[cma-l] Radio Link Transmission systems

[Neil Munday]

The other major point that should be mentioned here regards listening off
air checking for
A/interference (pirates, people bleeding into the channel.

B/Technical Glitches "is the transmitter still on the air" engineers can
source the problem far quicker if a fault, power loss or indeed lightening
strike is known about.

Now remember in these circumstances you loose everything in the studio. Our
presenters are instructed to switch to desk at that point and continue
there programmes online. Call our engineers immediately who will check
and post info on our social media informing listeners that there is a
problem and alternative ways to listen in. The presenter is also instructed
to check during songs the off air feed in case it should return. A
lightening strike may cause catastrophic failure or simply take a couple of
mins for everything to reset and the transmitter to ramp up to power again.

Hope that sheds a bit more interest in the reasons to listen or at least
monitor the FM off air output. By the way your off air logger is a great
way sometimes of understanding the fault and how it occurred!

Regards to all
Neil Munday
Operations Director
SUSY Radio 103.4

On Monday, 6 June 2016, Geoff Rogers <geoff at susyradio.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 6 June 2016 at 16:44, Alex Gray, Two Lochs Radio <tlr at gairloch.co.uk
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','tlr at gairloch.co.uk');>> wrote:
>
>> Well, I’m glad I asked the question – I had no idea so many stations used
>> continuous off-air monitoring. Thanks Serge.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sure, confidence checks on the off-air signal are a good idea – as I
>> said, we have a reception/kitchen radio going all the time as well.
>>
>>
>>
>> Having the meters showing the off-air signal would indeed seem a very
>> dicey prospect – the presenter gets no direct feedback as to whether they
>> are running suitable levels or not, and could unwittingly/carelessly let
>> the desk output levels wander ever-higher, as the processor kept things to
>> a steady level, until very high levels of compression distortion and
>> possibly even clipping started to give the game away to cloth ears?! Or
>> ever lower, with the main clue being steadily rising noise levels and loss
>> of dynamic processing.
>>
> The meters on our desk represent desk o/p not transmitter o/p hence
> presenters can keep an eye on the levels while still hearing how it sounds
> on air.  And if you can hear exactly what you sound like on air it makes
> the sound mix better on the air.  Of course if linking digitally or using
> DAB, then you don't have the luxury but stations I've been with have an
> extra low latency processor to feed the desk headphone o/p to get simulated
> off air listening.
>
>>
>>
>> What happens when people are prerecording shows? Don’t they wonder why
>> their voices sound quite different than when they are listening to the
>> processed output on live shows?
>>
> Yes they are warned about this, and this seems to work for us.
>
> Geoff
> --
> Geoff Rogers
> Programme Director
> Susy Radio, Local Community Radio for Redhill and Reigate
> On-air across Sussex and Surrey on 103.4FM NOW
> Web: susyradio.com <http://www.susyradio.com>
>
> Susy Radio Ltd. A company registered in England and Wales.
> Registered Office: 54 Nutfield Road, Merstham, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 3EP.
> Registered Number: 06748586
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.commedia.org.uk/pipermail/cma-l/attachments/20160606/d98e35cc/attachment.html>