TWiRT 340 - War Stories with Robbie Green
Move 4 radio studios across town. You’ve got two weeks. Go! Oh, and scrounge some equipment to make the STL systems work with an old T-1 circuit. And, find some time to replace seven FM transmitters with new, solid-state units and full HD Radio. That’s the world of engineer, Robbie Green. Robbie joins Chris Tobin and Kirk Harnack on This Week in Radio Tech.
Hosts:
Chris Tobin, IP-Solutionist
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting
Guest:
Robbie Green - Market Chief Engineer, CBS Radio, Houston
Show Links:
Studio Technologies Model 214 Talent Console
Soundcraft Si Expression 1 audio mixer
Ethernet Private Line (Carrier Ethernet)
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Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality
TWiRT 339 - Securing What Matters
More hackers, more breaches, more ways for broadcast engineers to have a really bad day! Chris Tobin relates what can happen and the steps you need to take to patch your IT security holes. Plus, Les Kutasi joins us with news from Kathrein and the world of broadband antennas.
Hosts:
Chris Tobin, IP-Solutionist
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting
Show Links:
Shields UP! Internet Port Test (Click on Services, then Shields UP!)
IT Security podcast, “Security Now”
A Primer on Encryption for Policymakers (and a quick read for all of us)
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Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality
Saving Sounds from the Dumpster
As the Twentieth Century is rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror, historians, archivists and collectors furiously gather artifacts and documents before they all disappear. Forgotten by many, but not all, are the soundscapes of the past; both technological and natural in origin.
If you've worked in radio long enough, you already know something about changing soundscapes. The clattering of a teletype machine in the newsroom, the sound of records and reel tapes being cued and the once per second chunk-chunk-chunk of the Western Union master clock as it counts down the time remaining till the next hourly newscast, are all gone but not forgotten.
Read MoreTopics: Broadcast History, audio
TWiRT 338 - The Standard that Stuck - with Richard Burden
Cassette tapes. 8-Track. Digital Cassettes. FM-QUAD. AM Stereo. Reel-to-reel. Audio standards come and go, but Multiplex FM Stereo lives on and is nearly 60 years old! Richard Burden extensively tested our FM Stereo system when it was just a proposal. Dick joins me to chat about that and more on TWiRT!
Host:
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting
Guest:
Richard Burden, Principal - Burden Associates
Show Links:
Stereo Multiplexing for Dummies
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Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality
TWiRT 337 - Predicting Headphone Sound Quality with Sean Olive
How many times have you bought headphones or earbuds, only to be disappointed with their audio quality? Or maybe you were pleasantly surprised! Sean Olive is the Acoustic Research Fellow at HARMAN International. He’s doing headphone qualitative measurements that mean something, both for consumers and for manufacturers, toward better audio from our wearables.
Hosts:
Chris Tobin, IP-Solutionist
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting
Guest:
Sean Olive, Acoustic Research Fellow at HARMAN International
Show Links:
Sean Olive’s Blog, with links to articles and research
KZ ATE KZ-ATE Dynamic Balanced Armature IEMS In Ear HIFI Monitors
AKG N60 Noise Canceling Headphone
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Topics: Broadcast Engineering, audio, audio quality
Streaming University: The Complete Broadcast Streaming Audio Resource
These days, streaming audio is everywhere, and the importance of streaming continues to grow for broadcasters across the globe. Anymore, simply having an audio stream isn’t enough - though it’s a start if you’re not already streaming now. If you aren’t, you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity to maximize listenership - and revenues! Broadcast streaming audio has become such an important facet of many radio stations’ offerings that it’s making up a larger portion of broadcast revenues every year.
Because this essential technology continues to proliferate, there’s a lot to know - even for those who have been streaming for several years. That’s why, earlier this year, the Telos Alliance developed Streaming University, a series of classes and an accompanying YouTube video series providing everything you need to know about streaming audio.
Read MoreTopics: Streaming Audio, adaptive streaming, audio, streaming, broadcast streaming, streaming for radio