Feed aggregator

NEW YORK — With accolades from esteemed colleagues including the retired Chairman and CEO of the company he serves as Chief Operating Officer for, Jordan Wertlieb of Hearst was fêted in style on Monday evening as the Broadcasters Foundation of America awarded the executive with its Golden Mic Award at a gala event held at the Plaza Hotel.

With former Hearst head David Barrett in attendance, Wertlieb was honored by Hearst Corporation SVP Michael J. Hayes and by the retired Graham Media Group President/CEO, Emily Barr.

The event also paid homage to the legacy of the late Phil Lombardo, the former BFOA Chairman and founder of television station owner Citadel Communications. Lombardo, whose stewardship saw the Foundation’s annual financial assistance skyrocket from $60,000 to nearly $850,000, was remembered for his thirteen years of dedicated service.

Journalist Soledad O’Brien emceed the event as its host, as the BFOA also honored Inside Edition anchor Deborah Norville with the 2024 Edward F. McLaughlin Lifetime Achievement Award.

Norville has been a Broadcasters Foundation Board Member for 23 years.

Entertainment for the night was provided by singer Pete Caldera, known for his renditions of classic hits by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

The event was more than a night of reflection and celebration; it was also a meaningful fundraiser to support the BFOA’s crucial mission. The foundation, set to deliver approximately $1.8 million in aid in 2024, continues its commitment to providing assistance to broadcasters facing hardship.

— With reporting by Cameron Coats 

LOS ANGELES — Across the broadcast television landscape, stations have invested heavily in local news expansion, with new studios and added hours of coverage being seen in markets across the U.S.

Now, the world’s largest media company producing content in Spanish is widening the amount of local newscasts en español for viewers in four DMAs — including L.A.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A broadcast television station serving Upstate South Carolina with no less than 10 digital multicast channels has received the FCC’s blessing to transition from a VHF facility to a more powerful UHF channel.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A Class B1 noncommercial religious radio station serving Beckley, W. Va., within the tiny market shared with the city of Bluefield, is poised to change hands.

With the FCC’s blessing, it will no longer be the property of Slingshot Broadcasting Corp.

On February 24, the licensee agreed to donate WBWV-FM 88.7 in Beckley to New River Christian Ministries.

With this deal, WBWV will be heading to its second-ever licensee, as Slingshot debuted in 2011 after Slingshot built the facility, acting on a Construction Permit it earned three years earlier.

New River is a 50/50 partnership led by Richard and Susan Lewis; it is a nonprofit based in West Virginia.

 

By Brian Galante

RAYMOND, ME. — Sinclair subsidiary Dielectric has developed a new green, cost-reducing load solution featuring a closed-loop cooling system, a new advancement that protects RF System components from failures that can cause extensive harm to the transmission system and shelter.

To be introduced at NAB Show 2024, OptiLoad uses programmable logic controls (PLCs) to sense rising RF power and temperature levels, awakening the system to take action.

OptiLoad’s PLCs also monitor the health of the demand-driven circulator pumps and fans that are activated to address RF flow and temperature rises.

The OptiLoad design includes a water column load that Dielectric has offered for two decades, with more than 5000 units shipped worldwide. Using the water column load as a building block, Dielectric has added a built-in heat exchanger responsive to PLC activations. The water column load can run without coolant flow or fans activated with powers up to 5kW. This ensures plenty of headroom when RF is detected and the coolant and fans start to operate prior to the load seeing 5kW.

The entire SNMP-enabled system is centralized to a compact cabinet with wheels that can be located quietly in the corner, and easily be moved to a new space in the facility as transmission systems are redesigned. The SNMP functionality will allow the transmitter to do a daily handshake. If that handshake does not occur the station will be notified to prevent failures.

“OptiLoad’s modern design is a true convergence of passive RF equipment, electronics and sensing that was brought to life by our engineering team,” Dielectric President Keith Pelletier said. “It speaks volumes to the future of the RF business. For our customers, it addresses the all-too-frequent failures in the RF chains and a peace of mind that they have a solution that they do not need to worry about. The OptiLoad was customer-driven and we listened to their concerns about reliability and required features.”

Pelletier explained the importance of the passive RF load and a closed loop system in the design of the OptiLoad.

“This will prevent the coolant from getting contaminated and causing failures within the load that would eventually cause failures in the RF plumbing to the combining system,” he said. “Once the load fails, other components will as well if not caught soon enough. Once the coolant stops working or is no longer flowing through the pipes, failures and damage are imminent. Entire systems must be replaced in some cases, and cleanup services may be required to remove coolant from the floors. It can quickly turn very expensive.”

