Damned Digital Magazines
Have you noticed how difficult it is to read the digital version of Radio World? How about Radio Magazine? How about any of them! Is it my eyes and old age setting in? I am finally getting to the Aug. 19th edition of Radio World and I click to zoom in to read the first page. It comes up fuzzy and small. I lean into the monitor. Uhg. Not comfortable.
What am I reading it on? A laptop with a 17″ monitor! The browser is maximized. I still have issues reading it. I cannot even use the CTRL+Scroll to enlarge it with Firefox. Nuts.
Here is a thought, make it possible to zoom in more! I’ll use the damned mouse to move around. Just make it legible. I can do this with PDF versions of emags (Redman is an example) where I zoom in as much as I like.
Old age sucks and I’m not even that old yet!
OK, rant mode off. I feel better.
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Preparing for an SDG&E Planned Outage
San Diego Gas & Electric threw a curve ball at us last week. They are replacing a power pole on a circuit that feeds our little class A simulcast site. Being a small site and no room for any on-site generator we started to prepare for this outage which is to last “up to 10 hours.”
We picked up the promotions generator and tested it out. Got some extra fuel. Now some more fun and a great electrician: We had to make sure we had the proper connections for the devices that will be used or even potentially be used. Our main transmitter has a “china man” type connection and our aux has a twist lock type connection. The generator has a 4-prong 240V plug. Our electrician whipped up a cable with the 4-prong on one end, a j-box with a couple of 120V outlets, and a tail with the “china man” plug. In addition he has a “china man” to twist lock 3-prong if we need to run the aux.
We will do a dry run on Monday to make sure we are not missing anything. Along with this a couple of extension cords to run peripherals and we should be good.
Nothing like being prepared and having a good team to jump on it early,l especially when I was busy with other projects. At this stage I think we are ready to keep the site up and running.
Now is AT&T going to keep the T-1 active or are we flying on the backup/emergency feed to the site?
So What Have We Done with the M2.2R?
Some of you are interested in what resolve has occurred with our DaySequerra M2.2R. The bottom line is there has been no resolve.
The latest is we sent a bunch of data to them with the box we still have here. We sent a spectrum plot of what a whip antenna receives at the site. We’ve sent spectrum plots of what the samples see. We sent screen shots of their own web application showing signal strength and the like. They are still combing through it.
The last thing I did was take some measurements attenuating the signal from the sample and feeding the low level or antenna input. When the air conditioning folks move to the next unit, I will do more measurements. So far I’ve attenuated about 55dB. I have another 20dB attenuator I found. In any case, so far nothing seems to work. Inconsistent readings, or just not trustworthy readings, continue.
Stay tuned!
So, What Do You Think? HD Radio Dead Out of Box?
Insignia’s portable player unlikely to boost HD Radio’s popularity – Los Angeles Times
Seems to me we are reading the same complaints/issues that even some engineers in the field talk about. I know we are working on the IBOC power increase, but will it be enough to receive INDOORS? Will an external antenna be required on all devices. By the way, the article is a review of the new Insignia radio that the industry is talking about. The next item that I find interesting is right at the beginning: The ear buds are inferior. Figured that was coming. Also note the quote used from the iBiquity website. I need to check on that one!
From the broadcasters standpoint and the inception of PPM, how will a monitor pickup what the listener is hearing if they are wearing headphones or ear buds? This same question arises for those iPods and iPhones. Hype the apps all you want, people are using headphones and you will not get ratings. A minus for the PPM technology?
What do you think?
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A/C Upgrades
I’ve fallen behind on some updates here. We finally received approval to upgrade our air conditioning. HD transmitters create a boat-load of heat. As we have two of these beasts in one room it was time to convince corporate that we may want to protect our assets. We upgraded from 8-tons total air to 15-tons. We achieved the 15-tons by installing three 5-ton split units.
Our toughest assignment was to maintain a small footprint on the compressor units, so we had to propose a package unit which was refused by the landlord before we received the funds for the multi-unit installation. We purchased 3 Carrier units with vertical mount compressors. A rack was built to stack two high. So far we are running good.
The next step is to duct a bit to take care of air circulation.
I’ll fill you in on the other stuff soon.
Moseley SL9003Q AES Gotcha
What a week. AT&T takes down our T-1 STL without notice. An aerial to buried cut-over and their documentation is all screwed up. Sure enough, off the air! Then I discovered the hard way that when we switch to our aural STL the main transmitter, HTHD+, has no audio, yet the backup, HT-25, does!
What did I learn? The AES audio from the 9003Q has a “no audio” bit set in the output card. The Flexstar exciter reads it as no audio and thus no audio on the air. Huh? I receive a 3 year old tech sheet from Harris stating a modification to the Moseley output card. I perform the modification and now everything works. My question: Why did this output work fine with our original Flexstar exciter but not this one?
