It’s one of those lazy rainy fall-like days here in the middle of north america, perfect time to scan the dial.
It’s one of those lazy rainy fall-like days here in the middle of north america, perfect time to scan the dial.
At 1380 AM, a local 5kW sports station, I caught a fish. The station is sending out a string of satellite instructions, one per minute, from MRN Radio Network, with dead air and a tone every 60-seconds. The recorded message keeps saying that motor racing is on a rain hold and will resume at 3 PM.
Now I’m getting a ten minute countdown to whatever will be on the net at 2 PM local time.
The Sunday staff person is probably down the street at Steak and Shake or at a nearby bar. He probably thinks motor racing is on the air. Maybe he’s just asleep in the station lounge.
Or, have the rules relaxed so much that licensed stations don’t need an attendant?
Latest message, “This is MRN Radio. At the tone it will be 4-minutes to airtime.”
I must say, this “mistake” is far more interesting than regular sports programming.
“1-minute to air time.”
“30-seconds to air time.”
“Welcome back to Chicagoland speedway…..it continues to rain….”
NO LOCAL STATION I.D. AT 2 PM.
Now two network guys are giving a detailed coverage of the “off again on again rain.”
The Motor Racing Network has sent it back to the local station for the next hour. Nothing. Nope. No one on duty. Dead air.
dead air will cost you!
they say if you have even 1 second of dead air, your letting your audience down, and it will cost you big time!
Automated….Partially
Sounds like their local content is not triggering from the net cue as well as the switcher, and is stuck on the satellite feed.
My analysis….either their automation computer needs rebooting, or it died or the backup UPS power unit died out during a power outage and the computer did not re-boot once power restored.
Or….someone did not set things up properly. They will blame it on the computer anyway. :p
RFB
What Price Dead Air?
A local AM here, WJMP, routinely has dead air. I’m talkin’ 30 minutes at a time.
You’ll hear the station ID on the hour followed by a couple minutes of news then, dead air until the half-hour ID.
After a an hour of this I tried calling the station. No one at the number listed. The website listed several individual. I managed to get a sales person, it was their cell phone.
They told me to call the news desk colocated with their FM operation. The guy acted very indifferent saying “Oh yeah, they’ve had some problems with the transmitter.”
I told him the transmitter carrier is up, just no program. He responded “Yeah, they’ve had some problems with the transmitter.”
Apparently nobody listens anymore.
Improper Training
“He responded “Yeah, they’ve had some problems with the transmitter.”
Apparently nobody listens anymore.”
It would seem those folks are not engineers or even partially trained to resolve minor problems. This makes sense as there are a lot of people working in radio stations who have no idea what an EAS is or how to do a test, or analyze what the solution to a problem such as you referenced MRAM.
Our talents and skills are highly specialized in today’s radio world. And unfortunately in today’s world, with computerized studios and automated programing, if you cannot point and click your way through the problem…time to call in the contract engineer, which may be several states away so do not expect the problem to be solved in a timely manner.
It is just a fact that we have to deal with in today’s radio world. I remember teaching disc jockeys what to look for when taking readings and what to monitor and what to listen for. See back then, disc jockeys did more than just sit in front of a computer screen and point and click. They actually had to cue up records, reel to reel tapes, load carts into the cart machines, catch and record news feeds on those reel to reel decks, clear the AP teletype machine and sort through the segments of news and sports and weather, open up the mic and read that news and weather, oh and work with turn tables and reel to reel decks and cart decks doing production work.
A massive difference to how it is all done today..and partially the problem with so many station personnel not knowing the difference between a programming issue versus a real transmitter issue.
RFB
Degeneration
What you have told us, RFB and MRAM, is that licensed commercial stations today are no longer required to have an operator on duty to keep track of what’s going on. That is very derelict.
When advertising for a station manager this copy would suffice;
“If you have ever managed a vacant lot or driven by an abandoned mall you are qualified to be a radio station manager!”
No wonder some stations are simply shutting off altogether and saving electricity. They are simply banking their asset without pretending to broadcast.
Is the FCC on a long lunch break?
Computers Never Require Sick Leave…Or Pay Check
“What you have told us, RFB and MRAM, is that licensed commercial stations today are no longer required to have an operator on duty to keep track of what’s going on. That is very derelict.”
Actually at least 2 people are required to be at the station during the normal business hours..according to my FCC friend in Denver. That does not say that either of these minimum 2 required people must possess engineering knowledge.
Either of them could be a sales person, a traffic person, the janitor, a manager, or whatever.
However a licensed station MUST designate and document within the public files a “Chief Operator”. Now this requirement still does not mandate that this “Chief Operator” have such abundance of engineering knowledge. But they at least must know how to perform EAS tests and logging of those tests, either sent or received, and at least have the ability to turn on or turn off the transmitter..remotely or local control.
Since a majority of stations these days..as well as their over-confident owners, rely on the computer to do “everything”, the attitude today is “the computer will run the station/s”. And since the computer can in fact “run” the station quite effectively, it has settled into those mind sets “who needs a staff, or engineers, or the janitor..the computer can do it all”.
I call it the “Profit Before People” syndrome. A corporate sickness that has spread like a nasty virus and has infected the entire broadcast industry across the board.
The engineering is not the only department suffering. The most who will suffer from the infestation effect is the public.
Remember, the thought embedded into most working in radio today is “point and click my way through”….not on “can I do my job”.
Careers are made on making things more efficient, more profitable, more productive, more more more.
The sad part is that even an automation system requires a physical person to maintain it. Hopefully said person can maintain systems being ran inside a brick building where the air conditioning system has been shut off along with the water service to “save money”.
Hope you do not need the rest room..the computer doesn’t require that..so why should you?!!
RFB
Slightly off topic…
Someone
Slightly off topic…
Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that even 1 second of dead air will cost you.
