Radio World

The author is executive director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. NFCB commentaries are featured regularly at www.radioworld.com.

SoundCloud has announced a new funding model for musicians on its service. What does it mean for the wider world of music royalties?

On March 2 SoundCloud introduced the program it calls fan-powered royalties. Through this initiative, SoundCloud says it will pay musical performers posting tracks on its service based on the number of plays by listeners. The announcement is thin on specifics. For example, the rates artists will get and how SoundCloud will halt the market in purchased plays are not detailed. However, the proposal has kicked off a fresh debate on the nature of music royalties.

[Read: Community Broadcaster: Things Fall Apart]

Most audiences presume that an artist gets some amount of money when their music is streamed or broadcast. Radio stations know that music royalties are a byzantine subject. There are terrestrial and streaming platforms to be covered separately by fees; performance and composition delineations; and categories such as mechanical licensing. Then there are the various competing organizations representing songwriters and other creatives wanting their voices heard. The result is a system where many artists believe they get little compensation. The current schema has been decried by groups like the Future of Music Coalition as needing greater attention from lawmakers, broadcasters and the music industry.

How radical or bold the SoundCloud approach is depends on who you ask.

Calling this campaign “royalties” is a bit of a misnomer. The audience-funded endeavor is not a challenge to the current royalties arrangement. SoundCloud is not introducing artist representation for payment like SESAC, ASCAP and BMI, where songwriters’ rights to payment are advocated for and upheld for families of deceased performers. Nor is its program really a replacement for the royalty model. In fact, SoundCloud will presumably continue to contribute to the existing music payment framework because it has to do so legally, meaning the artists in its audience-driven program will also see monies from the existing royalties paradigm.

What it is offering, though, is a crowdfunding hybrid — an OnlyFans for musical performers, if you will, where artists are paid by content consumption. If you’re an artist getting 5,000 streaming plays per month, the check you’d normally receive might be no more than a few dollars annually. Depending on the details of the SoundCloud deal, such an artist could stand to earn more. Unlike other platforms, which have largely not budged from their payment obligations, SoundCloud’s experiment seems more equitable. A lingering question of what this means for mega-artists that also have SoundCloud channels and how they’ll be compensated under the new plan.

Community radio in particular has had its own contentions with the current royalties, especially in how local, independent performers are supported. Ongoing negotiations seem to indicate change will be hard. Still, many of us in radio may be watching SoundCloud’s development in May, when the first payments to artists are expected to be delivered.

The post Community Broadcaster: Is OnlyFans Music’s Next Royalty Model? appeared first on Radio World.

Amanda Hopp and Cris Alexander

For a lot of broadcasters, the pandemic triggered a reevaluation of priorities. Many put the brakes on projects, for understandable reasons.

At Crawford Broadcasting Co. we went the other way, believing that the way we would operate going forward would be different than it had been in the past, and that we had to be prepared.

In Los Angeles we had to shut the doors and keep everyone at home for a couple of weeks after some staffers got sick; but not long before, we had converted the L.A. facility to AoIP using Wheatstone’s WheatNet-IP system, featuring I/O “Blades” and E6 and LX control surfaces.

As a result, when the lockout occurred, our people were able to operate the station from their homes, including live talk programs. That showed us what the new operating model would be, and we began taking a hard look at our other top markets.

We had upgraded Chicago, but we determined that three additional markets, with a total of 21 AM and FM signals, needed infrastructure upgrades.

All had mid-2000s vintage Wheatstone TDM systems, which we’d planned for replacement eventually. The pandemic pushed that schedule up. Denver topped the market list in part because is the hub of the company’s technical operation.

We ordered equipment in late summer. In the period until delivery in November, we planned. And planned. We identified every audio signal in the facility, noting the location, routing and whether it was analog or AES (mostly the latter). We then culled the list, striking sources that were no longer needed.

We turned to logic signals, identifying and culling until we had a good list of required logic I/Os. We then made Blade source and destination assignments and a complete list of routings. Now we knew what we would need to connect every signal.

Because the Blades can be located anywhere in the facility, our planning included Blade placement close to audio and logic sources and destinations. As a result, wire runs would be short, in most cases just a few feet.

[Related: Read “The Real World of AoIP,” a free Radio World ebook]

While we were waiting for equipment, we purchased Cisco switches, including a core switch CS3560 stack that would serve as the hub of the operation and a satellite CS2960 switch for each studio that would be trunked to the core switches. Those switches were programmed and we installed the core switch in a rack in the TOC, immediately above the existing Cisco core switches. We connected the two switch pairs together and moved the whole Wheatstone gigabit IP network over to the new switch.

Four control rooms would have to be converted; the plan was to do these in order from the least impact to the greatest. Our oldies music station is voice-tracked and the control room can be bypassed easily, so that’s where we started. The last control room to be upgraded would be our big talker, where live programs and in-studio hosts and guests were an all-day affair.

Dry run

Before we would start on a control room, we would set up the equipment for that room on the bench in the engineering shop, connecting each piece to the satellite switch that would go into that studio and trunking the satellite switch back to the core switch.

Prior to installation, the LXE, Blades and switch were “benched” and connected to the larger system for configuration and testing. With the Blades on the bench we were able to pre-wire the network and I/O connections.

We would power everything up, configuring each Blade with the correct IP address, Blade ID, name and software version. Sources and destinations would then be defined and named to save time and confusion later.

The LXE control surface for each room was set up, configured and tested. We were familiar with the Blades because we had been using them for several years, but the LXEs were a new animal, newer even than the LX surface we’d used in the Los Angeles control room the previous summer, and there was a definite learning curve.

LXE touch screen. Note the “Legends” station logo on the clock, just one of the easy customizations.

At one point, an errant click resulted in all the programming for a surface, the first one we tried to set up, being wiped out, leaving the surface as a very expensive brick or doorstop. While that gave us a scare, it turned out to be much worry about nothing. Wheatstone had provided us with a thumb drive containing all the programming, so it was a simple thing to get back where we needed to be and get the surface configured.

With the Blades and surface benched and stacked in the order and with the spacing they would have in the studio, we used our spreadsheets showing the required connections to make the needed cables. We used Cat5e riser cable for everything.

RJ-45 connectors were crimped onto the ends that would plug into the Blades, and labels were affixed noting Blade number and input, output or logic port number. Sufficient length was left on each cable to route it into place, cut it to the exact length needed and affix the XLR connector on the other end. Admittedly that was a little wasteful, but Cat-5e riser cable is cheap. It was a huge time-saver for in-studio work, important because in some cases we would be under pressure to get the studio back online.

No insulation-displacement blocks were used; wiring was all point-to-point, and again, since the Blades were in close proximity to the source and destination equipment, this was an efficient way to connect everything. It also eliminated many points of potential failure.

The plan called for doing one control room per week, a pace which gave us time to rest up between the physically-demanding parts of the project and to bench the new gear and get the pre-wiring done.

We would start early, usually before 6 a.m. Demo of the old gear naturally came first, and all existing in-studio wiring was, for the most part, removed. The trick was identifying the few cables that would be needed in the new installation. For example, the mic cables from the adjacent talk studio and the control room mics had to be found and secured, as did the wiring feeding talk studio talent stations. We would have made a lot of work for ourselves if we accidentally demoed that wiring.

Filling the holes

The studio cabinets had been lightly used so there was no need to replace them. But there was one problem: each tabletop had a large cutout where the Wheatstone G6 surfaces set down in a flush mount. We had to do something about those holes.

In the planning phase, our thought was to have new tabletops fabricated. This would be expensive and a lot of trouble, but how else would we deal with those holes? Jay Tyler at Wheatstone had a simple solution: a steel plate that would cover the hole. We questioned about how this would look and feel, but he sent us photos of facilities that had used the custom cover plates, and the pics convinced us.

The steel plates came with the LXE surfaces. They were sturdy, laser-cut 13-gauge 0.090-in. black powder-coated plates that were drilled with countersunk holes on the back side. We dry fit them, marked and drilled the holes in the tabletop, then ran a thin bead of silicon around the edge. Screwed into place, the plates covered the holes and the low-profile LXE surfaces sat centered on them so that unless someone bends down to look under the surface, they will never know they are there.

Not your grandpa’s console installation

Surfaces were set into place and screwed to the steel plates to keep them from moving around. They were then connected with a power supply cable and a piece of Cat-6 cable. The only other connection to the surface was the supplied headphone jack, which was mounted using the supplied bracket under the front lip of the tabletop on the right side.

The completed LXE installation in the KLZ control room.

Most of the rest of the work in each room involved pulling the pre-made Blade network, source, destination and logic cables through the racks/pedestals, routing them to the proper place, cutting them to exact length, soldering on an XLR cable and affixing a self-laminating wire label. Cris did most of that work; for some reason, he enjoys that kind of thing. Amanda dealt with other cabling such as mics, headphones and Cat-5e/Cat-6 network cables (just about every piece of equipment needs a network connection these days).

In one studio, we took advantage of the USB “sound card” connection provided on the M4IP microphone processor Blades, mounting a USB jack on the talk studio tabletop for hosts to plug in their laptops for digital on-air playback of audio clips and the like — no more adapting an unbalanced line output to feed a channel on the mixer.

Amanda’s husband Jordon, handy with a drill and the guy who built the table in that talk studio, took care of mounting the USB jack for us. Cris’s wife Phyllis was on hand for one of the studios, keeping us from making too big a mess and providing other support as needed. Many hands make light work!

