TWiRT 601 - Face to Face Again with Carl & Shane

Kirk Harnack says he’s getting burned-out on virtual SBE meetings. After experiencing the enthusiasm of the NAB Show and the Public Radio Engineering Conference this past April, Kirk wanted to restart in-person meetings of the Nashville SBE chapter. Many chapter members agreed and fifteen SBE members showed up for lunch and dinner meetings at Kirk’s Nashville home. Carl Campbell, Chapter Chair for Nashville, is delighted with the turnout! Shane Toven, also an SBE Board of Directors member, adds his own thoughts and experiences about restarting chapter meetings. And Chris Tarr reminds us that we’re not out of the woods yet as COVID cases do continue, and not everyone needs to be meeting in person again. It’s great episode with plenty of opinions and ideas!

Guests:
Carl Campbell - Director of Engineering at Salem Music Networks, Nashville, TN
Shane Toven - Senior Broadcast Engineer at Educational Media Foundation K-LOVE & Air1 Media Networks

Co-Hosts:
Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.Media
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting

Follow TWiRT on Twitter and on Facebook

TWiRT is brought to you by:
Nautel and the continuing informative live webinars. Sign up for free!
Broadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. 

Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.
Nautel and the regular Transmission Talk Tuesday series of online engineering roundtable events.
Angry Audio - with StudioHub cables and adapters. Audio problems disappear when you get Angry at AngryAudio.com. 
And MaxxKonnectWireless - Prioritized High Speed Internet Service designed for Transmitter Sites and Remote Broadcasts. 

Look for in-depth radio engineering articles in Radio-Guide magazine.

Subscribe to Audio:
iTunes
RSS
Stitcher
TuneIn

Subscribe to Video:
iTunes
RSS
YouTube

TWiRT 601 - Face to Face Again with Carl & Shane

TWiRT 600 - There More to Streaming Than Streaming with Jon Stephenson

Most radio stations are streaming their live audio these days, and many of those are sending metadata for title, artist, album art, and short messages. But in our non-linear, fragmented entertainment world, many listeners want to your show at a different time; or just hear the highlights; or simply replay the artist interview they heard yesterday., Today’s audio curation and publishing tools and platforms are the next innovation that’s already here. Jon Stephenson noticed this fragmented marketplace and brought several technologies together under one umbrella called SoundStack. Chris Tarr and Jon, along with Kirk Harnack, explore and discuss these audio publishing tools and take a look into Audio as a Service.

Show Notes:
Launch PR: Audio Brands Unite to Launch SoundStack, a New Audio as a Service Company (AaaS), to Simplify Audio
Jon mentioned the importance of having a Status page for your audio and revenue streams.
Chris mentioned a Chrome browser extension, Radio Receiver, for use with SDR USB turners
Jon’s tips included Redundant Power Supplies for Servers

Guest:
Jon Stephenson - CEO at SoundStack

Co-Hosts:
Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.Media
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting

Follow TWiRT on Twitter and on Facebook

TWiRT is brought to you by:
Nautel and the continuing informative live webinars. Sign up for free!
Broadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. 

Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.
Nautel and the regular Transmission Talk Tuesday series of online engineering roundtable events.
Angry Audio - with StudioHub cables and adapters. Audio problems disappear when you get Angry at AngryAudio.com. 
And MaxxKonnectWireless - Prioritized High Speed Internet Service designed for Transmitter Sites and Remote Broadcasts. 

Look for in-depth radio engineering articles in Radio-Guide magazine.

Subscribe to Audio:
iTunes
RSS
Stitcher
TuneIn

Subscribe to Video:
iTunes
RSS
YouTube

TWiRT 600 - There More to Streaming Than Streaming with Jon Stephenson

TWiRT 599 - Ask an Expert with Tom Ray

One of TWiRT’s original co-hosts, Tom Ray carved out an hour to join us on this episode. As a broadcast engineering consultant, Tom truly sees the good, the bad, and the ugly at broadcast facilities. And, he’s usually hired to correct the problems he finds. From HD Radio, to EAS systems, to AM towers to FM transmission lines, Tom really does get hands-on with most every technology applicable to radio stations. We invited viewers of our live video stream to post their questions for Tom to answer. Plus Kirk Harnack supplied a few questions for Tom that engineers and station owners have been asking lately. 