The OptiLoad can be used in multiple scenarios. For high-power TV systems, OptiLoad assumes the role of load solution for the transmitter combining rack. In this scenario, the typical RF power moving to the load is very small or non-existent.

In traditional RF TV systems, the standalone load requires the consistent flow of coolant moving through the system to prevent catastrophic failure. OptiLoad’s logic controls only apply power to the fans, releasing coolant flows through the load as required. This makes OptiLoad a very green solution, as the load remains turned off 95 percent of the time. When a power imbalance occurs, OptiLoad protects the entire RF chain until the amplifiers can be replaced or repaired. Once repaired, OptiLoad goes dormant until called upon again.

OptiLoad is a potential RF troubleshooting tool. In this second scenario, engineers can use OptiLoad as a station load when they need to test the transmitter or isolate the transmission line and antenna to identify and solve a problem. Same as the first scenario, OptiLoad only awakens and ramps up to full power if the load is being utilized, offsetting electricity costs and reducing power bills for the broadcaster.

OptiLoad further protects the broadcaster’s RF investment through several operating modes. It will transition to standby mode without RF power present when coolant temperatures are less than 130 degrees. OptiLoad initiates flow from the high-efficiency circulator pump when temperatures land between 130 and 150 degrees; fans are activated when the temperature rises from there.

“OptiLoad turns on the moment it senses the presence of RF, and ramps up from there utilizing variable speed fans and adjusting coolant flow rates,” Pelletier said. “This is the first system of its kind to recognize the presence of RF, which simply makes it the safest choice for protection in the market. As a closed-loop system, the coolant circulates strictly within OptiLoad to keep the liquid fresh. We have also simplified the overall design, favoring a minimal number of connections to ensure the coolant lines run consistently and without failure. We have essentially eliminated all leak points and addressed all necessary activations for system protection to ensure RF shelter floors remain dry and the passive RF parts remain intact for future use.”

Find Dielectric at the NAB Show at the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center between April 14-17, 2024, at booth W3333.

In January 2021, a 20-year run ended when San Jose Sharks play-by-play departed the airwaves of Bonneville International-owned KUFX “98.5 KFOX.”

What did the team do? It launched digital delivery of its game-day coverage — and more. Today, a 24/7 audio network exists for the Sharks, and its fueled by a StreamGuys application.

Specifically, it is the SGrecast offering that manages all podcast automation, rebroadcasting and live streaming across multiple platforms for the Sharks Audio Network. Delivering a mix of live regular season and Stanley Cup playoff games alongside a packed schedule of on-demand content, the team produces a full program of interviews, player profiles, replays, pre-game shows, highlight packages, lifestyle programs and live news.

With a background in radio, veteran play-by-play announcer Dan Rusanowsky is also involved in all areas of audio production. Now in his 33rd year with the Sharks, he is ideally placed to keep fans across all the action from what the locals refer to as the “Shark Tank.”

“I am best known as the play-by-play commentator for the San Jose Sharks, but I also operate the Shark’s audio network and, along with our staff, coordinate everything related to audio production,” says Rusanowsky, who has been with the Sharks since the team was formed in 1991. “I was charged with setting up radio network coverage, so managing audio has always been a normal part of operations for me,” he adds. “When we went 24 hours it expanded everything we were doing.”

Having worked with StreamGuys since 2019, Rusanowsky turned to its SGrecast SaaS platform to help him convert and republish live content, expand the platform’s distribution, and monetize the Sharks’ online footprint to get a bigger bite of their overseas fanbase. With most listeners accessing its stream on the Sharks Plus SAP Center app, the San Jose Sharks website also uses the SGrecast player to provide a dedicated hookup.

“Although we still have a terrestrial radio network in Northern California, we don’t currently have a flagship radio station in the Bay Area, and we decided to push people toward our 24-hour programming on the app,” says Rusanowsky. “It gives us access to people in places we have never been able to reach before, and SGrecast makes it very easy to continue to deliver programming to the NHL and to our partners at Skyview Satellite for our terrestrial affiliates.”

SGrecast acts as a bank which manages all team programming, and automatically archives the content. “SGrecast’s record capability gives us an aircheck of a game within minutes of the program finishing,” Rusanowsky says. “It means we can edit and repackage quickly; we can upload a condensed version for reuse, remove outdated commercials, or edit out any mistakes on the live broadcast, and re-upload them wither in the same or in a different space. SGrecast makes it very easy.”

The Sharks’ approach to generating content means it now has a dedicated studio at the SAP Center that replaces the studio that they would have had at the radio station, and being in full control of content means that not only are more people getting hooked on the Sharks, but the team is also better able to monetize content for even greater return.