Control room Blade wiring.

Once the physical wiring in each room was done, we spent a couple of hours testing everything. Despite our planning, there were still routes we’d overlooked. Mic processors had to be set up, mics had to be tested, headphone feeds with talkback confirmed and logic tested. Studio tallies (on-air lights) were a piece of cake using the logic in the Blades.

We use Eventide BD600W+ profanity delays in Denver, and the “W” in the model name indicates WheatNet connectivity; those delays use native WheatNet I/O and logic. It took a little time to figure out how to route the bidirectional logic to and from the delay units, but once done we had a brightly lit magenta dump button on each LXE surface that would remotely activate the dump feature on the corresponding Eventide delay. The button then turns yellow until the delay is rebuilt.

This is only a test

Interfacing to the Sage Digital ENDEC EAS units was a snap using logic, a digital input and analog outputs from a nearby Blade.

The receivers for the LP1 and LP2 are located in the TOC and their AES signals are fed to a TOC Blade and routed to Blades in each control room. Analog outputs are then used to feed the monitor source inputs on the ENDECs. A logic input to a Blade was used to take the relay output from each ENDEC and use it to make a temporary connection directly from the ENDEC output to the delay input for each station. RCS NexGen runs the test intro and actuates the ENDEC RWT or RMT forward function via IP, and the logic connection does the rest.

We took advantage of the eight-channel utility mixer provided in each of the Wheatstone Blades to mix various signals and provide for downstream switching, also controlled by NexGen. We also used the audio processors in some of the Blades to generate pseudo-air-monitor pre-delay feeds for real-time headphone monitoring, “off-air” recording and the like. Wheatstone provided great purpose-built processor presets for that.

The Crawford Denver TOC looks a lot different than it did before the project.

With all four control rooms done and operating, the final stage of the project was removing the Wheatstone TDM bridge router and its cabling and insulation displacement blocks from the TOC.

Now the overhead cable ladders are positively empty. What little is up there is orange WheatNet-IP Cat6 cabling and other network Cat5e cabling. As in the studios, the Blades in the TOC are near the equipment to which they connect, which keeps cable runs short and, in most cases, within the same equipment rack.

Start to finish, the physical project took a little over three weeks. Again, we did one studio a week, each on a Monday, until we got to the one for our busy talker, and we did that on the Saturday before Christmas (they ran “best-of” shows that day to free up the studios). It took a couple more days to clean up the TOC after the bridge router extraction.

Overall, including planning, the project took about three months. Without planning and pre-wiring, the physical studio work would have taken days instead of hours. By the time we got to the last studio, we had that down to under eight hours.

So what does this do for us other than providing us with cool new control surfaces and getting rid of a lot of old wiring?

It gives us complete remote access and configurability for the facility. The very infrastructure of the studio complex can be altered remotely. Need this source on that channel in another studio? Amanda can do that on her iPhone. Need to route this audio server directly to the transmitter because some piece of equipment failed? Can do … from anywhere with an internet connection.

The pandemic has changed the way we operate, no doubt about it. Flexibility and remote-ability are must-haves, and this new 100% AoIP infrastructure provides that and much, much more. We are now as ready as we can be for whatever comes.

Cris Alexander, CPBE, AMD, DRB, is director of engineering of Crawford Broadcasting and technical editor of Radio World Engineering Extra.  Amanda Hopp, CBRE, has been chief engineer of Crawford’s Denver cluster since 2007.

 

The post Crawford Updates Studios Mid-Pandemic appeared first on Radio World.

Fig. 1: SNMP Manager and Agent Devices

The author is manager of WorldCast Systems Inc. in Miami.

Without question, the introduction of IP network systems into broadcast operations has had a generational impact on our industry.

Audio distribution (both in-house and across the Internet), IBOC/DTV broadcasts and Internet streaming are some of the ways IP networks have become essential in broadcast operations, and ATSC 3.0 is taking networked data on to the actual broadcast signal.

Along with new ways to reach our customers, IP networks offer benefits for engineers, like remote equipment management; reduced time and complexity of studio builds using AoIP; and TeamViewer connections with manufacturer support personnel.

And along with the more familiar interfaces with networked equipment like embedded websites or Telnet links, many networked devices support the Simple Network Management Protocol.

The SNMP standard is a set of rules that defines certain data points, or objects, in a piece of equipment that is connected to an IP network.

The protocol establishes a standard syntax that allows users to query that equipment via the network and receive the real-time values of those data objects. And in certain cases, the user can even change those values using SNMP, which can allow them to control the functions or settings of that equipment.

This article will attempt to explain at least the basics of the SNMP structure and capabilities, and how broadcast technical personnel could benefit by integrating the SNMP protocol into their overall facility control and management systems.

History and Definitions

The Simple Network Management Protocol was developed during the late 1980s as a way to facilitate communications with and control of distant network devices as the internet was burgeoning.

At the time, there were many protocols used to communicate with and control the routers and other network infrastructure. Around 1987, the protocol we know as SNMP was chosen by the market as a unified and efficient way to communicate with the hardware.

The earliest version of SNMP was called V1. Currently, the most commonly used versions are V2c, which added some new commands, and V3, which applies a somewhat more secure process to send the SNMP data back and forth across the network.

SNMP Devices

To clear a semantic point, the terms “Manager” and “Agent” refer specifically to the software modules running in each device that enable and support the transfer of data using SNMP. But for the purposes of this paper, the terms are applied equally to the hardware and software on each end of an SNMP message.

Also keep in mind that the device running the Manager application can also itself be an Agent, managed either by its own internal NMS software or perhaps by another Manager system elsewhere on the network. A Manager will normally send SNMP requests to the Agent on IP Port 161.

Object Identifiers (OIDs)

SNMP is simply a way to retrieve and set data points in a remote system. These data points, called Objects, are defined by the maker of that system, usually at the time of manufacture. The type of data presented by an SNMP object is very flexible — it could be an integer, a floating-point number, even a text/numeric string.

Each Object has a unique identifying number, which is used by the Manager and Agent systems to locate and deliver the requested data to the user. These numbers are called Object Identifiers, or OIDs.

A Manager will use the OID to request data from an Agent, and the Agent, in its response to the request, will include that same number along with its current value.

The OID is also used when the Manager device sends a SET command to change the value of a data point in the Agent, and also on those rare occasions when the Agent device is the one to initiate communications.

Object Identifiers are written with a specific (and rather old) syntax called Abstract Syntax Notation One, or ASN-1. A typical OID might look like this:

1.3.6.1.4.1.186.1.19.2.1.2.4.0

Management Information Bases (MIBs)

Fig. 2: SNMP MIB Structure

When a device with an SNMP Agent is manufactured, the designers will usually organize all of the OIDs for that device into a structured text file, called the Management Information Base, or MIB (see Fig. 2).

The MIB can be viewed as a “menu” that a user of NMS software can use to browse to and identify the OIDs associated with the desired data points in that Agent device. There are many software applications, called MIB Browsers, that will allow a user to examine these files, and most browsers display the MIB as a directory-tree type structure.

There are some exceptions. As we will see, some OIDs cannot be completely defined at the time of manufacture, and some makers of Agent equipment publish only “truncated” MIBs that refer to industry standard files (other MIBs or RFC files) to define their own structure and OIDs. More in a moment.

SNMP Commands

The commands and messages that pass between the Manager and Agent devices can be divided into three categories: Get commands, Set commands and Trap messages.

SET commands are perhaps the simplest. They are messages sent from the Manager device to the Agent, containing the OID for a particular data point, and the desired value to be set for that point.

This is the way a Manager can command the remote device to enable or disable functions or change a value, such as the frequency setting of a transmitter. No matter if the value of that particular object is an integer, a floating-point number, even a text/numeric string; the Set command is used in the same way each time.

The Trap messages also are simple. They are unique in that they are generated autonomously by the Agent and sent to the Manager. As you might guess from this characteristic, they generally are used to alert the Manager (and its users) to abnormal conditions in the Agent device that could negatively impact the performance or stability of the system.

Put simply, they are alarms. High CPU temperature, RF output failure, a hard drive approaching full status — these are examples of some of the conditions for which SNMP Agents might send a Trap message to a Manager.

Since SNMP was designed in the early days of connectivity, minimizing bandwidth usage was a high priority, which is why there is no default automatic acknowledgement for SNMP messages.

However, the critical nature of Trap messages has led many designers of SNMP Agent software to include optional settings that will cause the Agent to resend the Trap message until the Manager replies that the message has been received and understood. It is important to know that this acknowledgement handshake must also be supported by the NMS software. The standard port on which a Manager will “listen” for traps is IP port 162.

The Get command is certainly the most-used in SNMP systems. A Manager will send a Get command containing a specific OID to an Agent, and the Agent will “look up” the current value for that data point. It will then send that value in a message called a GETRESPONSE that also repeats the OID.

All versions of SNMP support these message types, as well as the GETNEXT command. GETNEXT is a command that, when repeated, will cause the Agent to methodically research and deliver data on each and every object that has been defined within its configuration (see Table 1).

Fig. 2: SNMP MIB Structure

In some Agent systems, data is defined in tables — for example, the connection status and speed of each port on a router. For these types of systems, the GETNEXT command is an easy way to retrieve a large number of data points without having to write multiple Get commands, each with the specific OID of a single object in the Agent. When the Agent returns a response to the Manager, the Manager can issue another GETNEXT, which causes the Agent to look up and deliver data on the next OID in its MIB.