Show Notes:
Monitoring LED tower lights with their much lower current than incandescent lamps led to this sensor & alarm from SSAC.  Look to pages 26 & 26 of this PDF document for the data sheet.

Guest:
Tom Ray - President at Tom Ray Broadcast Consulting, LLC

Host:
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting

Follow TWiRT on Twitter and on Facebook

TWiRT is brought to you by:
Nautel and the continuing informative live webinars. Sign up for free!
Broadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. 

Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.
Nautel and the regular Transmission Talk Tuesday series of online engineering roundtable events.
Angry Audio - with StudioHub cables and adapters. Audio problems disappear when you get Angry at AngryAudio.com. 
And MaxxKonnectWireless - Prioritized High Speed Internet Service designed for Transmitter Sites and Remote Broadcasts. 

Look for in-depth radio engineering articles in Radio-Guide magazine.

Subscribe to Audio:
iTunes
RSS
Stitcher
TuneIn

Subscribe to Video:
iTunes
RSS
YouTube

TWiRT 599 - Ask an Expert with Tom Ray

TWiRT 598 - Tower Lights as a Service with Chuck Kelly

Does your radio station have a water well on the property, or do you pay for water from your water company? Do you have a septic system out back, or do you pay for sewer service? What about trash pickup; do you burn or bury your own trash as we did decades ago, or do you pay for a trash pickup service?  What if your tower lights were offered as a guaranteed service, and you never had an unexpected tower light repair bill again? Chuck Kelly joins Chris Tarr and Kirk Harnack to explore this intriguing idea of “Tower Lights as a Service” on this episode of TWiRT.

Guest:
Chuck Kelly - Broadcast Marketing Consultant

Co-Hosts:
Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.Media
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting

Follow TWiRT on Twitter and on Facebook

TWiRT is brought to you by:
Nautel and the continuing informative live webinars. Sign up for free!
Broadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. 

Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.
Nautel and the regular Transmission Talk Tuesday series of online engineering roundtable events.
Angry Audio - with StudioHub cables and adapters. Audio problems disappear when you get Angry at AngryAudio.com. 
And MaxxKonnectWireless - Prioritized High Speed Internet Service designed for Transmitter Sites and Remote Broadcasts. 

Look for in-depth radio engineering articles in Radio-Guide magazine.

Subscribe to Audio:
iTunes
RSS
Stitcher
TuneIn

Subscribe to Video:
iTunes
RSS
YouTube

TWiRT 598 - Tower Lights as a Service with Chuck Kelly

TWiRT 597 - How I Spent my Winter and Spring with Chris Tarr

When you look after nearly 50 transmitter sites you’re going to be upgrading them; it’l be a fairly constant part of your work. Chris Tarr’s recent work has been installing new AM and FM transmitters, and getting them connected to his company-wide remote control and monitoring system. Chris shares his wisdom about systems that really should be consistent from site to site, and which systems or equipment don’t need to be all the same. Oh, and we’ll find out what happened to that Broadcast Electronics FM 5B transmitter that we last saw on a forklift!

Show Notes:
Chris mentioned some hardware products he uses routinely at his radio stations:

IP Radios: Ubiquiti AirMax line 
VPN Routers/firewalls: SonicWall SOHO 
Remote: Burk ARCPlus Touch (master) Plus-X 300/600 (remote sites for devices without SNMP
TDR: RigExpert AA-230 Zoom

Guest:
Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.Media

Host:
Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting

Follow TWiRT on Twitter and on Facebook

TWiRT is brought to you by:
Nautel and the continuing informative live webinars. Sign up for free!
Broadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. 

Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.
Nautel and the regular Transmission Talk Tuesday series of online engineering roundtable events.
Angry Audio - with StudioHub cables and adapters. Audio problems disappear when you get Angry at AngryAudio.com. 
And MaxxKonnectWireless - Prioritized High Speed Internet Service designed for Transmitter Sites and Remote Broadcasts. 

Look for in-depth radio engineering articles in Radio-Guide magazine.

Subscribe to Audio:
iTunes
RSS
Stitcher
TuneIn

Subscribe to Video:
iTunes
RSS
YouTube

TWiRT 597 - How I Spent my Winter and Spring with Chris Tarr