Now Ya’ Gotta Build It…Low Power FM (LPFM)

The filing window is closed; the commission has begun its review of Low Power FM (LPFM) applications. In short - or maybe not so short - order, construction permits will be granted. The first ones will probably be the "singletons" as some are referring to them...applications which satisfy all of the separation requirements and have no mutually exclusive applications.

 

Then comes the fun part: building the station. This is where smart thinking – and planning – can save some real money.  (Yes,  my group does these but regardless of who you work with, we can’t find a single reason for spending more than you have to in order to wind up with a functional studio/transmission system.)

 

Because of the nature of the LPFM service, cost is a major concern, but so is reliability and durability. After all, it has to stay on the air and many operators may have little or no experience handling radio gear. Here are some points to keep in mind:

 

When thinking through equipment, first plan your programming! If you're doing 24x7 live talk, you could get away with a couple of mics, a mixer, headphones, processor, transmitter and antenna. You could, but even with such a simple format you'll want to be able to pre-produce program intros and closings, station ID's, PSA's and information about donors and support. That will mean a separate production area with its own inputs like mics, music playback (CD, .mp3 players, a quality computer) and possibly a phone input/system to prerecord calls. And, in any case, you'll need to be EAS compliant. That means at least an EAS/CAP decoder.

 

About that phone, if you want to take live calls on air, you'll need a telephone interface – probably a hybrid, but not necessarily – for the air studio. Along those lines, you will probably want to protect yourself against fines with a program delay unit that allows you to terminate callers or other persons before their comments reach the transmitter should their words go outside the bounds of acceptability for the time of day.

 

Of course, it gets more complicated as you add programming types. A local concert will require remote equipment - mics, stands, mixer, headphones and a recorder. Want to do it live? Well, that means a way to get that concert back to the studio. What about live, in-studio music? That's a challenging format since it usually calls for a larger studio, multiple microphones, and a more sophisticated mixing console.

 

You may choose to automate part of the day. It may be voice-tracking by your own talent or by an outside feed. Programming may come from a digital line or satellite. It will need to be downlinked/downloaded and fed out over the air.

 

Each format has its own challenges - and costs. And that means working hard and working smart to keep those costs down. It means doing the research to find that a $200 XYZ box will do just as good a job as a $1500 unit. Quality is quality and LPFM shouldn't be shortchanged. But spending more than you need to is a waste.

 

Then you need to consider the transmission gear. The audio processor (yes, you'll need one to ensure compliance with FCC rules), the transmitter, studio-transmitter link and remote control (if the transmitter is separated from the studio), transmission line, tower and antenna. And don't forget to consider lightning and static discharge protection. Protection doesn't have to be costly and it's hard to dedicate funds to equipment that doesn't affect/improve the sound of your station. Of course, if spending the money on lightning elimination keeps the station on the air undamaged through lightning assaults, it actually does affect the sound.

 

Finally, add in security...to prevent theft and vandalism and to make sure the airwaves aren't accessed by unauthorized individuals.

 

Here, in a nutshell is a checklist for getting your station built:

• Iron out your programming plans
• Work through the equipment you'll need for each format
• Do a layout of studio, production room, meeting room, storage (Yes storage. You'll need more than you imagine)
• Plan your transmitter location and determine how the audio will be transmitted from the studio to the transmitter
• Summarize all of the equipment needed
• Seek a reputable service to specify equipment to meet your needs and satisfy your construction permit and provide you the most flexibility possible within your budget

LPFM is providing valuable services across the country. When you receive your CP you'll be on the road to becoming a part of it.

 

So you Want to Be an MVPD

I don’t get it.  Definition of a television picture gets higher and higher.  Yet the FCC’s jurisdiction gets more and more fuzzy.

The latest is the latest inquiry into what constitutes a MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor).  Listen up!  This is important.

You’ve probably visited a currently-defined MVPD in the last few hours.  At least if you watched a program on cable or satellite or telco-delivered system.  Right.  These guys distribute video programming across multi[ple] channels.  Hence the acronym.