“Terrestrial radio still does live programming very well, but I think that that’s starting to change with the younger population,” Rusanowsky notes. “Operating across multiple channels allows us to utilize our programming for client acquisition as well as client retention, and the Sharks Audio Network is an outstanding way to make sure that our fans stay engaged with the product.”

“Dan’s production creativity has led to exciting republishing workflows where the Sharks repurpose on-demand content as live, and live as on-demand,” says StreamGuys’ Neil Carducci, its Quality Assurance Tester.

Rusanowsky adds that they are using StreamGuys’ ad insertion technology to inject commercials into non-live programming, and the analytics helps them share with advertisers how many impressions the ads are getting, who they are reaching and who is finding their product. Meanwhile, SGreports tells them who, where and when people are listening to the full stream, helping them identify regions where interest is strong, and target marketing in those areas.

“It’s like expanding transmitter coverage to an infinite area and doing it with full digital quality. I think a lot of organizations with smaller audiences would find it very valuable,” he concludes. “If you can get a signal out and get an audience, and do it in a very cost-effective way, there’s no reason why anybody wouldn’t want to do it.”

— Reporting by Brian Galante, in Boston, with additional reporting and editing by Adam R Jacobson in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

.

.

The Petitioner requests the substitution of channel 29 for channel 2 at Greenville, SC, in the Table of TV Allotments

.

.

There is one skill that everyone should know: How to solder! 

First we should offer this advice: Every job is so much easier when using the proper tools. 

Over the years I have created a short list of basic hand tools that I carry that fulfill nearly every need in electronic work and repair: 

• Cable TV F-connector removal tool
• Medium-sized Philips screwdriver
• Medium-sized straight screwdriver
• small tongue-and-groove plier for removing stripped-out screws (Channellock 426)
• Slip-joint “gas” plier (Diamond P27)
• Adjustable wrench (Crescent AC16C)
• Small combination screwdriver and nut driver (Xcelite 600)
• Medium-sized wire cutter
• Adjustable wire stripper
• Three Xcelite miniature adjustment screwdrivers: R3322 “greenie.” P12S “bluey,” R181 “reddie”
• Miniature nut wrench for tightening computer posts (Xcelite P6 3/16)
• Needle-nose plier
• Two fine wire cutters
• Pencil, pen and computer memory stick 

A set of tools like this can literally last a lifetime. They fit into a convenient pouch like a Klein Tools 5139. You can conquer the world with this kit!

Everybody has individual tools that they like to have and use, and certain tasks will dictate your list. Can anyone survive without a Dremel tool and a set of metric and standard ratchet nut wrenches? 

Useful hand tools for electronic work Credit: N2KZ photo The Big Melt

The main tool you need for soldering is a soldering iron. Today’s electronics usually require a 25- or 40-watt iron with a needle or small spade tip. Make sure your iron has an adjustable thermostat to hold it at the hot temperature; otherwise your joints will not be consistent. Runaway heat can eat up your soldering tips and end their life prematurely.

A proper soldering station is a lifetime investment. Buy once and use forever! For decades, Weller has been the standard for professional and hobby soldering. A Weller WE1010NA is a very good choice. On a budget, the basic Weller WLC100 will serve you well. 

A few accessories are in order. I recommend three small plastic squirt bottles. 

To aid in difficult soldering, keep a needle-nose bottle containing rosin flux; this will allow the solder to flow with ease when you need extra help. 

Soldering iron with needle tip.

A similar bottle should be at hand with water to keep your station sponge moist. Wipe the tip of your soldering iron along the sponge after each action for a clean start every time. 

The third bottle should contain 99% alcohol. Moisten a cotton swab with it and scrub your work lightly to remove brown and sticky left-over flux from completed joints. 

Finally, purchase a set of 2CYX5 hole cleaner tools to clean PC board component holes. These are long and thin miniature files that will prepare the holes before inserting a replacement part. 

Here is the cardinal rule: When soldering components or wires to a PC board or chassis, cut the lead before you solder the joint! If you cut it after you solder, the snip action will shatter the joint. Dissimilar metals (the solder and the wire) will be exposed to oxidation. It will not be a sealed joint.

The correct method is to position the component, bend the leads that come through the board in the direction of the PC board “pads” and “lands” and snip both before soldering. This makes a good physical connection before you seal your work with solder. 

Place the hot iron tip at the hole for a second or two to heat the joint. With your other hand, touch the solder to the tip and turn the tip very slightly as the solder melts over the joint. Use just enough solder to fill the PC board hole without making a bead of solder apparent. 

