[cma-l] Radio Link Transmission systems

Tue Jun 7 12:01:37 BST 2016

There are so many ways to do these things – no one could accuse small scale stations of being clones of each other on the technical front at least! It’s fascinating to hear all the variety – it would be great of all the stations on the mailing list could chuck in a potted summary of their configurations.

Pretty much all our station (apart from heating and kitchen) is on UPS, but the computer and main equipment rack with file server, STL, ROT logger etc are on an additional rack mounted UPS, which allows that rack to continue to provide output autonomously if the rest of the station has to be powered down, and so the UPS can instruct the file server to shut down in an orderly fashion before the UPS is exhausted.

When not presenting live we normally have the main on-air playout computer routed to air through one channel of the desk if it is our own material going out, or a remote feed of a sustaining service on another channel going direct to air. The rest of the desk channels are switched to a secondary output bus so the studio can be used for prerecording shows, interviews etc.

We don’t use IRN because its news bulletins are too London/England-centric for our audience, which is why we end up using a source that doesn’t have accurate timing, but has much better content for us. Our presenters have become adept at dealing with the vagaries of its timing.

Alex

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Mike Davison
Sent: 07 June 2016 11:17
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List <cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Radio Link Transmission systems

We switch our studio(s) off when fully automated and have the switching mixer, network switch, RAID master programme and music NAS computer, logging computer, main auto play-out computer, satellite receiver, audio processing, limiting and stereo encoder, and the link transmitter on a large UPS. Presenters are encouraged to always let the computer handle the IRN bulletin during their live programmes so the satellite audio never has to go through any desk directly and in fact all the station's desk-feeding computers have the IRN audio piped to them to allow recording of any special item manually in a separate studio. The switching mixer has four feeds, studios(2), main play-out computer and standby play-out computer. I suppose every station has its own methods and this is ours at Tempo FM.

Mike Davison.

On 06/06/2016 20:36, Serge Auckland wrote:

Our automation computer goes through the on-air desks like any other source, so as long as the four player and IRN faders are left up, audio will go out.  So far, it's worked for us pretty reliably.

Serge Auckland

RWSfm 103.3

Community Radio for Bury and Beyond

On 06 June 2016 at 17:04 Mike Davison  <mailto:mike at g1sbn.freeserve.co.uk> <mike at g1sbn.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

We have off-air monitoring setup on our desk, meter following monitoring and is useful to make sure you've activated the auto feed computer via the studio then  through the switching desk and not left the auto feed active on the link transmitter only in splendid isolation. Now I wonder who has fallen foul of this........

Mike Davison

On 06/06/2016 15:47, Serge Auckland wrote:

I think it’s good practice to listen off-air, as this is an immediate check on whether the signal’s going out properly. However, on our main desks, metering follows monitoring (as otherwise people get confused), and I’m always banging on to our presenters about keeping levels below PPM6, and when monitoring off-air, levels are always constant due to our Optimod doing its stuff.

Consequently, all except for a couple of our more experienced presenters monitor off-desk rather than off-air. (and still don’t control levels properly.....hurrumph!)

Serge Auckland

Chief Engineer

RWSfm 103.3

Community Radio for Bury and Beyond

On 06 June 2016 at 12:57 Geoff Rogers  <mailto:geoff at susyradio.com> <geoff at susyradio.com> wrote:

On 2 June 2016 at 23:15, Two Lochs Radio <tlr at gairloch.co.uk <mailto:tlr at gairloch.co.uk> > wrote:

Does anybody routinely listen off-air in the studio? I have never come across any station that does that. It's good to monitor it of course, typically a radio in the kitchen or reception permanently playing, and it should be an option for the studio to check output, but am I alone in thinking it unusual to listen off-air as a matter of routine in the studio?

We do, and always have done.  

Until recently the commercial station I work for also did the same.

It is not off putting at all provided there are no delays (we use a Band I analog link), and it does give you an idea as to how you sound on air.

Geoff

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