However, the commission now wants to take a broader view of MVPDs – from a regulatory standpoint.  Translation:  we want to regulate those emerging services which slowly are becoming MVPDs.  So, who’s that?  Well, start with Hulu and similar services.  Then toss in Youtube.  And, eventually, as is usually the case with regulation, every other form of video service that offers more than one (operative word being multiple in the acronym) channel.

So, what’s the big deal?  None, I suppose.  Oh. Wait.  Must-carry rules and retransmission consent agreements are an everyday part of MVPDs.  Let’s throw those on the backs of online distributors.  After all, copyright laws aren’t enough.  And so-called spectrum fees or other regulatory fees?  Why sure, if they’re going to be regulated, they need to pay for that regulation.

But it gets more insidious than that.  Here are some random insidiousities to consider.  (Yes, I know that’s not exactly a word.)

·     It opens a door for yet another tax on these smaller operations

·     It can subject them to content regulation

·    It can force them to begin captioning much of their fare (think I’m kidding Check out Broadcast Engineering, Volume 54, Number 5, May 2012, page 42.)  No.   It’s not required of Hulu yet…but if they become an MVPD, who knows?

·     EAS anyone?  Should all MVPDs be bound by FEMA and FCC rules for EAS?  In a  way, it’s a good thing – if you’re watching some idiot trying to jump 50 oil drums with a garbage truck on Youtube and there’s a chlorine leak somewhere in the county, don’t you want to know?

If we look back, we can trace the steps from cable being limited in the number of channels it carried.  Then it was forced to expand. Then local origination was forbidden.  Oh, then, it was mandatory…and along with it, public access channels.

We went through must-carry…and the leapfrogging fight.  At each turn, it seems, there was a flip-flop, or if not, a decision that said that what had been ordered in the past was radically wrong – even though the industry had operated fairly well during that time.

Now – flash forward.  Not too far.  It’s a time when there are no more “networks” or “channels.”  Long time, you think?  Remember that networks exist[ed] to distribute programming.  Broadcast networks were forbidden from becoming MVPDs.  They only had one feed.  They couldn’t provide multiple sets of programming at the same time.  If you doubt that, give NBC a call and ask them what happened to their Blue Network.

As networks evolved, they became brands.  Some, like DuMont, went the way of Peak Toothpaste.  Others survived and morphed – supported by O&O stations which provided channels.  These were specific, assigned groups of frequencies that standardized television transmission and reception in the US.  And as the O&O’s grew so did affiliates who took the networks’ feeds at least part of the day in exchange for compensation paid them for carrying their network’s commercials.  As they grew, the O&O’s and the affiliates became brands in and of themselves. 

We gradually became accustomed to seeking out specific content on a given network by going to the channel distributing it locally.  Cool.  If you want to continue living in the 20^th century.  But not na’more.  We do find content by way of networks.  But we also find it through hundreds of other sources on the web, in the cloud or, today, via VOD on cable, quasi-VOD on satellite, heck, even RedBox can be considered a distribution channel. 

And as these hundreds of channels grow in popularity, the call for a network – in the classic sense – is diminished.  And channels – as in TV or cable channels – well, who cares.  You’ve heard me say it before – nobody cares what kind of car delivers their pizza.  It’s the pizza.  And, similarly, few care about how the content gets to them.  It’s the content itself.  Yeah, you want me to trot out the “Content is King” bromide.  Well, I won’t.  Uh oh. I just…well, moving on.

People are proving that they can find good content.  Kids are best at it.  The car-keys set is almost as good.  Frankly, we’re all getting better at it.  Good thing.  The days of getting 125 GRP’s to promote a program on air are gone.  “Back then” you could burn those off with a few shared :30’s and some voice-over-crawl announcements.  Not anymore.  Networks are finding it harder and harder to promote their programs.  Channels find it increasingly difficult to promote and protect their brand…because it IS about the content now, and not about the channel.