Earlier this year we had an actual failure of the XLR input board on the Flexstar. Exhibited the same no audio issue, but from both AES sources. This time I assumed the same thing. When I found out about this modification, I was floored. My predecessor did not document this? As I mentioned, we have used the auxiliary STL before without issue on the Flexstar. Or had we?
All I know now is that it is fixed and we are covered as we should. Making discoveries this way sure drives you nuts.
Moseley SL9003T1 Surprise
I had a rude awakening on Friday night/Saturday morning. No audio on air. I got them up on the backup STL and came on in. As we run T1’s for our main STL’s I suspected that our friends at AT&T had more issues with their infrastructure which is more common that not. When I entered the TOC I was shocked to see one of our Moseley SL9003T1 units dark. After all these years one of these beasts went bad? I checked the back and the power supply was registering one LED and the other was blinking erratically along with a weird clicking sound. Bad power supply.
I contacted the emergency tech and asked one very important question, “Can I use a power supply from a spare SL9003Q (aural STL) receiver?” The immediate, unwavering answer, “By all means.” Even the much older unit’s power supply was good to go. I traveled to the transmitter site and raided the power supply out of the spare unit and ran back to the studio. Dropped it in and we were back in business.
Though the old power supply looked less impressive that the new ones found in the T1 unit, it works like a champ. When Moseley is open I will order a replacement and a spare. Looks like it will not hurt to have on on the shelf.
And that is how my Fourth of July started! My Third of July was an air conditioning failure at the transmitter site.
BTW, I’m still working on updating the Equipment Notes page.
Harris HTHD+: More?
Yesterday we had our HTHD+ drop off the air again. When I arrived at the site the mimic panel showed an Exciter Fault!
1. Was it the Flexstar at fault?
Right now we are assuming, between us and tech support, that the PA module in the Flexstar is not happy with something. This is based on a fluctuating forward power of a few tens of a watt while the APC voltage remains constant. To troubleshoot this we await a new PA module for the exciter.
2. Did something else cause the exciter to fault?
What if the IPA is asking too much from the exciter? Seems to be stable and the fluctuations on its forward power follow that of the exciter, so it appears to be working fine.
3. What was the fault?
There is no indication nor have I found log files that would suggest what actually occurred. I need to research to see if the Flexstar keeps any log files. As it is an early “software controlled device” I suspect not or it is well hidden. A call may be in order.
On that note, when I powered up after tests it has remained on the air since. I will deal with the power fluctuations as long as I can maintain legality and on-air. We are a BTC/Navteq station. Believe it or not it is important for us to run HD. We will see if a new PA module actually works. If not, I will suggest a swap of the IPA.
Bored or Not Bored. That is the question.
Ah, Friday has come and about done. I had to attend a mandatory sexual harassment training seminar today. Required by this great state of CA.
So, this week was full of fun and excitement. Well, not really. Busy work and boredom. Well, not really boredom. I found out from DaySequerra that our M2.2R is still not ready to ship back. We stumbled on a real good issue. Can’t wait to hear about this fix. I messed with the Golden Eagle a bit. Darn firewall is blocking so no email notifications. Then again, why would I want that? Fix a VoxPro controller. First one in forever! Broken button cap.
I even replaced another XLR input board in our Flexstar. This was to replace the non-threaded one we originally received.
See, we can keep busy. I also spent time cleaning up the log that our Autopilot software prints out for one station. Made it fit on one page. Crazy the thing decided to stop working yesterday, too.
Other things to keep from getting bored: Do the stuff you hate or do not wish to do. Inventory! List all the little items that need to be addressed. UPS batteries. Clean the remote gear. The list goes on. Amazing what we can get done if you put your mind to it.
And the last thing to do: Work on a training schedule for your assistant. Always good to have some thing new to show the assistant. While he is off for a week I will look for some fine training items to do for him.
There you have it. The “what to do when you are bored” list. The number one thing: Clean the shop! BUT, make sure something is out so people do not figure out you are bored. 😉
Harris Visit
I had the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Geoffery Mendenhall of Harris Corp. the other day. We had a nice lunch and chat. We even visited the transmitter site to discuss the tube and life of these beasts in the HD world.
I have submitted the tube to Econco for an evaluation on how this tube fared. I will keep you posted on this. Our conversation focused on the fact that the failing tube caused IPA overloads. As the filament carbonizes we see a higher resistance and need more power to maintain emissions. Also we are thinking there is some increase in reactance withing the grid circuit. Somewhere a point is attained where the IPA cannot provide the necessary drive and overloads.
Once we have some evaluation on the state of the tube after removal we will not really know how far along or “burned out” the thing is. As the digital carriers require higher peak current, this tube in an analog transmitter would probably last a bit longer. All very interesting things.
Stay tuned for any other information that I may come across.
Tech Notes from the Field 