An additional Get command, GETBULK, was introduced in SNMP V2c and is also supported by Version 3. The GETBULK command allows an NMS to request from the agent a large portion of a data table with one command. Again, this is done to minimize the need to send Get commands for each data point and so minimize the demands on programmers and network bandwidth.

The GETNEXT and GETBULK commands are used primarily for SNMP analysis and design by human operators, they have little to no use in a 24/7 monitoring system.

For each Get command received from a Manager system, the Agent device will return a GETRESPONSE. Or in cases where the structure of the Get command is improper, the Agent might return an error message.

There are several other types of SNMP messages that were defined in the V2c and V3 standards, including Inform, Notification and Report.

Inform is the mechanism by which an NMS can acknowledge SNMP Traps sent by an Agent. A Notification is a variation on the SNMP Trap message, created to share the same data structure as the Get and Set commands (the original TRAP messages as defined in V1 had a different structure). And the Report message is designed to allow different NMS systems on a network to communicate easily with one another about the status of the devices and network segments each is monitoring. Inform V2c messages are the most common alarm messages used today, and although they don’t have the same data structure of the original V1 alarm messages, they are still commonly called Traps.

SNMP Transport and Packet Structure (or “Down in the Weeds”)

SNMP communications can be carried out via a number of different transport protocols, but typically employ the User Datagram Protocol, or UDP, a simplex protocol with no built-in confirmation of messages traveling in either direction.

UDP is a transport protocol, operating in Layer 4 of the OSI model. SNMP itself operates in the Application Layer 7. UDP allows systems to communicate with each other without having to first establish communications ports and protocols.

Since an SNMP message (particularly the GETRESPONSE) can contain different amounts of data, they cannot be a fixed length. Instead, the data are defined as variable bindings.

An SNMP message packet follows the basic encoding rules, and the data contained in the variable bindings can be divided into three parts: type, length and data.

Fig. 3: Two Illustrations of SNMP Packet Structure (Click here to enlarge)

Type is a single byte that specifies the type of data being transported — octet, integer, string, etc. Length delineates the size or amount of data, in bytes; and Data is of course the data itself. It is noteworthy that the data can span multiple bytes (see Fig. 3). In such cases, the highest order bit is used as a flag to indicate that the data is being spread into two or more bytes, and only the lower 7 bits are actual data.

A message in SNMP will contain three elements — the SNMP version being used (V1, V2c or V3), the Community string, (or username and password for V3 messages) and finally the SNMP function itself — be it a Set request, a Get Response, TRAP, etc. This central part of the message is called the Protocol Data Unit, or PDU. The Community string is like a password that must be used to retrieve or set data points using SNMP (from V2c on).

This is absolutely no guarantee of security, as the strings are sent using open text on the network, so it would be comically easy for someone to intercept and read that information. SNMP Version 3 offers some more robust security, with data encryption and stronger passwords.

Practical Aspects of SNMP Management

Understanding an OID

When we look at an OID, we’re really seeing an address — a way to navigate through a MIB tree until we arrive at the specific data point in which we are interested. But the OID starts from a much broader viewpoint. To understand this perspective, we should examine the meaning of each of the numbers in a typical OID, for example:

1.3.6.1.4.1.186.1.19.2.1.2.4.0

The first six numbers in the OID will be the same for most OIDs in nearly every commonly encountered object. They are intended to allow traceability of the OID, as follows:

1 – Identifies the International Standards Organization, or ISO
3 – Specifies that this OID belongs to an ISO recognized organization
6 – Indicates the Department of Defense, creator of the Internet
1 – Confirms that this is an Internet OID
4 – Shows that this OID belongs to a private organization
1 – Tells us that this organization is a business enterprise

The next number identifies the manufacturer of the equipment to which this OID refers. In this instance, the 186 refers to Toshiba; this OID comes from a Toshiba UPS power system (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: MIB Tree for Toshiba UPS

After the manufacturer number, the remaining numbers delineate a path down the manufacturer’s MIB tree for that device. Each branch of that tree has a number assigned to it and by following the numbers down the MIB we come to the object specified by this OID.

After the manufacturer number 186, the 1 says it belongs to a piece of Toshiba equipment, the 19 indicates a Toshiba UPS system, the 2 specifies the Toshiba Industrial line of said systems, and the 1 identifies the particular software. This same software (and thus the same MIB) could be in use on any number of different models.

The SNMP name of the data object is upsEstimatedChargeRemaining, and from the description in the MIB browser we can see that it is an Integer type data point, from 0 to 100. In raw text form, the OID definition in the MIB would look like this:

upsEstimatedChargeRemaining OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX INTEGER(0..100)
UNITS “percentage”
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
“An estimate of the charge to battery charge depletion
under the present load conditions if the utility power
is off and remains off, or if it were to be lost and
remain off”
::= { upsBattery 4 }

Note that the full OID is not present in the MIB file, only upsBattery 4. This is an example of a “Truncated” MIB. Truncating is used by manufacturers to avoid having to write complete OID numbers for each data point in the equipment with the associated costs in man hours and possible errors. So the OID is defined by naming the “branch” of the MIB that contains this data point, plus an integer to define the specific data point in that branch.

Imports

By examining the beginning of the Toshiba MIB, we can see that a number of “imports” are described:

DisplayString, TimeStamp, TimeInterval, TestAndIncr, AutonomousType
FROM SNMPv2-TC
enterprises
FROM RFC1155-SMI
OBJECT-TYPE
FROM RFC-1212
TRAP-TYPE
FROM RFC-1215;

SNMPv2-TC, RFC1155-SMI, RFC-1212 and RFC-1215 are “standard” of “community” MIBs published by the IETP and ISO that organize basic structural elements and methods such as data types, table structures, definitions, etc. By incorporating these standard files into their own MIB structures, manufacturers help ensure compliance with the standards while also saving themselves from having to write the full syntax of each OID in the MIB files for their equipment. As long as your browser or NMS software can import and integrate these standard MIBs, it should remain relatively easy to locate and use the OIDs you need.

An example of an OID from a different MIB (this one from an APT Horizon audio codec), looks like this:

1.3.6.1.4.1.22425.2.1.4
alarmTrap NOTIFICATION-TYPE
OBJECTS { sequenceNo, name, status }
STATUS current
DESCRIPTION
“This trap is sent when an alarm is either
set or cleared on the unit. The variable
bindings which are sent are:-
Sequence No
Alarm Name
Status of alarm.”
::= { horizonalarm 4 }

Note that while this MIB uses a truncated OID, the designers have included the full OID as a comment line before the object description, preceded by the double dash –. This convention helps make the MIB more legible to the human readers.

Regardless of structure, the MIB file serves only to indicate the correct OIDs for each data point. An address book, or map, if you like. If there is another way to obtain accurate OIDs, the MIB file itself may be unnecessary.

Special Cases

In many instances, the OIDs for a particular system can be defined and the MIB file published at the time of manufacture.

There are notable exceptions to this rule, such as systems where data objects can be created by the user after the equipment is delivered. One example group are facility control systems, where inputs, controls and analog information can all be integrated, polled and controlled by remote equipment using SNMP. Since the inputs and controls are sometimes software based, they can be created and altered as needed by the user, so their OIDs cannot be completely defined when the equipment is built.

For these types of data objects, two things are defined, the first being a “base” OID, which identifies a class of object (say a reading from an analog voltage input) in the software. Second, a table is built into that definition in the MIB that will allow something called an Index value to be appended to the base OID. Together, the base + Index value can identify a specific object in the Agent, even one that was created only moments ago.

As an example, here is the “base” definition of a user created button in WorldCast Systems’ Scripteasy software:

1.3.6.1.4.1.5299.15.42.1.10.3.4.1.3 : scripteasyActionsState
scripteasyActionsState OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX INTEGER
ACCESS read-write
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
“No description”
::= { scripteasyActionsEntry 3 }

Just above that definition of the base OID, the MIB file defines the Index table:

1.3.6.1.4.1.5299.15.42.1.10.3.4.1.1 : scripteasyActionsidScriptObject
scripteasyActionsidScriptObject OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX INTEGER (0..2147483647)
ACCESS read-only
STATUS mandatory
DESCRIPTION
“Scripteasy action button identifier”
::= { scripteasyActionsEntry 1 }

As each button is created in the software, a specific Index number is assigned to it and made visible to the user. So while the base OID for ‘a’ button in the software would look like this:

1.3.6.1.4.1.5299.15.42.1.10.3.4.1.3

The OID for a specific button would append the index value at the end:

1.3.6.1.4.1.5299.15.42.1.10.3.4.1.3.361

Integrating SNMP Management With Other Inputs

When we begin to formulate a plan to incorporate SNMP monitoring and control within a broadcast facility, we must remember that this protocol comes from the world of computers and IT, and thus we must be able to correctly interpret the information before we can use it.

In most cases, the object description in the MIB will give some indication. In other instances, a user might have to perform multiple Get commands and look at the raw values in order to understand the results. And depending on the data returned, it is sometimes necessary to perform some mathematical operation in order to provide data that can be easily interpreted by the users of the system.

