Tech Notes from the Field

I know this may sound simple, stupid, but this turned out to be the best method for me to respond to the Arbitron request to make sure the PPM encoders are working. Record your off air audio on your computer and email it to them!

I am able to monitor in my office our stations’ air feeds, HD feeds, program feeds, etc. This came in quite useful yesterday when I finally got around to responding to Arbitron’s request. In the past we placed a phone by a speaker and stepped through each station. Not this time. I fed my computer, fired up Audacity, and recorded 5 minutes of each station. After I was done with the main encoder, I have remote access via my Burk equipment and switched to the backup encoders. Again, recorded 5 minutes for each station. When I was done I emailed off the recordings properly named for easy reference.
If you are running a logger and feeding it via an air signal, this is acceptable, too. Now you already have a recording, you just need to edit down to about 5 minutes, and email off to them.

I sent 128kbps mp3 audio files. A bit better quality than they request, but it definitely gets the job done and it beats wasting the time of two of us on a phone.

Any other tips? Let me know!