From BillyBurg

Changing the playing field in terms of legal matters won’t result in many changes to reality. The cost of electricity to run the plant will still be high; as will maintenance of a tower or towers (and the land therein), technical compliance, salaries, software and music licenses etc.  We’ve got it knocked, in that our “towers” are cut-down…[Read more]

Better and cheaper: Point your listeners to your website where they can find a link on how to make their own out of wire and a cornflakes box.

Those commercial loops are not cheap — The Terk Advantage is $50. Most people’s radios don’t cost that much.

Are you doing gun-and-run field interviews, or full sit-down table talks?

If the former, use your smartphone. You already paid for it, the audio recorder app is generally free, and even with the onboard mic the audio is formidable.

I’m writing from a capital city, and there isn’t one radio newsperson here using anything other than their phone.

After 55 years of operation I would have suspected the bias resistors. Since you dug as deeply as you did to uncover a funky solder joint, I’m going to say you got it all.

Hmmm, perfect timing.

Only a moment ago, I received the RadioWorld supplement “What’s Ahead for All-Digital AM?” in my email box.  My quick read seems to suggest that, other than the audible and technical advantages, only manufacturers are the ones most interested in the conversion. The AM Radio Preservation Alliance had no comment, and no less…[Read more]

It has been said before and it needs to be said again: Until they can make a proper receiver at a tolerable price, no one is going to go for it.

TV’s digital conversion made sense: it happened over a number of years; tests showed it was viable and actually desirable on the part of the consumer (once it became affordable); the government footed…[Read more]

I don’t think this would be helpful to you. Most of your power would just beam into the Chesapeake Bay.

You might skim a tiny bit of the Northern Neck, but the majority of your signal would just keep the oysters warm.

Sorry, Deltaville.  I had my map reader in the wrong town.

Troy, I’m curious. Your website includes the claim that, “We will soon have a coverage of 1.5-2 miles in all directions from Fishing Bay Road.”

Ground conductivity out in Reedville VA has to be stunning, given how damp the land is at all times (everybody else, Google-Map it).  But otherwise, technically, how do you accomplish a two-mile contour…[Read more]

Carl said, “… let’s dissect the word ’emergency, which means ’emerge’ plus ‘-ency’: Forming abstract nouns denoting states, conditions, or qualities.”

Take a look at how the word “electrocuted” is abused these days in general reporting —  rather than meaning “killed by electricity,” somehow it now means experiencing an potentially lethal el…[Read more]

It will likely persist for awhile. There has been no active development on the free Zara software, while the OSs it runs on have been rewritten a number of times. And since Zara depends on the Windows Media Player for the playback engine, it can only get crazier.

I’ll see what I can find out on my system.

Wikipedia can provide us with a technically accurate definition, but not very useful to many of us non-techies.

In simplest terms as applied to our own needs, there are two level types we should know: LINE and MIC.  LINE level is what you would typically find on an unbalanced RCA connector/jack (at -10 dB) or a balanced XLR/TRS connector (at +4…[Read more]

My wife and daughter are at the DC March as I write this. Whatever the event promises at the end of the day, they can say they were part of a historic movement.

The Hy-Gain ham antenna people included a fairly basic but thorough lesson in phasing right inside the instruction manual of their 12AVQ vertical antenna. And its free!

http://www.hy-gain.com/support.php?productid=AV-12AVQ

Download the product manual and check out the last few pages to get a few ideas moving around in your heads. Amateur or Part…[Read more]

Anyone can use loose language, be it on the streets, on podcasts or on OTA radio. If on the other hand you can show me that you can say the same thing in a creative manner,  you have my respect as a master at both language and storytelling.

A writer I admire once used the phrase “an aerial act of amorous anastimosis”, which is to say “a flying…[Read more]

I kind-of understand. I had a similar moment of reckoning at my first pro job years ago.

I stepped out the back door of my little townie AM station late at night to check the tower lights.  When I looked up the towers, the realization that my voice was coming out of all that steel and into two states plus Canada was a very moving moment. I…[Read more]

A local AM station I worked at in 1990 had two transmitters for different power levels: a full-bore Nautel for daytime power, switching to a classic LPB low-power transmitter for ten watts at sunset. Otherwise, many modern transmitters are modular, and their power ratings are based on how many modules are contained in the chassis. Changing wattage…[Read more]

Carl asked, “If anyone knows where we can pick up a live audio stream…”

Wasn’t whitehouse.gov sending out a stream in real time?

Taking a feed of the standalone presidential audio from a cable TV box or passthru from a TV set into your console would have been fine. There is a tacit reciprocal agreement among broadcasters to share source…[Read more]

“By allowing Hobby Broadcasting on AM call it BETS-1, Part 15, Ga Ga Goo Goo or whatever it promotes the experimenting and education of Radio and keeps the spirit alive.”

Legs, AM radio has been around for more than a century. What more “experimentation” is there left to be done, other than all-digital testing (which is now going on Frederick MD…[Read more]