[Subscribe to Radio World Engineering Extra]

There are also hurdles on the path to integrating SNMP monitoring alongside more traditional broadcast facility control connections (GPIO, etc.). NMS systems do not normally have any capabilities for connecting with physical analog and status inputs, nor do they generally have any kind of relay outputs or control functions outside the SET command. For broadcast operations, users expect these functions plus robust monitoring and alerting, and even the capability to preform automatic actions based on the information received. Fortunately, there are several solutions on the market that can “bridge” the functions of an SNMP Manager with the more traditional capabilities of a facility control system so the users can monitor and control the entire length and breadth of their operations.

Summary and Conclusion

Just as IBOC, ATSC, AES and basic IP structure and languages were once little understood by broadcast engineers, there is growing recognition of SNMP as a useful tool. More and more manufacturers of transmitters and other broadcast equipment are including support for SNMP operations within their systems, and that is a trend that is not likely to change soon.

It is a powerful option, since it expands the user’s capabilities in two important ways. First, SNMP provides the ability to control and monitor more different types of equipment. Since SNMP is a standardized system, not only broadcast gear, but IT devices such as routers, servers, printers, etc. can be incorporated into the overall facility control plan. And second, the concept that the equipment being monitored can be remotely located from the facility control device, whatever it may be. This allows great possibilities for inter-site communications and being able to monitor a large network of sites and equipment that may be spread over great distances. With SNMP, anything you can reach over a network connection can be controlled.

With a proven record of easing engineering workloads and reducing downtime for broadcasters, anyone with responsibilities that involve IP networks should consider the Simple Network Management Protocol as a part of their facility monitoring and control toolkit.

The post Using the SNMP Protocol in Broadcast Monitoring appeared first on Radio World.

Scott Burnell lives in a world of application software. He is all about the apps.

The global Head of the Ford Developer Program is one of the key thinkers behind Ford’s SYNC dashboard communications, navigation and entertainment ecosystem, now in its fourth generation.

SYNC 4, available beginning in 2021 Ford vehicles like the F-150 and Bronco, allows a radio station app on a consumer’s smartphone to connect over Bluetooth and control audio sources and dashboard infotainment with cloud-based connectivity and voice recognition.

The onboard communications center is smart enough to learn tendencies and listening patterns in order to provide suggestions to a driver based on their listening profile.

SYNC-enabled station apps can read data such as RDS, signal strength and audio source, even while running in the background on a mobile device. When granted permission, these apps can even control a vehicle’s radio tuner, completing tasks such as switching from HD-1 to HD-2 and other multicast channels in HD Radio, or performing automatic switching from the OTA signal to stream as a vehicle drives out of the reception area.

SYNC was released in 2007, the same year as the first iPhone, and is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It allows for integration of Alexa Auto and navigation apps such as Waze along with automatic software updates over Wi-Fi.

Burnell created and launched the Ford Developer Program, which the company says is considered the first mobile application developer ecosystem in the automotive industry. In addition, he managed the creation of the SmartDeviceLink (SDL) open source connectivity platform that also has been adopted by Toyota, Mazda, Subaru, PSA and additional OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers.

According to Burnell, “I can’t write a lick of code, but I do throw out ideas to the innovators about a vision of what could be. I say, ‘Here are the tools. What can you do with it?’”

Burnell is skeptical about whether radio broadcasters have done enough to remain a dominant presence in the dash of next-gen vehicles. His message to radio station owners is: “You have to be able to deliver content the way consumers want to receive it and consume it.”

Radio World asked Burnell for an update on his views about broadcast radio’s future in the connected car and the pace of dashboard technological change.

Radio World: How do mobile apps of radio stations connect to SYNC 4?

Scott Burnell: AppLink is a feature of SYNC that allows the mobile app to connect over Bluetooth and communicate with SYNC. In-vehicle app integration requires the AppLink code to be integrated into a specific application. And then that application can register in the vehicle.

In the United States, iHeartRadio has been a longtime partner with their app and always willing to try out new features. We’ve worked with JacApps often. They did the first multi-station group launch with Greater Media (later acquired by Beasley) stations. In Europe, Radioplayer brings broadcast apps into the car.

RW: And every radio station with a smartphone app can enable it to work in SYNC 4 if they want to? 

Burnell: This is part of my personal frustration with the broadcast industry. Ford is offering individual stations the ability to have their app appear in the dashboard literally right next to the very entities they fear and worry about the most, satellite and streaming services, and they don’t take advantage of this opportunity.

RW: Consumer demand for entertainment options in the dash continues to expand along with the technology. How does Ford prioritize what goes in the dash and how it will appear?

Burnell: In the solution that we built, we do not have to decide. We are agnostic to what someone wants to listen to and how they want to listen to it.

There are features that we build. We do all the safety features, like lane keeping and cruise control. But when it comes down to the entertainment, having the open developer program and allowing any developer to work in that space, as long as it’s appropriate and they fit the criteria, then it’s the market that will decide.

So any radio station that wants to build an app to work in a Ford vehicle can, if it has our code in it. Then if a person hops in a Ford vehicle, the app just automatically works. So the market will choose if radio stations want to compete against a Pandora or Spotify in the vehicle.

Same thing with weather apps. We don’t say AccuWeather is the only way you can get weather in the vehicle. No, Weather Channel can be in there. Weather Bug or Weather Underground. It will all work in there. Whatever you use in your daily life, we want to allow you to bring your habits with you into the vehicle.

RW: You told us back in 2016 that broadcast radio had some advantages over music streaming services. That’s five years ago now. Is that still the case?

Burnell: I do, and let me clarify. Radio and the content that it delivers still have the exact same advantages. And by the advantages, I mean it is local. There is that local content and the human element. The jocks, the morning show folks and the sportscasters.

You look at all of those cool local and human elements, and they are missing from Pandora and Spotify. And then when you look at how to deliver that content. Broadcasters must deliver it in the way that people are consuming it. It doesn’t matter if you are delivering audio through the phone, tablet or over IP in the car. You have to be in all of those places.

RW: Radio broadcasters seem excited about hybrid radio, which allows for a radio tuner to switch from radio signal to an IP stream once it is out of listening range. Ford allows for that scenario?

Burnell: Yes. And it’s part of what I evangelize for mobile apps. Radio broadcasters need to adopt the technology that users engage with. If you are an AM broadcaster, good luck. There are not many kids running around with an AM tuner in their pocket. It’s part of the evolution.

So we do allow for audio switching if you are using a station app in the vehicle. The app can do it automatically so you don’t have to think “Oh now I need to switch to the stream to keep listening.”

RW: Speaking of AM. Now that the FCC has authorized AM radio stations to transition to an all-digital signal on a voluntary basis, what do you see as the future for AM in the car?

Burnell: I don’t have an official Ford opinion. Again, we always say we are agnostic to what people want to listen to and how they listen to it. But I know we would ask ourselves if that all-digital AM tuner kicks up the price for that piece of hardware in a new vehicle. We do think about those things all the time. AM radio really isn’t at the top of the list when people list reasons they are interested in a vehicle.

RW: During your appearance on Jacobs Media’s CES 2021 Virtual Tour earlier this year, you mentioned interactive advertising. How does that work with a radio station’s app?

Burnell: It’s all part of the development process and is an innovation idea at this point, but it could be a huge benefit. So a radio station app on a smartphone knows which station the tuner in the car is on. It can use GPS from the vehicle. Using some additional pieces of data in the car there are a lot of resources.

So if a radio station app on a phone and running, it’s connected to the head unit via Bluetooth.  The radio app knows the tuner is tuned to your radio station. It knows the ad order, so as the Burger King ad airs the app can send a notification of a special offer at Burger King to display on the SYNC 4 screen.

RW: You work in a technology space that demands constant innovation. How does that add to the complexities of your job at Ford?

Burnell: Well, I work in the automotive industry, which is extremely slow. The balance to all that is it is a three- to five-year turnaround to engineer a new vehicle or body styling change.

I’m working now on the next generation of SYNC, and in fact we just announced that Ford vehicles will be running Android as the operating system beginning in 2023; I’ve been working on that since February of 2020.

[Editor’s note: Once the Android integration occurs, consumers will be introduced to embedded Android apps running in the vehicle and will still be able to connect to SYNC through an Android smartphone for apps running on Android Auto. Ford’s new system will still be compatible with Apple CarPlay via a smartphone with Bluetooth.]

RW: And voice control in the car will be even more advanced with each generation of technology?

Burnell: Voice is a far better implementation than reaching and touching a screen and looking away from the road. We have done some integration with Alexa and will going forward with Google Assistant now that we are going to implement the Android operating system.

RW: Sounds like the autonomous vehicle will be the ultimate game-changer in terms of entertainment possibilities in the car?

Burnell: The trajectory is that the vehicle will become more like a living room with entertainment options. That is where it’s going. And with a lot of multitasking going on. There will be traditional media consumption going on but it will also have some unique capabilities. Like context-aware content.

And the whole passenger economy will further diversify and expand media usage in the vehicle.

RW: Is Ford banking on a more smartphone-like in-car experience for its customers?

Burnell: People want to bring what they are doing outside the car to the inside of the car. As they build these habits people don’t typically seek out different media options. People don’t seek out the radio in the car necessarily because they are not listening to radio outside the car.

Infinite Dial studies from Edison show the number of radios in American households dropping quickly. It’s a lot of smart speakers and smartphones now.

That’s the shot across the bow of radio broadcasters. (Broadcasters) say, “Wait, but we have been in cars for 100 years.” And that’s true, but the people buying cars right now don’t care about that. These are the people who watch Netflix on any device they want. They really don’t watch regular TV. They listen to music on Spotify on multiple devices and they don’t listen to the radio.