Paladin heat gun. (Credit: N2KZ photo)

Similarly, when you are working on a chassis, wrap the wire once around the terminal strip or post to make a solid physical connection and snip it to fit. Then seal the exposed wire to the post with just enough solder to make a good joint. Cut first, then solder!

If you are making connections with stranded wire, strip its insulation to bare enough wire to make the connection with a wire stripper. Twist the wire gently in your fingers until the wrap is tight, then seal the wire threads by melting a small amount of solder along the wire to “tin” them in place. 

This approach makes the ends of your stranded wires just like a solid conductor. It also aids eventual soldering to the PC board or terminal connection. 

The term “tin” comes from the composition of the solder itself. Most electronic solders are a combined alloy of 60% tin and 40% lead, or 63% tin and 37% lead. Examine a piece of solder cut with a wire cutter and you may see an amazing part of its formulation. Most solders have built-in “multicores” of rosin flux made from pine sap. Brown or golden in color, the rosin aids the solder to melt and adhere to metal joints known as “wetting.” Having the flux built into the solder saves you from applying the flux separately and will save you a lot of time as you build your project. 

How do you know you have made a good solder connection? A fine solder joint should look shiny and smooth without creating a bead from too much applied solder. 

If you remove your solder tip too slowly, you may create an unsightly “icicle.” If you move your component or wire before the joint has cooled it will look porous, cracked or dull gray. These “cold” solder joints make a miserable connection and will just cause trouble. Remember: Shiny and smooth = good! 

The Weller WE1010NA comes with a one-channel soldering station, a WEP 70 electric soldering iron and a PH 70 safety rest. Tips for a professional look

When you build a circuit board or chassis, position all of your components in the same direction. Resistor color codes should run up to down with the tolerance band towards the bottom of the chassis, or consecutive left to right. Similarly, capacitor positive side bands should be at the top or at the left with all the numbers (100uf 25VDC or whatever) all facing the same way and easily readable. 

When positioning components vertically, make a squared-off bend at the top. This makes for a professional look and provides a nice place to grasp the lead with a meter or test probe if necessary. Quick rounded-off ends are never the same twice and don’t look like they were made formally. In all cases, try to position components uniformly across your project in a neat and thoughtful manner. 

Should there ever be a point where component leads come too close to each other and may possibly touch, a piece of plastic tubing can provide insulation that may save you from catastrophe. If you don’t have factory-made tubing available, a leftover piece of wire insulation may suffice. A piece of tubing can also cover points where wires have been spliced or otherwise repaired. 

Also available is “heat shrink” tubing, the deluxe material for insulating wires and splices. Heat shrink has a rubbery plastic feel and will conform to the shape of whatever is inside it. Cut an appropriate length to cover your wires or repair, then apply heat using a heat gun — like a hair dryer but higher in air temperature — and watch the tubing shrink a wrap itself tightly around your work. 

Construction hints

Repairing circuit boards requires more advanced skills. If you need to remove and replace a component — maybe a burnt resistor or a shorted capacitor — you’ll need to remove the solder from the solder joint as part of your “rework.”

Scrap telecom wire is suitable for small projects.
Credit:
N2KZ photo

There are three ways to skin this cat. 

Some people prefer to use a weaved braid of fine wire called solderwick. When a solder joint is reheated, you can place a piece of solderwick on the joint and hope the molten solder will migrate to the wick, pulling it away from the joint. This is troublesome because the wick adds a lot of surface area and the solder will require a great deal of heat to become molten. The PC board and the etched wiring lands and pads can also become overheated and come off the board. This isn’t fun and it’s difficult to do.

You can also use a “solder sucker” such as the Edsyn Soldapullt. This is a long cylindrical pumped suction device. You press a plunger down into the cylinder. Heat the joint with your soldering iron until it becomes molten.

Place the Soldapullt’s point over the solder joint, then quickly press the round button in the middle of the tool and you will create a powerful momentary suction that instantly removes the molten solder with grace and style. I prefer this method. 

An expensive version of this concept is seen in professional rework stations. A hand-held metal nozzle heats to solder-melting temperature. Place the nozzle over your joint and press down on a foot pedal switch. The nozzle will apply suction and discreetly clean the joint. You have to keep the nozzle clean to continue having good suction. 

[Sign Up for Radio World’s SmartBrief Newsletter]

Conspire to wire

While I am at it, let me please include some wiring tips. 

I have seen all sorts of ways, simple and complex, of holding wiring in place as you attempt to solder wires to a connector or whatever. People use desk vises, vises with alligator clip attachments, expensive pivoting frames and lots of other things.

Having spent a long time on the road, I developed simple methods of getting repairs and wiring done with simplicity. 

