This Week in Radio Tech HD

TWiRT is on location at a Nashville radio station - Jazzy 88, WFSK-FM. Rick Durham is a provider of managed IT services in Middle Tennessee. He’s also the engineer for WFSK-FM. WFSK is preparing for their annual fundraising event, where they broadcast live from the parking lot and take drive through donations while interviewing numerous Nashville dignitaries and music artists. We also spend a few minutes with Sharon Kay, WFSK’s General Manager, and Xuam (X-Man) Lawson, WFSK’s Program Director. We discuss some engineering and how WFSK is keeping up with an Audio over IP audio plant. We also discuss the engineer’s role in keeping the jazz playing and the public affairs programming on the air, too.

Lee Melton is one of those semi-crazy radio guys that we know and love. And many of us wanted to BE that guy! Lee’s career started at KFI, Los Angeles, and he’s been at about 25 radio stations, even building a couple in Southeast Texas. Some have called him “The Kind of Radio Trade-Outs” while many others called him a friendly and fun voice on the radio. Lee’s radio recollections inspire plenty of banter with Chris Tarr and Kirk Harnack. And Chris reveals his encounter with Paul McCartney! It's an hour of radio stories and fun, with a little engineering talk sprinkled in.

Sometimes we originate a TWiRT episode from a newly-built radio studio. Today, however, we’re visiting beautiful studios that are under construction. Bill Jackson works with K-Love, a nationwide Christian radio group. He’s in charge of the design and build-out of a couple dozen radio studios, podcast rooms, edit, and news booths. Bill is absolutely maximizing Audio over IP technology throughout. Let’s take a “cook’s tour” of a couple large studios, plus look at a data closet and the broadcast portion of the restricted-access data center.

The Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program (ABIP) was created around 1989 to aid the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in making sure all broadcast operations are in compliance and to help stations understand the rules in a one-on-one setting. In the beginning, the ABIP inspectors were retired FCC engineers. As the program began to expand around the country, other engineers were recruited and trained by regional FCC inspectors. ABIP inspectors have long used a basic Self Inspection Checklist that became woefully out of date. Tom Ray, working with other committee members at the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) has rewritten and greatly expanded these checklists for AM, FM, and TV stations. ABIP inspections are an excellent tool for broadcasters to assure compliance with FCC Rules, and do so in a friendly, non-adversarial encounter.

The rise of AI-generated lyrics and music is giving engineers something to chuckle about. But could this “easy creativity” inspire other engineering solutions? Kirk drew a comparison with photographer Jeremy Cowart and his use of an LED wall to produce 60 different portraits in 60 seconds. Anthony Kuzub, an engineer at CBC in Canada, pointed out the AI that’s involved with lighting a new studio, matching accent lights to the video monitor feeds. Matt Aaron is programming a fully-AI streaming station that’s playing “Broadcast Engineers Gangster Rap”. Are these just passing curiosities? Or are they signals of technologies and techniques to come for broadcasting and content creation?

Most every piece of equipment we use, or software we depend on began with an idea and a dream - a dream to help ourselves and others do their jobs better, faster, easier. Or perhaps to provide a service, or improve an existing one. Paul Stewart started Summit Technology Group with this motivation in mind as well. Paul and his company provide software and services with new features, conveniences, and efficiencies. Exactly what many broadcast engineers are looking for. Chris Tarr and I are talking with Paul about the software and services he’s bringing to broadcasters.

The CCBE conference encompasses two days of professional broadcast engineering career development. This includes carefully-chosen paper presentations, an expo hall, and an awards dinner and ceremony honoring leaders in the broadcast engineering profession. We got to meet with and converse with leaders in the Central Canadian Broadcast Engineers group, plus Canadian engineers and leading equipment manufacturers.

Have you wondered what goes on at the Network Operations Center of a satellite distribution network? We sure have, and our good friend, Marcos O’Rourke, joins us to talk about it. Marcos is now the Engineering Manager at Linkup Communications. We’ve followed Linkup’s rising star in the satellite communications business and watched as this company has grown to serve a lot of the broadcast industry. Marcos gives a brief history of the NOC in Denver, Colorado, and shares pictures of their operations and IT center.

It’s Radio Convention season and we’re bringing some of the Alabama Broadcasters Convention to you. Live from the Renaissance Ross Bridge Resort, we’re meeting with engineers and radio equipment reps as this ABA Convention draws to a close. One of our highlights is visiting with Steven Westbrook from the Alabama Historical Radio Society. We also get cameo appearances from Bob Mayben, Jeff Welton, and Jim Armstrong. Join us for some fun conversation while we learn a few things about both new and old technologies and some personalities that shaped - and are now shaping - radio tech.

A Google search on “SCOTUS and Chevron Deference” returns a lot of breathless headlines, prefacing pearl-clutching stories of near-calamitous changes in the way Federal agencies can carry out their missions. Indeed, one dissenting Supreme Court justice wrote that this ruling, “will cause a massive shock to the legal system.” The ruling will eventually affect some broadcast Rules from the Federal Communications Commission, but communications attorney, David Oxenford, predicts less dramatic effects on broadcast Rules and station operations. To clarify the Chevron decision and it’s likely effects on broadcasters, we interviewed Oxenford for this episode. We also get commentary from Larry Fuss, President and CEO of several multi-station radio broadcasting companies, and co-host, Chris Tarr. Join us for an informative episode of TWiRT as we discuss broadcast Rules in light of the SCOTUS decision on Chevron Deference.