If consumers don’t build the habit of listening to the radio outside the car, they won’t develop the habit of listening to radio inside the car.

RW: So could Ford someday no longer include a conventional radio receiver in cars if demand for them drops?    

Burnell: I don’t work on the tuner side so I have no idea if that would ever happen. But if you think about it, every automaker and any technology or hardware provider is looking at the cost of installing every little piece that goes into a product, right down to every washer in a car.

We already have modems in the car and they are not going away because they are simply so important for the autonomous vehicle. If we have technology and hardware that can bring in an IP stream over cellular through a modem, and we have hardware bringing a FM radio signal through broadcast and they are doing essentially the same thing, which direction do you think car companies will evolve to? So (for broadcasters) to say they are just going to broadcast and it’s going to be a tuner in the car is shortsighted.

 

The post Burnell Is at the Center of Ford Dashboard Development appeared first on Radio World.

Tim Neese is president of MultiTech Consulting Inc., a multi-faceted broadcast technology consulting and contracting firm.

This article appeared in Radio World’s “Trends in Codecs and STLs for 2020” ebook.

Radio World: What’s the most important trend in the design and performance of codecs for remotes or STL?
Tim Neese: Most codec manufacturers are incorporating and continuously improving stream redundancy and error correction techniques that allow for significantly more robust connections.  These techniques allow codec users to take advantage of readily available transport methods and the public internet to make reliable connections for both remote program contribution and studio to transmitter links.

RW: How are today’s technologies solving problems in creative ways?
Neese: One of the most common issues is studio and transmitter sites that are unable to be linked via traditional RF point-to-point methods. This, combined with the ongoing sunsetting of the telco ISDN and T1 infrastructure, has propelled connection of these sites via the public internet to commonplace.

Today’s codecs and encoding algorithms have proven to be more than up to the task of making those connections viable and reliable.

[Check Out More of Radio World’s Ebooks Here]

RW: What role are codecs playing in this new world of at-home broadcasting?
Neese: In the new world of broadcasting where, for some, every live segment is what was once considered a “remote” broadcast, the codec has become as essential as a microphone or pair of headphones. For many broadcasters, codecs are the “magic” device that has allowed them to continue normal programming in a completely remote fashion.

RW: How many ways are there of making connections? 
Neese: The number of connection transport methods has decreased in recent years.

Not long ago, it was possible to purchase codecs that could connect via POTS, cellular, ISDN, T1 and Ethernet. In some cases, all of these connections were available via a single codec.

As telcos have begun to phase out ISDN, T1 and traditional POTS circuits in favor of newer transport technologies, codec manufacturers have focused on these technologies as well.

While the traditional connection choices have decreased, newer technology connections have become available in more locations, via more methods and at lower cost than ever before.

For instance, data connectivity via mobile phones and devices is now as common as patch panels in facilities once were. Numerous codecs are able to leverage that connectivity via either a physical or wireless connection with the device or as a software application that runs on the device itself.

RW: What would you like manufacturers of these technologies to add or offer in future?
Neese: I would like to see more manufacturers include advanced security tools and options like firewalls, integrated VPNs and secure web configuration services within their codecs. That, I believe, would allow for more secure codec deployment via direct connection to public networks and provide even greater deployment flexibility for broadcasters.

 

The post Codecs Make More Robust Connections appeared first on Radio World.

Low-power TV stations in the United States must terminate analog TV operations by July 13. And that story has a radio twist.

Barring further FCC action, the date is expected to bring the end of FM6 stations — those television operators that use their audio frequencies below the FM band to create what are essentially radio stations, branded as such and audible to FM listeners.

These typically operate in large markets where FM spectrum is scarce. When they cropped up, Radio World and others humorously nicknamed these entities “Franken FMs” for the way their operators had stitched together TV and radio services to create something unintended by the Federal Communications Commission. Some proponents consider the term derogatory.

The FCC does have an open rulemaking proceeding about whether to allow operation of analog radio services by digital LPTVs as ancillary or supplementary services.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition wants the FCC to allow a dual digital LPTV and analog audio signal. Some broadcasters oppose that. [Read: “FCC Weighs the Future of FM6 Stations”]

As of now the commission has not issued a ruling, and we don’t know if it will. If it does not, the stations are presumably doomed.

This past week the Media Bureau reminded LPTV and translator stations that their digital transition date is approaching. By 11:59 p.m. local time on July 13, they must terminate analog television operations regardless of whether their digital facilities are operational.

“Stations that have not yet constructed a digital facility must cease analog television operations no later than July 13, 2021, and remain silent until construction is completed. If a station goes silent prior to completing construction of its digital facility, it may file a request for silent authority.”

The commission said that LPTV/translator stations that experience delays in completing digital facilities can seek a final extension of their digital construction permits, of up to 180 days, to be filed by March 15; but those stations must turn off their analog by July 13 regardless.

The post Goodbye, Frankens? TV deadline approaches appeared first on Radio World.

More listening is being done on mobile devices than ever before.

According to new research by Edison Research as part of its Share of Ear report, 30% of all audio listening in the U.S. is now being done on a mobile device by those aged 13 and older. This is an increase of 67% since 2014 when Edison began tracking audio consumption among Americans.

While listening to traditional AM/FM radio still accounts for the largest share of audio consumed, the gap between traditional radio and mobile devices is closing. In 2014, 31 percentage points separated the two; in 2021 the two are only separated by two percentage points.

[Read: Share of Listening to Podcasting Hits All-Time High]

Among younger age groups, audio consumption through mobile devices has already surpassed traditional radio receivers. Among those aged 13 to 34, 46% of total daily audio consumption is done on a mobile device while 20% is done on a traditional AM/FM radio receiver.

One potential reason: the coronavirus pandemic caused many Americans to spend more time consuming audio at home in 2020 and less time consuming in-car audio, which has been the prime location for listening to a traditional AM/FM receiver.

“Mobile devices, particularly of course the phone, have been gaining on the traditional radio receiver as the primary listening device for as long as we have been measuring Share of Ear, but with the disruptions of the last year the gap has narrowed dramatically,” said Edison Research President Larry Rosin. “As fewer people have a standard radio receiver in their homes these days, naturally more listening comes through digital devices.”

Edison noted that these statistics speak to the device only, not the audio product being delivered by the device. This is important to clarify because mobile devices can deliver a wide range of audio products, including radio station programming, the report said.

Edison plans to conduct additional data analysis later this year to see if these audio habits remain in a post-quarantine world.

The Share of Ear study is released quarterly and is designed to be a nationally representative study of Americans aged 13 and older to measure their time spent listening to audio sources. The research study asks respondents to complete a 24-hour diary of their audio listening on an assigned day with diaries completed both online and by mail.

The post Growing Percentage of Audio Listening Now Happens on Mobile appeared first on Radio World.

Russ Evans

The author is co-host of the syndicated “Under the Hood” radio show.

The car-centric talk show I am a co-host for, “Under The Hood,” had been using the studios of Midwest Communications for over 20 years.

The studios were good but we wanted to have our own home with custom features. A place to hang the collected memories of 30 years on the wall and grow with a full video system installed for broadcast to social media and a possible local TV network.

The scope of the project was a complete ground-up build of a new studio beginning with an empty room.

The show operates on a limited budget like many radio pioneers have had to deal with and so you have to improvise. This meant doing the work in-house. Our team consists of the three hosts and a producer, without an on-staff engineer. I happened have a background in pro sound electronics as well as automotive so I became the point man and had to familiarize myself with what it takes to build a modern radio/podcast/video studio.

The new studios are located in rural Garretson, S.D., amongst the cows and corn some 15 miles from Sioux Falls, S.D. in the nationally-known Nordstrom’s Auto Recycling complex. The massive facility was built in 2019 with a dedicated 800 square-foot upper room sound-insulated for the purpose of a radio studio.

The studio is based around an Audioarts Lightning 16-channel console fed by Electro-Voice RE20 microphones running through a Symetrix Jupiter 8 processor.

Calls are handled using a Backbone Networks IP phone software system. It’s the same company that provided the LUCI software we use. It has worked very well for us.

The microphone booms are all Compass from Blue. They have integrated tally lights for the talent.

Chris Carter, left, drives “Under the Hood.” He is operating an Audioarts Lightning console. Russ Evans is in the background.

We use Denon DN-300RMKII rack-mounted solid-state media recorders to capture the audio for later use on podcast and the live signal is sent through a Barix Exstreamer 500 to the live stations.

Fully automated video switching is provided by way of a Insoft HDVMixer. This system is a hands-off voice activated switching system which allows us to stream to most any social media channel. Cameras are AViPAS 1080P installed in six positions.

LED accent lighting is installed behind the wall sound panels and Neewer 660 fixtures provide the video lighting.

Since we are a call-in car talk show we wanted the caller’s sound to be as clean as possible and ran the caller’s audio through the Jupiter processor. This allows us to get an automatic clean-up and level on the incoming calls.

We broadcast to over 240 stations and do a podcast but the streaming is important to. We had a challenge getting the audio on the stream to the level we wanted and, in the end, we found our solution by running the audio from the board out through the processor before it feeds the stream and that did the trick.

“Under The Hood” has been on the air for over 30 years, 19 with the current hosts. We look to have a good run of at least 20 more years before we hang it up, if ever. We are always actively looking for new markets to air the show to continue to provide free automotive advice to listeners as well as provide a solid platform for stations to place automotive advertisers on.

