Is your AM Audio Quality Lost in Translation?

Omnia can help

Our US readers may have noticed recently a number of AM stations filing for and obtaining translators to help boost signal coverage. Maybe you've even applied for one of your own. That's thanks to the FCC's Report and Order from 2009 that allowed cross-service translation (the ability for AMs to rebroadcast on an FM frequency).

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Do you Need Audio Processing in a File-based Encoder?

That question comes up on a regular basis.

The first answer that comes to mind is “because it’s cool!” but, on a more serious note, there are some very practical reasons for it.

What IP-Audio Studio Owners Discover after their First Installation

The boxes have come and gone, as well as the integrator. The past few months have been both exciting and tedious, as you've had to not only plan and install new technology into your existing facility, but also keep up on all of the other engineering responsibilities — a challenge that every broadcast engineer can relate and sympathize with. Now you've got it, though: your first AoIP studio. So, what's next?

Four "Must-Dos" for Planning Your IP-Audio network

Although most engineers have some experience with computer networks, not all of us have had to build one from scratch. If you're planning for an Axia IP-Audio network (or maybe you've just purchased some Axia gear), here are four things you should do to help ensure that the audio network you're planning performs the way you want it to.

What do Explosives, Flashlights, and Toy Trains Have in Common?

Those of us who came of age at a certain time will fondly remember one of the traditional joys of our youth: setting up the electric train beneath the Christmas tree. Not just any train, though - it had to be a Lionel train set, big and loud and bright, complete with billowing smoke from the locomotive and all manner of animated trackside accessories.

Five things your competition is doing to sound better than you

Garbage in – garbage out; especially true when playing your music through a modern, hard-working audio processor. Stations that sound great play music that sounds great. This means the source material is as close to perfect as possible. No MP3s. No downloading songs using BitTorrent. With the cost of hard drive storage being so low these days, there’s no excuse for not ripping and storing your music library in a linear format – no bit-rate-reduction (data compression). If you must obtain data-compressed music, be sure it’s at a high bit rate. 256kbps minimum for AAC; 384 kbps minimum for MPEG Layer II. Check your songs for full frequency response using spectral analysis; you can connect a PC with a good sound card to your console output and watch for songs limited to 15kHz or less. Replace these cuts as you can. YOU are the final gatekeeper of your station’s source material integrity.

4G Success with Telos Z/IP and ProSTREAM 

WSUM radio at the University of Wisconsin was facing the prospect of having to fork out nearly $1,000 for an Internet connection during the weekend of December 3rd in order to broadcast their own Badger football game at Lucas Oil Stadium, on their own airwaves. Naturally, they wanted to avoid this!

Sharing a Single Livewire Mic / Headphone Position with Multiple Consoles

Q: "We have a customer who wants to use one microphone selectively with two different control rooms. The mic has mic/headphone accessory panels, and the client wants control of the accessory panel to follow the mic, no matter which of the facility's mixing consoles it's assigned to. Is this possible?"

Playing Livewire Streams using Windows Media Player

Did you know that you can use Media Player (or any standards-compliant player, like VLC Player or Quicktime) to play the RTP audio streams generated by your Livewire network? Think of the possibilities around your plant: any computer with a set of speakers instantly becomes a listening station for any audio channel your plant is generating. All you have to do is generate a standard SDP file so your player knows what stream to load and play.

What do you do when the power goes out?

On September 9, 2011, much of Southern California and portions of Western Arizona and Baja were blacked out by a cascading failure of the San Diego Gas & Electric power grid.

As has been noted lately by many in the industry, radio is still the public's first and best source of information during emergencies. This was proved once more during this blackout, which lasted between 12 and 14 hours. As soon as the power was out, my family tuned to our LP-1, KOGO, whose generators and backup systems worked flawlessly to keep the station on-air. Their professional news staff and reporters kept information flowing into the late night; my wife and I (and many others, I'm sure) fell asleep to the radio knowing that things were well in hand.