts this relationship, pretty much allowing you to land the gain (and maybe even the fader position) exactly where you want it.

Final assembly.

Bench testing indicates that my finished version has a remarkably flat frequency response. The value of the input cap was chosen to improve/maximize low frequency coupling. THD was excellent with the worst case no higher than 0.4%.

The abundance of 0.01 uF caps are just good engineering practice and, once again, enabled by being given a big bag of beautiful 50-volt mylars. (Buc, don’t you ever have to buy anything?)

If full isolation of the output is needed, a transformer can be connected to this balanced output, and a typical transformer with nominal 600 ohm impedance on each side is listed at the end of the parts list.

Power Supply and Other Support Items

Most audio sources in one’s radio station in 2020 are stereo, and so for that reason, our constructed box has two channels.

We’ve chosen to use a wall-wart from the salvaged/harvested box of about 8 volts DC output as our power source. Anything between 8 and 24 volts should work. This DC could be applied directly to the 5-volt three-terminal regulator, but since the power might come from an AC or reverse polarity source in the future, a bridge rectifier was included. If away from hard power, one could even use the DC from a 9-volt battery as a power source. Using this scheme, one has infinite options.

Power supply schematic. Click to enlarge in PDF.

If you’re permanentizing your converters, a transformer with simple regulator circuit is located in an isolation box at the lower corner of the schematic as an alternative to the above concept.

A DC to DC converter follows and that takes the regulated 5 volts in and converts this to + and – 15 volts for use by the op-amps. The particular converter chosen has 33 mA capability for each rail, which is more than adequate. In development, the worst-case current demand noted was about 8 mA for each 5532.

The + and – 15-volt operating point is a foible of the author as it seems to me to produce a slight but measurable improvement in S/N. Further, this 30-volt differential easily allows a +10 output if needed.

The abundance of 0.01 caps are for RF elimination. They also reduce any penchant for oscillation along the power supply rails.

RCA (phono) connectors were used on the unbalanced side as this is the industry standard. XLR-3 males were used on the output in anticipation that we will be using high-level broadcast inputs primarily.

The finished product.

The parts list is below; click on it to download in a Word doc.

Now that you have the “big picture,” it’s up to you to build one that is flexible, custom, useful and reflective of your own genius.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.

Parts List for Unbalanced to Balanced Converter Project (click for text version)

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Veritone is offering “content monetization and licensing services” aimed specifically at audio creators.

The company already provides visual digital content licensing for sports entities, news organizations and user-generated content networks; it has a big library of news and sports content and said that it license images and video to brands like CBS News and Bloomberg.

The new announcement targets audio users specifically.

Jay Bailey, VP of entertainment licensing, was quoted saying, “As podcasting continues to grow as an exciting and popular medium, expanding our licensing offerings to include audio content is a natural next step to better meet both creator and consumer demand.”

Veritone has an operating system for artificial intelligence called aiWARE. AI is used in its archival search platform. The licensing service also includes audio consulting and research to help creators find the right audio content.

[Related commentary: “AI Will Help the Industry Reinvent Itself”]

“In addition to giving podcasters, broadcasters and other audio creators access to premium audio clips for their programs, this new audio offering will also provide them with opportunities to monetize their own audio archives through Veritone,” it stated in a release, adding that Stitcher and Audible are among podcast entities using this new service.

[Read Radio World’s ebook “AI Comes to Radio”]

The post Veritone Extends Licensing to Audio appeared first on Radio World.

The author is production manager at 99.3 FM KTIA in Des Moines, Iowa

Hi Radio World, I read the Dan Slentz commentary about overly compressed audio (“A Quality Audio Crisis in the Music Industry”), which included a suggestion on how to “help/tweak” the audio file so it would be less compressed.

I stumbled upon something that works quite well for me.

Using Audition, or any DAW that has this option, try out the Multiband Compressor. I start with a preset, or one I’ve came up with, comparing the file with the plugin applied and then without it. You want to make the least noticeable change to the file, leaving it still acceptable in quality overall.

Once you find that point, process the file, even if the change is barely noticeable.

In my experience I end up with a file that is less compressed, even dramatically less compressed, than the original.

You can then adjust levels so you retain the dynamics and still meet a –1 dBTP point.

This has improved many overly compressed files for me with only a couple minutes of work on the file in question.

 

The post Letter: A Tip for Tweaking Audio Files appeared first on Radio World.

Visit the new studios of Seattle’s KING-FM; read the conclusion of our year-long Radio@100 series; discover a Bluetooth Gadget; learn about podcast workflow at “The Dave Ramsey Show”‘ and celebrate 30 years of Radio World’s Workbench!

Read it here.

 

 

 

 

 

The post Inside the Nov. 11, 2020 Issue of Radio World appeared first on Radio World.

Phillystran is highlighting the selection of its products for a new two-tower AM installation in South Korea.

It said Kintronic Labs Inc. installed these towers for Far East Broadcasting Co. (FEBC) to extend the reach of its Christian programming in the area. FEBC Korea broadcasts to 13 cities in South Korea.

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

“The two 210-foot, 250 W AM towers each use four Phillystran HPTG cable guys with four guy levels on each tower,” the company wrote in a press release.

“The guy configuration on both towers is the same. Located close to the sea, the towers are designed to withstand a wind speed of 220 kmph/137 mph. Each cable guy features vibration dampeners and steel pigtails to terminate and tension the lines.”

It quoted Kintronic President/CEO Tom King saying the Phillystran synthetic cable guys are a suitable choice where the sea winds would corrode steel cable guys. He highlighted the system’s polyurethane extruded jacket, saying it provides UV resistance and good weathering and dielectric properties.

Phillystran is based in Philadelphia and is part of steel wire rope manufacturer WireCo WorldGroup.

Send info for our Who’s Buying What column to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post FEBC Project Uses Phillystran Guy System appeared first on Radio World.

A slide from Jurison’s presentation addresses EAS aspects of the topic.

A webinar next week will explain the latest generation of HD Radio hardware. It’s free to members of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.

The instructor is Alan Jurison, senior operations engineer for iHeartMedia.

“A new generation of HD Radio hardware combines the Importer and Exporter into a single appliance and simplifies operation while providing integrated time alignment,” the society’s website states.

“Other features include more flexible HD2/HD3/HD4 software- and hardware-based capture client encoding options, and integrated EAS features for multicast channels. Gen4 also offers the advanced extended hybrid mode MP11, which adds an additional 24 kilobits for a total data capacity of 144 kbps.”

Jurison said the fourth-generation platform also includes an HTML5 GUI.

The 90-minute webcast streams on Nov. 18 at 2 p.m. Eastern time. It’s sponsored by Xperi, parent of HD Radio.

The post Webinar Explores Gen-4 HD Radio Platform appeared first on Radio World.

Radio.com, the digital platform owned by Entercom, has a new content distribution deal with Beasley Media Group.

Beasley will add live-stream channels for its 64 stations to Radio.com, along with its on-demand audio and podcasts.

[Read: Entercom Filing Shows Ad Revenue Trending Up]

The announcement was made by Entercom VP of Business Development Corey Podolsky and Beasley Chief Content Officer Justin Chase.

Podolsky said the partnership “will give Beasley’s 20 million weekly listeners a new destination to consume their favorite audio content, while providing our existing consumers more options to satisfy their listening habits.”

 

The post Entercom’s Radio.com Adds Beasley Streams appeared first on Radio World.