Left to right, Shannon Nordstrom, Chris Carter and Russ Evans.

The post Going Under the Hood at the “Under the Hood” Show appeared first on Radio World.

iHeartMedia has announced that Kristy Beebe, formerly region senior vice president of sales for the Kentucky-Indiana Metro, has been promoted to market president for Indianapolis. That market consists of iHeartMedia Indianapolis owns and operates WFBQ(FM), WOLT(FM and HD2), WZRL(FM) and WNDE(AM).

She will report to iHeartMedia Kentucky-Indiana Metro President Ear Jones.

Beebe has also worked iHeartMedia properties in Toledo, Ohio and Louisville, Ky.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com

 

The post Beebe Bounces to iHeart Indy appeared first on Radio World.

Justin McClure owns Jam Broadcasting, licensee of four stations located about an hour’s drive northwest of San Antonio.  He recently tuned into one of his stations only to hear the dreaded sound of a quiet carrier.

He went to the site and as he unlocked the door he sniffed for that dreaded burnt electronics scent, but smelled nothing out of the ordinary.

Looking over the equipment rack, he noticed that his Optimod 8200 was flashing like a disco light.

Justin diagnosed that his 15 VDC linear supply was working as it should, but the +12, –12and +5 VDC supplies were having issues.

He was just about to order a replacement supply when he thought of doing an internet search. It led him to a tip by broadcast engineer Gary Morgan in a 2013 Workbench article!

“I love that people take the time to post these simple fixes,” he told us. “I sat down and followed Gary’s instructions, and it works like a charm.”

The ATX replacement supply that Justin chose did not have the color-coded wires described in Gary’s submission, so he had to use the ATX pinout to identify the correct voltages. No problem, because he had all the instruments on his workbench, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1: Getting ready to trace voltages on the new supply and to modify the Molex plug.

A couple of hours later, he wired the ATX supply wires to the Molex plug (shown in Fig. 2) and the processor was back up and sounding good.

Fig. 2: The Molex wiring is complete.

The completed modification is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3: The completed supply modification is ready for reinstallation of the processor.

To retrieve the original pictures, Justin turned to the Internet Archive to find a screenshot of the Radio World website. Bookmark it: https://web.archive.org/. More than 500 billion web pages reside at the site, which is also known as the Way Back Internet Machine.

Justin says the site has saved him a handful of times when he needed specific information. It also contains older versions of software, should you need them.

Thanks to Gary Morgan for the original submission and to Justin for the update.

More FLIR

I received word from several engineers regarding the Feb. 17 Workbench tip from Dan Gunter, principal of Alabama Broadcast Services LLC. Dan wrote about using a FLIR smartphone plugin to view overheated components.

Readers will recall Dan had intended to check a possible heating issue with a capacitor in a backup transmitter harmonic trap, but that he got sidetracked when he found a defective fan in an adjacent transmitter that was on the air.

Dan’s tip outlined how he replaced the fan, but there was no mention of the original issue: the suspected overheating capacitor in the backup transmitter.

Dan writes that like so many contract guys, he has been buried with work. By the time he got back to the aux, the transmitter wouldn’t even make 100W.

Since this was a shunt capacitor in the third harmonic trap, there was nowhere near enough current at 100W to attempt to heat up that capacitor. Dan replaced it, and the rig was running fine.

At another site, Dan used his FLIR to identify a bad breaker or questionable wire connection feeding a TWR tower lighting system. What was amazing was that the increased temperature was noted through the cover of the breaker panel!

Closer inspection seems to indicate a weak breaker, as it has started tripping after every power outage at the site, possibly because it cannot handle the surge current when everything in the building restarts simultaneously.

Dan is not ruling out problems with the bonding of the wires to the breaker terminals, so he will be taking IR images before replacing the breaker, and also making sure the breaker wires are clean, secure, and treated with Noalox brand anti-oxidant conductive grease before taking “after” pictures.

Noalox is manufactured by Ideal. A 4-ounce bottle is under $10 at Home Depot or Amazon.

As Dan makes repairs, he will keep readers informed.

Genset Reset

New England contract engineer Stephanie Donnell enjoyed the generator maintenance tips that David Morgan of Sinclair TeleCable offered. She adds an additional tip that may save you a trip to a remote transmitter site.

If you have a generator that’s new enough to have a digital controller but does not include some means of remotely monitoring the various status and fault conditions, there is usually no remote means to reset the faults via remote control.

One way around this problem is to add a simple way to reset a fault, so the generator will start. A solution is to install a relay with the N.C. (Normally Closed) contacts wired in-line with the 12 VDC that operates the controller board. When the relay is actuated by a command from your Burk or other type of site controller, the relay will momentarily interrupt the 12 VDC that operates the controller board and clear the fault.

Keep in mind, this is not a perfect solution; the interruption will also clear the run time counter, and you will have no way of knowing what the particular fault condition was.

But as long as the fault was not a continuing “fatal” level fault, this modification will buy you a little time, and the generator should restart. It will keep things on the air and allow you to schedule time to safely get to the site and investigate the situation further.

Just as Gary’s tip helped Justin, your submission to Workbench helps your fellow engineers. Join us in helping Workbench readers solve problems by sending your tips to johnpbisset@gmail.com.

 

The post Workbench: Archived Tip Saves Time and Money appeared first on Radio World.

The migration to digital radio is going swiftly in Switzerland.

OFCOM, the Swiss Federal Office of Communication, says DAB+ is now the most widely used radio reception method in the country, and that only one in eight people say they still tune in exclusively to FM radio.

“In autumn 2020, radio listeners received an average of 73 out of 100 radio minutes per day via digital means. Digital radio usage has thus increased by 24 percentage points over the last five years,” it said, citing a report from the Digital Migration working group at the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. GfK Annual Meeting.

“At 41 percent, DAB+ is the most widely used reception mode in all parts of the country and in all age groups. Usage via the other two digital reception channels, internet radio and digital TV, has remained virtually constant, levelling off at 32 percent, while FM use has fallen by 24 percentage points over the past five years, and now stands at 27 per cent. Only 12 out of 100 people stated that they still listen to FM radio.”

Switzerland’s radio industry will switch entirely from FM to digital broadcasting via DAB+ in 2022 and 2023.

The SRG will switch off its FM transmitters in August 2022, and private radio stations will do so by January 2023.

 

The post Swiss Listeners Take Up Digital Radio appeared first on Radio World.

Broadcast software developer NeoGroupe has released a suite of tools for the remote screening of phone calls for radio talk shows.

According to the company, the offerings are headed by the NeoScreenerSmart mobile application (for iOS and Android, available from the stores). Supporting the app is the VPN compatibility of the company’s NeoScreener Windows application software, for both audio and control of phone lines and a cloud-hosted common shared database. The system does not require specified brands of telephone sets: The call screener can operate the phone lines from his/her home using a simple USB headset and microphone;

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

The company describes a case study using a studio base in New York City that has a Telos VOIP phone system. It explains that call screeners can be at home in New Jersey and another in Connecticut, securely using the NeoScreener application while the host uses the NeoScreener application in Florida and sees the cued calls. He is able to air them in NYC. A co-host uses the iOS application on an iPad in Georgia to see the same calls that the host sees. He also has the same abilities to air calls, hold or drop them from the mobile application.

This framework allows the continuing remote operation of the show in the same way that it operated when in the studio, side-stepping COVID the travel restrictions. The usual workflow remains totally unchanged.

NeoScreener has also modules to handle prizes, winners, texting for callback and website interfaces. It is available in 10 languages. And finally, NeoGroupe recently added support for AEQ Systel VOIP Systems and the AVT THipPro line of phone systems, so that NeoScreener offers compatibility with the major phone systems available on the market.

Info: www.neogroupe.com

 

The post NeoGroupe Releases Call Screening Tools appeared first on Radio World.

Tim Clarke, Claudia Menegus

Entercom named Tim Clarke as the senior vice president and market manager of its six-station Boston operation, which includes WBGB(FM), WMJX(FM), WWBX(FM), WEEI (AM/FM) and WVEI(AM).

Clarke was VP of content and audience for Cox Media Group and, before that, senior director of digital audience for CMG’s radio stations. He succeeds Mark Hannon, whose role recently expanded as regional president of 13 markets.

And Entercom also named Claudia Menegus as market manager for Miami. She is already regional president of Entercom Gainesville, Memphis, Miami and Orlando, where she also has market manager responsibilities; she took those roles last August. She succeeds Keriann Worley, who has left the company.

Menegus began her career with Infinity Broadcasting, which later merged with CBS Radio. She spent 18 years there including various roles in its Baltimore market and later as director of integrated marketing for CBS Radio Corporate, overseeing the Events and Experiences Division in 15 markets.

Send your people news to radioworld@futurenet.com

 

The post Tim Clarke to Head Entercom Boston appeared first on Radio World.

The Reciva web page bears the bad news at the top.

The Reciva internet radio aggregation platform, which provides the tuning systems for some internet/WiFi radios made by manufacturers such as C. Crane, Grace Digital and Tangent, is to shut down by April 30, 2021.

Radio World has been unable to find any reason for the shutdown issued by Qualcomm, which owns the Reciva platform.

Originally the shutdown was supposed to occur on Jan. 31, 2021, but that deadline was extended in mid-January.