One trick I like is to make a needle-nose or other plier into a locking plier by wrapping a rubber band around the handles. It will hold anything with a gentle touch so you can solder it without effort.

I have developed a similar technique by resting heavier tools like my large wire cutter over a wire or cable to hold it in place. It works like a charm! When you get the hang of this, wiring can become quite rapid and easy. I use this for soldering all sorts of things especially audio XLR connectors or multi-pin “mult” cables for connecting multiple audio circuits with one large cable.

Speaking of soldering cables that require multiple connections: Always slide the collar or shell of the connector onto the cable before you do all your painstaking soldering. Nothing is sadder than a beautifully built connector without its cover. The agony! 

Prepare the multi-wire end by stripping and tinning the ends before soldering. Remember the wires that go to the outside pins need to be slightly shorter than the inside pins. Start by soldering the inside pins first and work your way out to the outside to finalize your job. It is much easier to do when your work is in the clear instead of trying to solder around wires you have already completed!

Learn to use just the right amount of solder to make a good connection. Don’t overload a “cup” with too much solder so it beads up and expands over the connection point. 

Also, get to know the place to adjust your iron for the correct temperature. Too hot melts plastic and ruins connectors. Too cold makes for crystalized cold solder joints, lousy connections and peril! 

Be very careful with PC boards that have connections inside the board layers. Multi-layer boards are best repaired at the factory and not at your bench. Professional PC boards are often made by a process called wave soldering, where all the components are placed perfectly by automation before soldering. The boards then go precisely through a carefully heated and prepared bath of solder for pristine results. Similarly, surface-mount technology boards are fragile and require great care. Sophisticated expensive workstations and advanced skills are needed to enter the land of SMTs! High-tech boards are hard to repair in the field. Beware!

Also useful: Consider using the single-conductor wire found in either Cat-5 and Cat-6 cable and/or wiring used for old-fashioned telephone “telco” connections. These are fine-gauge single-conductor solid wires with a variety of color codes. Grab this kind of wire whenever you can. It makes excellent wiring for your projects or PC board land and pad repairs. Very useful and usually free. Scraps can be gifts!

Finally, keep in mind that my experiences are my own and not to be thought of as universal. We all have developed habits and procedures for soldering and construction that are comfortable for us. I would love to hear your hints. 

Comment to radioworld@futurenet.com. This article was published in PCARA Update, the journal of the Peekskill Cortlandt Amateur Radio Association and is reused with permission. 

The post Karl’s Soldering Tips for Beginners appeared first on Radio World.

Two more property owners have received the FCC’s “pirate radio” letter.

The commission has informed Charles Wyatt that agents from its Atlanta office, acting on a complaint, traced a signal on 87.9 MHz to his property in Greenville, S.C. 

That happened in March of 2022. The letter didn’t explain why it took two years for the notice to be issued.

Separately the commission has notified Somerset Maplewood LLC that a signal on 91.7 was traced to its property in Maplewood, N.J. That was in August of 2023.

Both letters inform the owners that third parties who help or enable pirate broadcasts are liable to federal penalties of up to $2.4 million under the PIRATE Act.

The commission recently told Congress that to help fight pirate radio, it had hired four full-time people in fiscal 2023 and was in the process of hiring more.

[Related: “Pirate Radio Is Not Just a Big-City Problem”]

The post Pirate Letters Go to South Carolina, New Jersey appeared first on Radio World.

It calls itself “an advocacy coalition dedicated to protecting consumer choice and innovation in the streaming video marketplace.” That’s D.C. parlance for a lobbying group that believes “healthy competition” doesn’t involve in any way the expansion of retransmission consent legislation enacted some three decades ago to virtual MVPDs such as YouTube TV and Hulu — members of this coalition.

Now, the Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition is calling out the voice of broadcast media  in Washington for its efforts to help get carriage fees from these digitally distributed platforms.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

The witty news quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” from NPR and WBEZ was first broadcast from Chicago on Jan. 3, 1998. It originally was assembled with content from NPR studios in Chicago, Washington and other locations as needed, until settling in for many years at Chicago’s Chase Auditorium.

“Wait Wait” continued undaunted during the pandemic, when productions from Chase were replaced by Zoom meetings from the homes of host Peter Sagal, the show’s panelists and audience participants. 

Today, “Wait Wait” is back before a live audience at Chicago’s Studebaker Theater and in venues across America. 

In December 2023, the New York Section of the Audio Engineering Society hosted an event at Mercy University, providing a look behind the scenes of the show. AES Fellow David Bialik hosted “Wait Wait” Technical Director Lorna White and Production Manager Robert Neuhaus. 

