AoIP – The State of the Union, 2015

Part 1: Nerves and Networking

At 11:59 P.M. on a Sunday in April, 2002, I was sitting on the thinly carpeted floor of the NAB convention hall watching as a software guru fed lines of code into his IBM Thinkpad. The next morning, the doors of the hall would open, and our newest product – a console surface with an IP-connected DSP mixing engine – would be displayed for the examination of broadcasters from all over the world.

139th AES and 50th Anniversary of the Master Antenna in New York

The 139th convention of the Audio Engineering Society begins next week in New York City.  Plus, we’ll commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Master FM Antenna on the Empire State Building! Big party. Guest speakers. Presentations. And it’s all about furthering the state of the art in audio gathering and reproduction.  David Bialik and Scott Fybush join Chris Tobin and me.

The JOY FM: Z/IP ONE Power User

Every piece of broadcast equipment has its 'power users', the ones who use every feature, input and output in every conceivable way, along with some that weren't envisioned by the designers. For the Telos Z/IP ONE IP Broadcast Codec, that user would be The JOY FM. Between their Florida, Georgia and Alabama operations, the Radio Training Network has over 40 Z/IP Ones at its JOY FM stations, used for a variety of applications.

Get the Sound YOU Want: A Programmer's Guide to Processing 

Before I joined The Telos Alliance fulltime in 2001, I was involved in the programming and management of some pretty successful American radio stations for almost 35 years.

Quite early on, I realized that the audio signature of a station is the final stop in the presentation process and is, in some ways, the most critical piece of the programming puzzle. This is not simply a question of aesthetics. Time and time again, TSL reduction can be traced to improper audio processing, where listener fatigue robs you of your most important listeners: The P1 long termers.

AM De-Tuning and Co-Location with Lawrence Behr

Cellular towers are everywhere and they’re still building more.  But trouble occurs when they’re too close to existing AM tower sites. That’s where Lawrence Behr of LBA Group comes in - helping cell carriers and AM towers live together peacefully, and sometimes even co-habitate.

TOPradio Inaugurates DAB+ Broadcasting with Omnia.9

Broadcasting from studios in Ghent, TOPradio has become Belgium's premier dance radio network. Beginning in 1996 as a collaboration between three stations in Flanders (Ghent, Bruges and Kortrijk) branded as “Dansradio Vlaanderen,” the network has expanded to 20 affiliates scattered throughout Flemish-speaking Belgium. And TOPradio has become one of the top choices for listeners in the 19-35 demographic.

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Vintage Audio: ARC-5 Command Receiver

Military communications receivers have always been coveted by short wave listeners and radio amateurs. With rugged construction and great specifications, what's not to love? When this equipment turns up at surplus electronics retailers, it usually comes at a great price.

Vintage Audio: OS-8/U Oscilloscope 

From the time that oscilloscopes were first developed in the early 1940s, the race was on to make them smaller. Originally, scopes were esoteric devices found only in research labs, but servicing applications quickly surfaced. They eventually began to appear in radio-TV repair shops.

Vintage Audio: Wilkinson GCA-1 AGC Amp

The 1970s was the decade when peak limiters and AGC amps were transformed from equipment that kept a station's modulation within FCC limits into creative tools to tailor a unique on-air sound. With the right audio processor and careful tweaking, you could also beat out the competition in loudness wars – or not. CBS Labs Audimax/Volumax combinations, Gates Solid Statesman limiters and later, Optimod 8000s were common. However, the equipment market was flooded with various AGCs, compressors, squashers, clippers and limiters that promised to make your signal stand out. Some delivered on their claims, others, not so much. Lurking in the deep recesses of the attic is a Wilkinson GCA-1 AGC amplifier. Time to dust it off and take a look.

Vintage Audio: Zenith Royal 1000 TransOceanic

The lure of snagging distant short wave signals from the other side of the globe has been a part of radio listening from the earliest days. As receiver and battery technologies improved, radios became portable, meaning DXers were no longer confined to listening in their basement or attic radio shacks.