Now, please take all of the last few paragraphs and use it to frame the concept of MVPDs.  Just as audio streaming and computer audio recording and editing is whittling away at the need for a label, so is the ability to do the same with video eliminating the need for channels and networks.  So if everyone can do it, how do you regulate everyone and require them to submit to new laws on distribution – or the old ones which are being applied in an archaic manner?  You can’t.

Where does it go from here?  You only have to think about it for a second before you realize that if you have the ability to tell someone about some new content, you have a good chance of sampling.  After all, isn’t that what a network or channel does with its promos?  If I can tell you about a new show, I have a fighting chance you’ll give it a shot.  And where’s the best place to do that?  “A witch.”  (Sorry, that’s the answer to an entirely different Monty Python question.)  The best place is the EPG – electronic program guide.

If I have control of that, I get to decide what you see when you go to it.  It won’t matter where it comes from.  You may make your choice to watch it based on who produced it or wrote it, or who’s starring in it, or whatever.  But, regardless, I have first shot at you with the EPG.

And there’s been an ongoing fight there – well over 10 years - but I’ll leave that for another installment.  If you want to read ahead, remember this suit? 

Meanwhile, grab some chips and salsa, sit back and watch the government try to thread this MVPD needle.  And if you have Slingbox® or a similar device, and you can have two people watching different programming on their laptops with it, ask yourself, “Am I an MVPD?”  Then, when the government comes a knockin’ at the door, tell ‘em, “We already got one.”

NAB 2012

NAB is probably the largest collection of professional gearheads in the world.  The absolute latest, some still prototyped and demonstrated only after the sales engineer bows his/her head in prayer, broadcast goodies emerge there. 

As you would expect, given the continuing convergence of broadcast and “new” media, all those Oreos and sodas are there, too.

Things have changed.  Duh! But this year was especially significant.  It wasn’t a great anniversary like ’06 for quad tape.  No single revolutionary product like Red in 2007.  Instead, it was a year of, well, for me, realization and for the industry, one of maturation.

Here’s my take:

First, I saw hundreds of boxes to do thousands of things.  Convert anything to anything with a BNC in/BNC out black box.  Seriously.  I think I saw one that had ATSC in and black coffee out.  Then, if you look a little further, you find out that a lot of the same things that you buy black boxes for can be done in the digital domain with software.  One case, one processor (or multiple processors) with ins and outs and you don’t need any of the little black boxes at all.  It’s interesting to see which manufacturers are looking at software solutions compared to those looking to sell hardware problem solvers.  

Imaging devices:  Unless I get an assignment that calls for day-in, day-out shooting, I’m gonna rent. It’s changing so fast that you make a commitment, sign the papers, and before delivery, the XV3 is out, replacing the XV2.5 you just bought. 

I will say this – images are just plain gorgeous.  The range of the sensors is so wide (claiming up to 13 f/stops) that they’re presenting new challenges to the receivers/monitors…and working at 20-30 fc of light.  Lenses have caught up with HD and the definition and resolution are terrific.  And it's funny seeing a jib floating around with apparently nothing on it - only to see a DSLR  anchored to the baseplate.

Of course, a couple of things you can’t do anything about – depth of field is depth of field.  HD shortens it and that’s that.  But add a little extra light, get a couple more stops down, and you get your DOF back.  And, speaking of lighting, the LED luminaire is mature.  You can shoot with cool, low power lighting just about anywhere.  [After the fact note:  when you increase the sharpness of the "sharpest" area as with improved lens and sharper sensor, depth of field apparently goes DOWN.  But it depends on what you're viewing it on.  A hi-def image has lots more apparent depth of field when viewed on an NTSC receiver.  That's because the maximum sharpness is much less - so the sharpest image appears less so,, more like the slightly out of focus portions of the image just to either side, in distance from the lens, of the actual focused distance.]

