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- Practical Tips From Bud Williamson
Bud Willamson Bud Williamson is a broadcast entrepreneur, engineer and consultant. He is managing member of the radio company Neversink Media Group as well as the head of Digital Radio Broadcasting Inc., where he provides technical consulting and licensing expertise for FM stations, translators, boosters and entire broadcast facilities. We spoke to him for the ebook “Optimize Your Air Chain.” Radio World: In your work with various stations, are there one or two common steps in the air chain that often are deficient technically or not being maximized fully? Bud Williamson: Often I see analog audio being converted to digital and transported over a codec, such as a BRIC-Link or a Tieline device. Recently I saw a configuration that was at 48 kbps mono with 4:1 data compression that ultimately fed an expensive audio processor. With fiber IP connectivity at both ends with decent speeds and low latency, there seemed to be no reason to restrict the quality. I switched it to linear stereo and to this day, the station maintains very good transport quality with no data dropouts. (The codecs are that good today!) I advise stations to try to use the same provider and be on a fiber platform on both ends. While Direct Internet Access or DIA is preferable, as it supposedly “bypasses” a large number of smaller customers, that creates bursty conditions that interrupt the stream of your IP connection. This results in unrecoverable bits and can lead to artifacting or dropouts entirely. While performing due diligence station inspections in smaller markets, I often hear problems before even pulling up to the station — whether it is low modulation, channel imbalance or even varying levels. Much of that is the result of a poorly engineered facility where levels are not set properly, there are too many items on the program pairs to the processor, or perhaps a bad punch on a punchblock. They hear the station in their car and that is all that matters to them. Sadly, these guys accept the deficiencies and dismiss the fact that they sound “weaker” because they feel they are a small station. However, any FM station can have the same audio quality, regardless of size or class. RW: What can stations do to assure that audio is clean and optimized? Williamson: Start with good, uncompressed audio files. Not just for music, but for commercial production as well! Yes, even… [TheTopNews] Read More.21 mins ago - Heidi Raphael Takes Over NYSBA as President and CEO Following David Donovan’s ...
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