The “Wait Wait” website states that White “began working at NPR in 1984 as a child” and that she was assigned to the show “when she was old enough to tell fart jokes.” And it says that Neuhaus “has spent a lifetime creating funny noises and helping other people hear them” and that for NPR “he has recorded everything from important politicians to squealing hogs, and still manages to tell the difference.”

Here’s a sampling of the AES talk and a link to a video archive.

Chicago’s Studebaker Theater is now the home of “Wait Wait” when it is not traveling. The crew sets up in front of the set of whatever stage show happens to be running at the time. A fast and cheap birth

Recorded in front of a live audience on Thursday night and edited Friday for broadcast that weekend, “Wait Wait” has become a cherished public radio anchor show, nourished by the wry snappy patter of Sagal; the warmth and humor of the late Carl Kasell, the official judge and scorekeeper until 2014; and Kasell’s equally sagacious successor Bill Kurtis. 

Regular panelists over the years have included the likes of Paula Poundstone, Tom Bodett, Bobcat Goldthwait, Roy Blount Jr., Peter Grosz, Helen Hong and numerous others, many of them comedians. It also has had numerous celebrity guest hosts. The program is heard on 741 stations by an estimated 3.1 million people, and the podcast gets 1.3 million downloads.

For such a popular radio show, “Wait Wait” had a short gestation. 

“NPR said, ‘We’re going to start this new show in six weeks and you’re going to record it over at the local public radio station, which is WBEZ, and edit it and put it out for broadcast,’” recalled Lorna White. 

“We had to just sort of kludge together the equipment that we had because there was no budget for this; it’s public radio.”

The program began traveling to other cities in 2000. Its first road show was at Westminster College, a small liberal arts school in Salt Lake City.

“We needed production elements,” she recalled, “so we had Carl walk around the stage with a large sign that said, ‘I’m Carl Kasell. NPR bigwigs are listening.’ We’d elicit laughs and applause so we could use them to cover edits later in the show. 

“The way we do production is kind of old-school but it works for us.”

Taking the program to other markets gives NPR stations there a boost, though it’s a lot of work. “When we came to a venue — which in the early days were tiny regional theaters, a church in Baltimore, a synagogue in Boston, whatever the public radio station could find for us — we used them as fundraising shows for the station,” White said. 

“They would put us in whatever venue that they could find or get on a trade. It wasn’t always ideal, but we would figure out how the show would work. … You come in, you load in, you hang in the banner, you find the tables, [then] you wait for the tablecloths. Because the tablecloths are never there and you can’t put anything on the table until there’s tablecloths.

“Sometimes we’ve gone to venues where we can’t get to the stage until afternoon,” she continued. “We usually like to hit the stage at 10 a.m. just to try to get everything plugged in before lunch at 1. Sometimes we’ve done festivals where that’s not possible. We can’t get on the stage till 2 o’clock, so we’ll set up backstage and then they’ll carry the tables out for us and we can do some fast plugging in and hope it all works that way.”

Audio gear ready to be deployed.

The show owns two sets of audio gear. One stays at the home theater in Chicago, and the second is shipped around the country. Even shipping the road cases of production equipment from city to city comes with risks. 

“We don’t have our own truck, we don’t have a driver,” White said. “They go out by freight, and the freight company holds them for us so that we’re not doing a complete round trip every show. They’ll go from Portland, Maine, to New York City, then we just ship it onto the next place. We go out about once a month, once every four or five weeks.” She said the road cases themselves “never seem to last very long, when a forklift goes through them.” 

Bialik asked if the team brings redundant equipment in case of a problem. “No, no,” Neuhaus replied. “We live dangerously.” 

Robert Neuhaus pauses to appreciate the crowd at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colo., in 2014. No snow here

White and Neuhaus — who report to Executive Producer Mike Danforth and are supported by about 10 others, including writers — shared a few anecdotes.

Actor Tom Hanks has had a long-time association with “Wait Wait,” even filling in for host Peter Sagal. (You can listen to his episode here. Follow the menu to the episode for Jan. 14, 2017.)

Hanks also provided support during COVID when he sat in on a Zoom recording session — though the usually talkative and witty actor didn’t say a word: “He just watched the whole show,” White recalled. And Hanks was among the celebrities who called in for Kasell’s last show (President Barack Obama was another). 

Tom Hanks filled in for Peter Sagal in 2017. Panelists were Paula Poundstone, Luke Burbank and Faith Salie.

White said that the script isn’t always ready on time. 