A headlined message “Notice: With effect from 30th April 2021 this website will be withdrawn” appears on the radios.reciva.com website. It has led to despairing posts from many internet radio fans.

“When Qualcomm pulls the plug, it’s gone,” wrote Solo2, administrator of the Internet Radio Forum.

“In the meantime — and I suppose it goes without saying — do not buy a new or used WiFi radio that relies on Reciva as it will not function properly without the Reciva aggregator service,” said www.swling.com.

Coincident with Reciva’s imminent demise, C. Crane has been preparing to release the CC WiFi-3 internet radio. Unlike the earlier CC WiFi radio that ran on Reciva, the CC WiFi-3 uses the Skytune platform.

C. Crane posted this message on its own website: “We were happy to be one of first companies to offer ad-free Internet radio because it allowed anyone to listen to the world without a fee. Fifteen years ago, Ben [Terrell], the founder of Reciva, had a small staff to create the software and volunteers around the world to help manage the station streams. We are sorry, but Reciva’s software will soon not work anymore.”

To assist stranded CC WiFi owners, C. Crane is offering a number of replacement offers, including a half-price sale (US$60 plus shipping, until June 1) for CC WiFi owners whose sets are out of warranty. C. Crane has a post about the Reciva situation here.

Meanwhile Grace Digital is helping owners of its older WiFi radios (manufactured 2007 to 2017) that rely on Reciva.

“If you have a legacy internet radio, to help with the transition, Grace Digital will offer special one-time discounts to effected customers,” states the company’s Upgrade page. It adds that, “based on the current information provided to Grace Digital the presets will continue to function for basic internet radio stations … However, please note this strategy will only work with standard radio stations.”

Finally, Tangent has cross-posted a list of internet radios affected by the Reciva platform shutdown. Referring to its now-discontinued Tangent QUATTRO internet radio, “We as radio manufacturer do not have the possibility of offering an alternative software as the module and software is made by RECIVA,” said Tangent-Audio.com.

 

 

The post Reciva Internet Radio Platform Shutting Down appeared first on Radio World.

 

Idil Cakim is senior vice president, research and insights with Entercom. Devora Rogers is chief strategy officer with Alter Agents.

Idil Cakim

Life in our modern, always-on world has made for shorter attention spans as more options for information, entertainment, engagement and connection vie for our time. Today’s audiences jump from one media source to the next in a flash, giving brands only a few seconds to tell their story and call consumers to action.

When Entercom set out to discover how audio content and advertising fit into this equation, we wanted to understand how audio amplified messages and engaged audiences compared to other media. We designed a study to measure the impact of audio on audiences and define “engaged impressions.”

We employed a number of market research techniques to dive into how audiences consumed media and contextualize media choices they made as they: navigated their everyday activities; leaned in to get information about their communities; and sought entertainment.

Devora Rogers

Together with market research firm Alter Agents, Entercom decided on an approach consisting of a survey of a nationally representative population of adults, coupled with an agile neuroscience study by Immersion of individuals from the major U.S markets of Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. We compiled the data to examine consumer experiences with audio such as over-the-air (OTA), streaming OTA and podcast versus other mediums such as TV, video, social, and pureplay platforms.

Immersion, the key metric in our study, is a scientific measure of emotional connection and attention. It reveals what audiences truly love and predicts their future actions.

Using our neuroscience partner’s platform, backed by 20 years of peer-reviewed science funded by DARPA, we measured variations in heart rate in order to understand what the brain values. We then coupled these findings with our survey results to create a multidimensional picture of media audiences.

Takeaways

Our findings fell into three core areas:

• Immersion, which predicts sales: Our data indicated that audio has the highest level of immersion among all the platforms. Linear TV and social media scored significantly lower. Immersion is predictive of sales at a very high analytical accuracy rate, surpassing 80%. The findings suggest audio impressions, which are more immersive, will yield sales. (Immersion is scored from 0 to 100; the higher the number, the more immersive the experience.)

Immersion Index:

Audio             57

AVOD            54

Digital video  54

Linear TV       52

Social media  52

• Impact, which is rooted in trust. When measuring variations in heart rate and brain activity, our researchers were actually reading biological signals of trust. Trust triggers memorability and action and is the underlying factor in audio impact. Our engaged impressions study found that the audio portfolio (69%), consisting of OTA, streaming OTA and podcasts, is significantly more trusted than other mediums such as TV (64%), social media (56%), YouTube (47%) and even Digital Pureplays (44%).

• Action, which moves business. Audio has a winning formula that moves people to take action. For example, we found that one-third of broadcast OTA listeners have taken action after hearing a host recommendation as part of a commercial (34%) or as part of their show (32%). Audio portfolios that blend local content and host recommendations to consumers create a ripe environment for advertisers and positively impact consumer action.

The findings from this study are critical for the audio industry, as they lay a data-driven foundation to “make the case” for the strength of audio.

As more and more mediums compete for audience attention, this study proves that audio can effectively reach, engage and mobilize audiences. Audio leads all other media formats in its natural ability to guide listeners into spaces where they are hyper-connected, open and receptive. Immersive audio experiences trigger memorability, trust and connection. Listeners are drawn in with a sense of community and belonging. And advertisers see consistent results.

Comment on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

Idil Cakim is senior vice president, research and insights with Entercom. She has devised marketing and communication strategies for Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations for 20 years.

Devora Rogers is chief strategy officer with Alter Agents, a strategic market research consultancy. She has led research teams, developed the methodology deployed for Google’s groundbreaking ZMOT research, and worked with dozens of global brands.

The post Audio Content Drives Unmatched Engagement appeared first on Radio World.

(Hansen-Spear Funeral Home)

John Burtle has died. His career included stints at technology companies Automatic Tape Control (ATC) and Broadcast Electronics, where he once held the position of VP of product development.

He was 80, according to an obituary on the website of Hansen-Spear Funeral Home in Quincy, Ill.

“He was the force behind the BE automation products including the Control 16,” wrote his friend Chuck Kelly of Broadcast Electronics on social media.

According to the obituary, Burtle served in the U.S. Air Force and graduated from Chicago DeVry Tech School.

Andy Rector met Burtle while making a sales trip for ATC in the mid-1960s. Burtle eventually joined ATC, which would be purchased by Gates Radio, and he moved with the company from Bloomington to Quincy, Ill.

“John followed Larry Cervon when he purchased Broadcast Electronics and was instrumental in moving the BE operation [in 1977] from the Washington, D.C., area to Quincy,” Rector recalled.

Later in his career Burtle worked at ETC Computerland in computer training prior to retiring.

“John was a good friend and a fellow conservative,” Rector said. “He helped me put together a history of the broadcast tape cartridge machine which we presented to the Madison Broadcasters Clinic in 2008, the 50th anniversary of that device.” He called Burtle a great friend and fellow broadcaster.”Information about graveside services on Friday are on the funeral home website.

The post John Burtle Dies, Worked in Radio Tech appeared first on Radio World.

Tony Abfalter

Each year at Radio World we receive hundreds — if not thousands — of press releases about radio executives, general managers, air talent and sales people. We get very few about engineers. I like to celebrate them when I do.

Leighton Broadcasting in St. Cloud, Minn., wants us to know that it has a very special director of engineering and IT. He is Tony Abfalter, K0VSC, recipient of its MVP Award for 2020.

CEO Bob Leighton writes on his blog, “When the government called for a shutdown to protect against the coronavirus, we, like many others, had to quickly rethink how we worked … Our account executives were going remote but still needed access to company resources and new ways to connect with their clients. Our on-air announcers needed a safe environment to broadcast in and when they were self-quarantined due to potential exposure, they too, needed to be able to work from home.

“With the clock ticking, we called the department all station managers call when things aren’t working: engineering. …  Tony Abfalter was already formulating a plan.”

I contacted Abfalter to ask him to describe how he approached the pandemic.

“We had been focused on taking a look ahead on what could become problems in the future. While COVID-19 obviously was not something seen, our planning was easily adapted to it,” he replied.

“Over the past few years, broadcasters have had to take a look at some new challenges, like, ‘What if we can’t access the studios but still need to delivery timely, quality content? How do we do that cost-effectively? How do we make the process easy to implement on the fly?’

“Some of the solutions we implemented in building out this plan was moving to cloud-based services that can be accessed easily. The use of Microsoft 365 services, especially Teams, allowed staff to communicate and keep things moving. For remote studio live studio work the Comrex Opals we installed three years ago proved to be extremely valuable.” A secure VPN also was part of the process.

Bob Leighton said, “Tony accomplished all of this seamlessly and swiftly, which we considered exceptional and instrumental to our success, as an organization — a real MVP.”

Leighton presented the award in the original KFAM building in St. Cloud, Minn, recently refurbished in a retro style. “The remodel not only looks cool, but it allows our director of engineering to monitor and maintain all of our company signals from one location,” Leighton noted.

The family owned company has 190 employees, 64 RF/streaming audio sources, 26 format brands, six markets and one engineer.

Kudos to Tony Abfalter — and a tip of the hat to Leighton Broadcasting for highlighting the important contributions of radio engineering.

[Related: Read the Radio World ebook “Remote Radio Phase II.”]

The post Engineer Tony Abfalter Is an MVP appeared first on Radio World.

Shane Toven, CSRE CBNT, is senior broadcast engineer at Educational Media Foundation.

This article appeared in Radio World’s “Trends in Codecs and STLs for 2020” ebook.