One thing remains the same – the use of lights to control the resultant image.  LED’s don’t eliminate the need for multiple instruments (you can’t dump a bunch of LED’s onto a ceiling and shoot away expecting different results compared to doing the same thing with incandenscents,  fluorescents, or HMI’s).  But whatever you do, it’s a lot cooler and easier.  Hang a two pound panel and you’re shooting f11 at 15 feet – and for 3 hours on a battery.  Awrighty then.

3D.  Don’t sell that flatscreen just yet.  Sony, among others, demonstrated their glasses-less 3D.  This is for large screen.  I’d rather they called it 2.5D.  Nothing really came off the screen at me like when the Creature from the Black Lagoon scared the pants off me in a theater.  And while the gathered crowds oohed and ahhed at first, there was a bunch of sotto voce grumbling as the demo ended.  Same with Dolby’s version.  They suffered some additional problems, a bunch of high-end artifacts that spoiled the motion.  If you have HD with glasses, well, good for you.  Not a lot of programming but you’re an early adopter.  As for glasses-less…wait for the .1 version if you know what I mean.

Workflow:  Nobody wants to sell you just a camera.  Or a switcher or storage by itself, either.  They want you to use their entire system for “workflow”.  It’s the only way to ensure quality.  Well, that’s what they said!  It ain’t true.  If there’s any interface problem, either software or one of those boxes I talked about will solve it.  Speaking of switchers.  Ha!  They’re not.  They’re video program managers capable of controlling multiple feeds with multiple layers (and in multiple languages).  And they’re smart enough to automate a lot of what a TD once did.

Audio:  Both AES and IP audio abound.  In fact, once audio goes into the digital domain – which can be a USB microphone or hard disc audio – it doesn’t have to leave until it reaches the final audio amp or transmitter input.  I saw a guy named Hum out in front of the convention center begging.  He’s pretty well out of business.

An interesting thread was talk regarding the CALM Act and most of the techies laughing at the fact that, once again, trying to pass legislation to control laws of physics doesn’t work.  And speaking of the CALM Act, Rules:  The big concern was text-to-speech in the EAS rules.  Breaths were bated in anticipation of the commission’s announcement that would reinstate the TTS rule that they eliminated in the Fifth Report and Order.  It didn’t happen.  OK.  It did, but they waited until after the event.  None too soon since April 23 is the deadline.

Worth the trip?  Absolutely.  If you have to stay current, you have to make it out there.  I had some assignment and was looking for some particular gear.  Even if I hadn’t, well, it’s still so doggoned much fun just lookin’ at the goodies.

EAS - Take a Giant Step "Back to the Future"

The national EAS test has come and gone. I’ve been through about 400 or so posts about what went right (the event did happen, it brought the tech community a lot closer together and spotlighted the common goal of success, a majority of decoders did trigger, there was no Mercury Theater of the Air panic by the citizenry and no actual attacks were initiated during the test period) and what went wrong (missed relays - including an entire state, daisy chains that looped back on themselves, cable and over-the-air test info either duplicated or non-existent, dropped audio, poor audio, reverb/echo/feedback audio and a few others).

The recommendations for moving forward are coming from every direction:

• Scrap the whole system and start over

• Keep the system as-is, the test went well

• Modify the system to (place your favorite verb here) and then ____ (about 50 different ideas)

• Make it smartphone-centric

• Make it satellite-centric

• Make it Internet-centric

• Increase the number of PEP’s

• Decrease the number of PEP’s

• Run more frequent national tests

• Take it away from the government

• Turn it all over to the government

After fielding calls from a number of clients – before, during and after the test – it becomes abundantly clear that KISS (keep it simple, stupid) was made for this.

First, stop and think of what the test was about. This wasn’t CAP. It wasn’t a series of chlorine tank cars on their sides in Omaha or Denver. It was national. It was to see how the system works when there’s an emergency that affects the entire country. That’s it. It sought the answer to a simple question: Can the POTUS (or his/her designate) get a message to all of us in case of emergency. This message may take 30 seconds or it could continue for days or even weeks. After all, we don’t know what the emergency might be and/or what instructions need to be given or citizen actions need to take place.

