Following a visit last month by Telos’ Broadcast Audio Fanatics, veteran radio engineer Cordell Loken of KBNJ in Corpus Christi, TX sent us a note expressing how impressed he was with the meeting.

While we always enjoy hearing this type of feedback, once we got to know Cork and learned his story, we were as impressed with him as he was with us!

Who better to predict radio’s future than a radio futurologist? James Cridland advises radio’s leaders across the world – on radio’s multiplatform future, the effect of smartphones on radio listening, and radio’s place in social media. He writes about what happens when radio and new platforms collide – for Media UK and other websites and magazines. And works with the brightest brains to ensure radio remains relevant. On this episode, James describes RadioDNS, which he says is one of the key technologies for radio remaining relevant and useful to a mass audience.

An often-overlooked facet of AM broadcasting is carrier current radio. Typically carrier current is implemented by feeding the RF signal into the AC power distribution system of building allowing for broadcasting over limited areas. Hence, its widespread use among student-run college radio stations.

This month's trip to the attic turned up a dusty but functional LPB RC-6A carrier current transmitter, along with its coupler and test gear.

Exactly what is radio these days? Popular Communications columnist Rob de Santos discusses radio trends on "This Week in Radio Tech" with Kirk Harnack.

Chris Tobin shows us the FM combiner room at 4 Times Square – a main transmitter site for some and a backup site for other New York City broadcasters. Plus, Scott Fybush is here with transmitter and tower stories, a radio discussion board, and his 2014 Tower Site Calendar.

Resolving issues regarding Axia GPIO for on-air lights is a topic that comes up on a regular basis, and this month's Tech Tip question was a good reminder that we need to cover it again!

Do you remember those great radio models of yesteryear?  Take a walk down radio's memory lane at TubeRadioLand!

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.