This Week In Radio Tech (TWiRT)

We know that digital broadcast equipment handling real-time media needs a common time reference. PTP - Precision Time Protocol - is used in many time-sensitive industries, and it’s perfect for broadcast gear, too. Greg Shay, CTO at the Telos Alliance, joins us, along with Shaun Dolan to discuss both the science behind and the practical application of PTP Clock standards and devices.

Paradise? How about hurricane winds over 200 mph, salt air, ice, and snow? And throw in a 100-mile Studio-Transmitter Link. It’s all in a normal week’s work for Don Mussell. Don is a consulting engineer in Hawai’i. He brings common sense and a serious outlook to the challenging radio broadcasting scenarios found in this tropical island paradise.

Chris Tobin and Kirk Harnack are talking “war stories” with Stephen Poole, Chief Engineer at Crawford Broadcasting in Birmingham. Seems today’s war stories are involving more computers and networking than traditional broadcast equipment. We discuss replacement of IP Radio links, a misbehaving Cisco switch, and Stephen’s famous “3,000 year old generator.”

WebRTC is the technology suite powering Google Hangouts and many other communication and conferencing services and apps. Tom Hartnett, Technical Director at Comrex, joins us to explain what WebRTC is and how it’s enabling a new generation of remote audio connection equipment and services.

“Pop-Up Studio” is a new name for a time-tested radio practice. Or is it? What makes a pop-up studio different from an old fashioned radio remote broadcast? Chris Tobin talks about the tech and the financial motivation for pop-up studios, and Gary Kline joins us live from Paris, France, to explain what he’s seeing among European broadcasters.

Perhaps the best time to ask an expert for advice is when he or she is full of it! Gary Liebisch, recently retired from a position at Nautel Ltd., has a lifetime of experience, knowledge, and insight into broadcast infrastructure - especially transmission systems. Gary teaches both by using humor and by serious instruction. We get both from Gary in this fast-paced show as he joins Chris Tobin and Kirk Harnack with “Wisdom and Tales from the Trenches.”

Broadcast infrastructure is adopting another protocol - this one makes possible the seamless integration of Video and Audio over IP within the AES67 and other standards, such as SMPTE2110. There’s a lot that’s new here, so we’ve brought in Ken Tankel, Senior Product Specialist with the Telos Alliance TV Solutions Group. Ken’s been teaching this technology for several years, and making it work flawlessly at numerous broadcast facilities.

Earlier this year, Gary Krantz wrote at RadioInk.com, “Lee Harris is an air talent on one of the country’s biggest stations, but his experience across other segments of the radio business have inspired a company and products that may just reshape the industry’s future.” Lee joins us on TWiRT to talk about three innovative products for radio broadcasters.

Who knows what experiences and technologies will greet today’s younger broadcast engineers? James Copeland has a fresh university degree, and is creatively engineering at KSDB-FM at Kansas State University. Brought up on Amateur Radio, James is making his engineering future unfold while cherishing older broadcast technologies.

Walter Sabo knows talk radio. He’s been consulting some of the most successful talk shows and talk networks for decades. Now Walter joins Chris Tobin and Kirk Harnack for an enlightening conversation about what’s wrong with today’s talk radio, and how engineers can play a key role in bringing listeners, success, and ratings to great radio programming.