So now think about KISS. We’re certainly not doing that. The relays and daisy chains work – to a degree – but they take time and every level is subject to error. If you know that you’re going to have a 5% error factor in every layer of relay, which is better: 10 layers or 2? Doh!

So how do you do that. Whew-boy. Here’s where I get pummeled for talking about that positive step backward…to AM radio. To AM being the platform for launching all national alerts.

I must be kidding, right? Well would a kidder go one step further and suggest reexamining 500 kilowatt operation. Now I must really be kidding. Nope. Here’s the thinking:

As was proposed years ago, many of the clears could operate at 500kW. Yes, some may have to directionalize to protect neighbors to the north and south. A few would have to protect one another. But with a little study, we could get to a .5 mv/m or at least 100uv/m coverage* of the entire country with few – very few – facilities. Fewer facilities means fewer mistakes. Remember, this is for national alerts. Yes, the “PEP’s” (not so primary anymore) would be involved and each station would be part of a chain, but with all stations monitoring the 500kw operators, there’s be only two – count ‘em, two – links. Not bad.

Now, a couple of other advantages:

Contrary to using satellites, the web, or cellular as the base platform, 500 kW transmitters with tube modulators and finals are much less susceptible to EMP. Many AM towers are some distance away from cities’ population centers…less likely to be affected by nuclear or EMP attacks (wow – this IS going backwards). In fact, the only real danger would be if an enemy attacked us with CFL light bulbs.

Now the forgotten selling point: give me a little wire, let me unwrap a 1N34A from its lead-foil package and attach it to a crystal headphone and I’m listening to AM. No discriminator, no limiter, no D/A converter, NO BATTERY. Now someone’s going to say that I need a tuned circuit – and offer to sell me a 365mmf variable – but, believe it or not, in many cases, one station will dominate, at least enough for communication to take place. Yeah, if you live in Itasca, IL, halfway between the WBBM and WGN towers, I don’t want to hear from you. Go buy yourself a ferrite loop and tuning cap. And don’t bring up preemphasis. It’s not a factor here. The words will get heard.

Heck, you could even go digital! CW that is. I just don’t want to be the telegraph operator if they direct cathode-key the final.

Your counter to that argument should be, “Wait, you said national emergency and that AM’s should be the primary platform.” That’s true. The recommendation is that the super power AM’s provide the initial link. So the entire discussion of individuals and their 1N34a’s shouldn’t apply. Well, take the whole emergency thing one step further. It’s an actual emergency. EMP or other types of non-ionizing or, worse, ionizing radiation has limited or prevented travel while, at the same time, wiping out all those MOSFET gates, TWT’s, and maybe even good old bipolar transistors. Let’s hope it never gets to that point but if it does and my local FM’s and lower power AM’s are off the air, I’d sure like to unwrap the lead from around that little gem, hook it up, and find out if it’s safe to drive the heck out of town.

OK, back to EAS. High power AM can work. Because it’s just simple. Now – why won’t it happen? The filings and counterfilings, suits and countersuits that will ensue as stations seek upgrades, the jealousy of owners locked out of a power increase because of an overlap, and the thinking that complex is better than simple. Or the thinking that complex employs more people than simple.

But remember, to reach the entire country, the fewer hops the better. And this one has just 1. That’s probably its downfall. The president communicates to the 500 kilowatters and everyone monitors them. Just doesn’t sound complex enough to work.

Then I think of DaVinci’s words, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” If you do a study of 1400’s Italian you find the translation actually means KISS.

*Important to note that man made noise certainly has impact here. Power lines, ignition noise and those great compact fluorescents will definitely be a problem. But then, there’s a lot of this country where power lines and ignition noise aren’t problems…and CFL’s can at least be turned off – if there’s any electricity at all.