“Once we performed in Fairbanks, Alaska, and a university spokesperson announced the show before the staff was ready. Luckily Paula Poundstone was there and did a short warmup for us until everyone was in place. Then Adam Felber had to pull her off so we could start.”

Another memory involved a three-day snowfall in Chicago in February 2011, known as the Groundhog Day Blizzard. According to the National Weather Service, it was the third largest snowstorm on record for the city.

Had things gone to plan, “Wait Wait” would have been leaving the chilly Midwest for the beaches of Miami that week. Neuhaus heeded the weather warnings and flew south early, as did Sagal. But everyone else on the program staff ended up running the show from home, after the city was snowed in. But with the help of an engineer who flew in from L.A. and an NPR staffer who came down from Washington, the “Wait Wait” team managed to get two live shows recorded and edited on location.

“By Friday everybody [in Chicago] was back in the office,” said Neuhaus, who was still in Florida. “I was emailing with a producer and teasing him by saying, ‘Hey, I need to wait a minute. I’m editing out on the balcony of my hotel room and the sun is too strong.’ He replied, ‘That’s OK, I need a minute to empty my trash can onto your desk.’” 

The first in-person show in 18 months. The Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, August 2022. Back in the groove

After 18 months of virtual productions, “Wait Wait” returned to the in-person format with live audience with a show from the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. 

“It was crazy how we felt out of place,” White said, “how much we forgot, how much the backstage crew had forgotten. We just weren’t in our groove. It was great to be working like this again.”

Today, when the show isn’t traveling, it appears on stage at Chicago’s Studebaker Theater. It also has appeared in iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood, though large musical venues that are acoustically very “live” can be challenging.

“We play better in theaters than in concert halls because of the resonance of the hall,” Neuhaus said. “But we adapt and we count on the staff of each venue to make it sound right.”

You can watch excerpts of the AES panel interview on Facebook video here.

The Workflow Lorna White

Lorna White described the program’s workflow for Radio World:

We think the audience wants to see a radio show, so for a road show we set up everything onstage, including our mix position. In our home at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, we have a booth in the third balcony. FOH mixing is done by the local stage crew. 

We use six omnidirectional DPA d:fine headset microphones and Sony MDR-7506 headphones instead of stage monitors. Peter Sagal wears Sensaphonics custom ear molds for his Sennheiser IE 200 earbuds (shown). 

Audience reactions are captured with two Sennheiser MKH 416 microphones on stands. The audio is fed into a Midas Venice 24-channel console, along with additional sources for audio clips, sound effects and listener calls. Special guests can be onstage or brought in via Zoom and projected onto a screen so the audience can see them. 

The show is mixed live to stereo and recorded onto two Sound Devices 722 recorders. The show audio files are copied onto CF cards and handed out to five staffers at the end of the night. 

All post-production happens on Friday, with three producers each editing a different segment on MacBook Pros running Adobe Audition CC. Sessions and other files are shared via Hightail. Robert and I then master the broadcast and podcast, which are distributed that weekend.

The post Behind the Scenes of “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” appeared first on Radio World.

Planning for the 2024 NAB Show is ramping up, and Radio World is asking exhibitors about their plans and expectations.

Johan Boqvist

Johan Boqvist is product evangelist of audio infrastructure at Lawo.

Radio World: From your perspective as a manufacturer of audio infrastructure products, what is the most important technology issue or trend for radio engineers and facility managers in 2024? 

Boqvist: In 2024, the key trend for radio engineers and facility managers is the adoption of IP-based production for its flexibility in distributed and remote scenarios. Lawo, with nearly a decade of experience in this field, supports AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110-based IP infrastructures, offering software-defined hardware and processing apps on standard servers.

Our HOME Apps also accommodate various transport protocols and compression formats like NDI, SRT, JPEG XS and H.26x. By leveraging WAN connections, equipment travel is minimized, enhancing resource efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. Lawo’s focus on user experience and agile tools align perfectly with broadcasters’ needs for instant scalability and centralized control.

RW: How significantly have the trends of virtualization and cloud-based platforms changed radio workflows and facility planning?

Boqvist: The trends of virtualization and cloud-based platforms have profoundly transformed radio workflows and facility planning. These technologies enable broadcasters to shift from traditional hardware-centric setups to more flexible, scalable and cost-effective solutions by software-defined hardware and purely software-based applications.

With virtualization, radio stations can consolidate their infrastructure, reducing physical space requirements and simplifying maintenance. Cloud-based platforms offer even greater agility, allowing broadcasters to access resources remotely, collaborate seamlessly and scale operations according to demand. Moreover, these trends facilitate distributed production, enabling teams to work together from anywhere, thereby revolutionizing traditional studio setups.