Radio World: What’s the most important trend you see in the design and performance of codecs for remote or STL use for radio broadcast facilities?
Shane Toven: I see a trend toward combining multiple codec channels in a single unit. This helps with consolidation of facilities where multiple content streams and locations are involved. I also see codecs becoming more powerful as newer and more efficient encoding options are available.

The most exciting development that I see is increasing quality with less bandwidth usage. As broadcasters shift toward consolidating more facilities and interconnecting remote talent, this will be an important consideration for balancing quality versus bandwidth cost.

RW: How are today’s technologies solving problems in creative ways, or being deployed in your own facilities?
Toven: Codecs have been an invaluable tool for me, going all the way back to the original POTS codecs. Unfortunately, ISDN was not an option in rural Minnesota where I started my career. I purchased a Comrex Vector at my first station when that technology became available. It made a significant improvement in the quality of remote broadcasts when the options for connectivity in rural areas were limited.

Once IP connectivity started becoming more ubiquitous and there were an increasing number of IP codec options on the market, I took advantage of that to execute some very complex remotes, one of which involved live events at two different venues, and full talkback facilities between the studio and the two venues.

The latest application for codecs at my current facility has been converting multiple channels of audio on the AoIP network at the studio to encoded audio for carrying across lower bandwidth links. This conversion is done entirely inside the codec itself without any actual transition to AES or analog audio. Livewire I/O on one interface, codec I/O on the other interface. It really makes for a very nicely integrated solution.

[Check Out More of Radio World’s Ebooks Here]

RW: What role are codecs playing in this new world of at-home broadcasting?
Toven: Codecs have been critical in this role, though not in the traditional hardware sense. Some broadcasters have chosen to deploy hardware codecs for this purpose, but many others are using services such as CleanFeed or ipDTL. Both have advantages and drawbacks, but the biggest advantage of a software-based solution is ease of use and reduction in hardware costs. I could also envision a scenario where the codecs themselves become an integrated software component of a virtual infrastructure. Your smartphone becomes your codec and the talent can work from anywhere with very little hardware.

RW: How have AoIP technology developments been reflected in the look and function of codecs? 
Toven: AoIP has made implementing multichannel codecs much simpler. Instead of a rack full of AES or even analog audio wiring, the codec has no traditional audio I/O at all. One such product that we currently use is the Telos iPort. This streamlines the installation and implementation of codecs in our AoIP based facility considerably. The codec has very few physical controls and metering on it. Instead you have a 1RU box that can handle eight or more channels of encoding and decoding with all monitoring and control performed via the network.

RW: What will the codec of the future look like, if we use one at all? 
Toven: As connectivity continues to improve, we may in fact not require codecs anymore. I can envision a time where we are able to pass multiple channels of uncompressed AoIP between facilities directly. This would further simplify installations by eliminating one more step in the chain and improve audio quality by reducing the number of cascading codecs, a problem that has plagued engineers since the early days of bit-reduced encoding. I think what will become more important rather than codecs in this scenario is precision timing sources synchronized to GPS.

The post Increased Quality, Less Bandwidth appeared first on Radio World.

WideOrbit is out with a new version of its WO Automation for Radio.

Version 5.0 includes important enhancements for broadcasters with “distributed operations,” aka remote work.

It said these improvements help users manage station operations with a decentralized staff; run programming from home or elsewhere via mobile devices; manage content and playlists remotely; and integrate with other systems like MusicMaster and WO Traffic.

“WO Automation for Radio version 5.0 modernizes remote voice tracking capabilities to extend the complete in-studio experience to remote users,” the company said.

“Native apps can be installed and operated from virtually anywhere there’s an internet connection, on almost any device, including desktop environments running macOS, Windows or Linux, as well as on iOS mobile devices.”

Also new, a “Stop Media Asset Workflow Action” allows on-air assets to be stopped automatically or on-demand. And “Content Import Prioritization” streamlines the downloading of important content first whether from local drives or FTP sites.

The post WideOrbit Expands Remote Support appeared first on Radio World.

Years ago I took a firearms safety course. I remember the instructor saying, “The safety on a gun is a mechanical device. And any mechanical device can fail.” I’ve learned that this admonition about mechanical devices was true.

I think we can all agree that seemingly mundane matters involving our devices and tools are often ignored. The problem is that minimizing them can create glaring, noticeable problems.

I like to call these “mechanical distractions.” Our broadcast gear is electronic, yes; but these are machines that produce a product. In a concert venue or a church or any place with an installed sound system, the best sound system is the one you never notice. The system is built in such a way that the mechanical distractions are minimized.

A radio broadcast is much like an installed sound system. We want a listener to tune in and consume our product, not making mental notes about a technical aspect of the broadcast. This article presents examples of such minutia.

The Most Obvious: Processing

If 40 people provide 40 differing views on processing, that’s normal. It is a passionate and subjective topic.

If a loudness war is raging in the market, we may be pulled into doing things with processing that defy basic fundamentals. On the flip side, if we’re the only format in the market, we might be aloof about the processing.

Both are bad practice.

Processors like these are at their best when listeners can’t hear them working.

If we have achieved the “loudest” station in the market, is it smoking the final clipper? Is the multiband working so hard that listener fatigue is inevitable? Has audible distortion taken the place of clarity?

On the other hand, suppose we have a country format. Do listeners continually turn the station up and down because the processing is hardly doing its job?

Final processing is the hallmark of the station’s persona in the market. Set aside regular times to do some critical listening. Whether loud and aggressive or relaxed, the processing must serve your demographic without noticeable mechanics.

RDS and PAD

Metadata quality control should be within the purview of the programming department. However, an extra set of eyes never hurt anyone.

As radios evolve into virtual dashboard computers, RDS and PAD become more important. Over the last two years I became the self-appointed RDS and PAD czar at our cluster. Our engineering department works endlessly to make sure these ancillary services work properly.

This car radio stays in the TOC. If RDS looks bad here, it looks bad in someone’s car.

So when “Laddy Gaga” appears on the radio, or “020121-MU10004” or “Solitaire FT. Gucci Mane & Migos w./ Lil’ Yachty RADIO EDIT CLEAN VERSION,” it drives me insane.

In response, I’ve practically written a book for our programming staff that spells out artist and title formatting standards. Additionally, I’ve manually instituted these standards in our 13,000-song database.

“It’s not my job!” Well, that’s most likely true, but poorly formatted, misspelled or inconsistent RDS and PAD data is an embarrassing distraction that reflects poorly upon the station. When a listener looks at the name of a song, they shouldn’t start laughing about a spelling error.

Little, Little Tiny Edits

Now that we’ve put our noses in programming business, let’s go down the hall to the production department.

When orders stack up, the production team becomes the busiest group in the building. They churn out spot after spot.

That is when editing slip-ups happen. They are usually slight, but if they go unchecked, they can become an unnecessary mechanical distraction. Should engineering mention production issues to production? This is tricky territory, requiring an open, friendly environment for dialogue.

One example is cutting off a breath or editing a file in such a way that a breath happens unnaturally. This does the product a disservice. Also, splicing together the same voice from two recording sessions is a noticeable distraction. Some production folks add compression and dynamics in post that cause a regular and familiar voice to sound unnatural.

If the midday guy voices a spot that plays during one of his stop sets and the processing is spectacularly more aggressive than the regular studio mic processing, the listener will hear a mechanical change — a distraction.

One last thing that pertains to production and air staff is mic placement. Ever see the ad where the girl talks into the end of a side-address mic? So talk periodically with the on-air and production people. The mic is a mechanical device that can cause mechanical distractions when used improperly.

Stop Hurting Ourselves

Ssometimes we engineers get in our own way. Whether through complacency, lack of knowledge or lack of funds, we “let things go.”

I know of an RJ-45 connector right now in our TOC that needs replacing. It causes problems when it fails. Have I replaced it yet? Well, by the time you read this I will have!

Radio broadcasting has become data transfer before our eyes. One of these RJ-45 jacks going bad can ruin the day. Periodically check to make sure they’re seated and that the cable-connector junctions are not pinched or strained.

The point is, loose ends add up and can become noticeable to listeners.

How could I have prevented that four minutes of dead air? A silence alarm could have sent an email and I could have remoted in and fixed it.

Or the main transmitter failed and now we’re off the air until I can get there and switch it to the aux. Maybe it’s time to look into an improved Burk or Davicom remote system?

The PD keeps complaining about distortion on VoxPro. “Well, she’s off her rocker.” Yes, she probably is, but she needs you to take some time and fix the audio levels in the studio!

Be a People Person

When an engineer starts complaining to programming and production about how they’re doing their jobs, we can expect friction. Engineers don’t like it either.

However, reducing mechanical distractions doesn’t have to be contentious. Foster an environment of open dialogue, humor and camaraderie. That way, when we see typos on the RDS or hear a choppy radio ad or when the programming team hears a problem with the processing or something is up at a transmitter, a simple text, email or phone call won’t be an affront.

As broadcasters we present an on-air product in which the transport mechanism must be transparent. There should be nothing mechanically distracting between the jock’s mic and the listener’s speakers. Attention to detail and purposeful camaraderie go a very long way in creating a great product.

Chris Wygal is chief engineer for Summit Media Corp. in Richmond, Va.. He began a full-time career in radio broadcasting in 2002 and has been writing for broadcast trade publications since 2005.

 

The post Little Problems Can Cause Big Headaches appeared first on Radio World.