RW: What news will your company feature at the convention — any new products or services? 

Boqvist: Lawo will be presenting the new crystal, a versatile and uncompromised mixing console for broadcast and pro-audio applications, available in both a light and a dark finish. Paired with Power Core, Lawo’s compact 1RU Software-Defined DSP Mixing Engine and Modular I/O Device, the crystal console ensures seamless integration of RAVENNA/AES67, MADI, Dante, AES3, and analog signals, making it an ideal solution for future-proofing radio and TV broadcast operations.

The crystal console allows two distinct modes of operation — “Power Core” and “Controller.” Switched to controller mode, the crystal integrates with Lawo’s mc² systems or third-party DAW applications supporting the OSC protocol. 

The new crystal is available in both a light and a dark finish.

For the diamond modular broadcast console, that shares workflow principles and design with the new crystal, we introduce new stand-alone and desktop frames for the 32 key combo, 64 key, rotary and virtual extension modules. Lawo’s virtual soundcard product family R3LAY will be updated.

Also highlighted are Lawo’s HOME Apps, a suite of software applications offering exceptional processing capabilities on standard servers. These apps, supporting various transport protocols and compression formats like RAVENNA/AES67, SMPTE ST 2110, SRT, JPEG XS, NDI and H.264/H.265, redefine media processing versatility, enabling seamless adaptation to evolving formats and requirements.

A rendering of Lawo’s HOME Apps.

The .edge Hyper-Density SDI/IP Conversion and Routing Platform will be on show, a dense gateway facilitating SDI/IP interfacing and offering full support for SMPTE ST2110 standards. This platform, equipped with licensable options like JPEG XS compression and proxy generation, optimizes workflows and mitigates bandwidth constraints. Moreover, Lawo’s commitment to empowering live productions is evident in a new software release for the mc²/UHD Core/Power Core platform.

With features such as updated workflows and UI for Remote Productions, flexible bus routing, expanded AUX count, and NMOS support for the mc² Gateserver, Lawo sets a new benchmark for live performance capabilities.

Lawo’s Power Core Rev3

RW: Are there any other important technology trends that you’d like to comment on?

Boqvist: Alongside developing new innovative technologies and applications, Lawo recently introduced a complete new commercial offering concept that we named Lawo Flex. A tailed-made mix of perpetual licenses and subscription-based options for our cloud-native platform HOME and HOME Apps where we let the users decide on when and where they will spin the Apps. At NAB we can demo the portal and workflow for Lawo Flex. Please stop by and we will explain more how your organization can benefit from this business model. 

RW: What else will you be watching for at the convention?

Boqvist: Personally, I’m very much looking forward to meeting our customers again but also to check out what our Lawo HOME partners and the RAVENNA community have been up to since last year’s show.   

Lawo NAB Show booth: C4110

[Read more preview coverage of the NAB Show.]

The post Exhibitor Preview: Lawo at the NAB Show appeared first on Radio World.

Two fresh “Notice of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting” notices were dispatched by the FCC on Monday (3/4). One is based on the investigation of unlicensed activity in Greenville, S.C., by the FCC’s Atlanta field office, while the New York field office determined just where an FM pirate was originating their broadcasts from in the leafy suburb of Maplewood, N.J.

 

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

The Florida Association of Broadcasters will for the first time recognize some of “the most impactful, inspirational, and influential broadcasting legends” to have worked in the Sunshine State on June 27 as the group reveals its inaugural class for the Florida Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

On the list: the late talk show host who called Palm Beach home.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

On September 19, 2023, roughly one year after the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on updates to rules for full power and Class A stations which reflect the digital transition and completion of the post-incentive auction, current technology, and/or Commission practices, the FCC approved a Report and Order that updates the Commission’s “Part 73” rules.

As of today, those rule modifications are in effect.

The new “Part 73” rules impact full power and Class A television services, as the Commission adopted rules that it believes reflect the transition from analog to digital-only operations and the completion of the post-incentive auction transition to a smaller television band with fewer channels.

The changes also include updates designed to ensure the rules reflect the Commission’s requirements and are understandable for FCC licensees and the public.

March 4 is the effective date for the rule changes adopted in the R&O, including the rules that may have contained new or modified information collection requirements; those changes have been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

— RBR+TVBR in Washington, D.C.

Until recently, a pair of FM radio stations serving Las Vegas with “rimshot” signals had better coverage of St. George, Utah, than much of Southern Nevada. Now, thanks to an agreement with GeoBroadcast Solutions, these two facilities are poised to increase their listener base — and potentially their revenue — thanks to improved coverage of the nation’s No. 32 radio market.

 

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)