I beg to differ. I can’t stand the frantic broadcasting that exists today. It seems that mindless drivel is the order of the day, with crossfading of tracks, sometimes up to 5 or 10 seconds.
Artisan Radio plays all tracks to their finish, fadeout or otherwise. Sometimes that means that there is 1/2 second or so of dead air space before the next track starts, or an announcer comes in, or whatever. That’s OK, at least with me. And our listeners, apparently, as well.
I say, slow it down. If you don’t have something intelligent to say, don’t say it. The DJ isn’t the point – it’s the music or talk or whatever your theme is.
Take a deep breath. And relax…
Clear Picture
This discussion is giving a fairly clear picture of why radio has little to do with the listener. What we mostly hear is a string of filler sound churned out by a computer.
What is missing? I think from the listener point of view, the missing element is “the radio personality.” A person who knows how to make a station’s sound become “human” and develop a one-to-one relationship with the listener.
Artisanradio is right about the dead air myth…. it is not the listener who gets anxious about frantic programming, it is only misguided station operators who also believe that being loud is important. Why not listen to a leaf mulching machine? That is loud and has no dead air.
What is also missing, less obvious to the listener, is artful engineering. RFB has said a lot about that, especially how management does not provide the budget or the support to allow first class physical facilities.
It’s pathetic that Part 15 people have a better sense of what radio should be than actual licensees.
Just chiming in
All our ops
Just chiming in
All our ops at our station are trained in EAS deliveries.
During the bad storm we had a couple weeks ago, I received 3 tornado warnings to run.
And then there was the famous incident at one station where a railroad car carrying some poisonous gas or acid derailed, spilling it all over a neighborhood.
The nearby radio station was on “automate” mode and no one was there to alert people.
EAS Decoder?
You have an EAS which kind is it a decoder or endec and what is the brand?
Some Rare Cases
“All our ops at our station are trained in EAS deliveries.”
This is obviously the way it should be everywhere. Unfortunately it isn’t….as we see in the following…
“And then there was the famous incident at one station where a railroad car carrying some poisonous gas or acid derailed, spilling it all over a neighborhood.
The nearby radio station was on “automate” mode and no one was there to alert people.”
Now I could care less about ratings and rankings and maximum sales for the month blah blah. They are important, but NOT as important as serving the public interest, in which such a disaster as that train load of poison chemicals/gasses spilling all over the place could have been a much bigger disaster had there not been people around informing the population what was going on.
This year the FCC is stomping the grounds everywhere in an effort to curb this “Automation Only” sickness that has plagued the airwaves. Owners and investor groups of these stations being gobbled up by big corporate interests, and a few independents who are more concerned about profit are to blame. You cannot serve the public interest when the public is dished out garbage by some computer.
I recall the stink made by many dedicated engineers and operators when automation systems were being introduced to the radio industry. Same amount of stink made at the 97 NAB regarding the change over to the current EAS system and the move to digital television. Those who stood up and protested knew what was coming to the industry. Unfortunately it is sad that their protests fell on deaf ears..and empty brain buckets.
Riches is not any indicator of smarts. If anything..it has demonstrated its stupidity if anything else. Just look around in many other industries and see what is happening. Slowly being stripped of PEOPLE..aka workers, inventors, and most important of all…backing of the ownership/corporations with adequate financial support, be it in maintenance or personnel.
The train derailing is just one example of how even a fancy dancy EAS system can fail to do its job despite all the expensive gizmos and gadgets. Too bad the station’s LP-1, miles and miles away in the next city, had no idea what was happening in that small community with that rail road running through it.
Now how the heck is the local community to be warned about anything when its local station’s EAS system is constantly looking at its LP-1 station and the weather radio frequency, both obviously and most of the time are not local?
Oh yes it works just fine for weather warnings…most of the time anyway. But the key word here is LOCAL! What the heck is supposed to happen when a localized event of such caliber as a train load of poisonous chemicals and gasses dump all over the edge of town being spread by local winds at 5 in the morning and there is no one at the local station to help spread the warning?!!!
A lot of people will get hurt, sick or worse.
And for what….profit? Maximum bottom line? Fill the back pockets even more of ownership?
PFFT!!!
I am willing to bet those local authorities on site of that train derailment desperately tried to call that local station and all they got was a stupid answering machine!
Oh but in the greedy ownership prospective..the computer can do it all..right?!!
Ya. It certainly did its job that morning didn’t it…continued to shove playlist garbage down the people’s throats and ears while being followed up by deadly fumes of spilling chemicals and gasses.
PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE!
Sort of puts a whole new meaning to “Have your Wheaties this morning with some morning mud poison to wash it down with?”
I must now take a quote from the 1987 Star Trek movie “The Voyage Home”, where they go back in time to Earth to retrieve two humpback whales. The marine biologist talks to a group of people watching a video of whale slaughterings and Spock asks…
Spock: “To hunt a species to extinction is not logical”
..and the marine biologist replies….
Biologist: “Whom ever said the human race was logical?”
Nuff said.
RFB
Wow, RFB
You remind me of experiences that match what you are saying.
Back around 2005 there was a major ice storm heading northeast out of Oklahoma, so I thought I’d be smart and listen to reports on stations along the way using online streams. EVERY station I could find was broadcasting formula programming, NO ONE was covering the storm in Oklahoma, then in south western Missouri.
UNTIL I found the KSWM in Aurora, Missouri, where two guys pulled there chairs up to the big picture window where they described trees falling from ice weight, and took phone calls from surrounding area, in which people described power going out, transformers blowing up from ice accumulation, trees falling on houses.
Even the great reach of the internet didn’t matter because the local stations were not involved.
Wake up, somebody. Anybody.
didn’t mean to confuse
Sorry,
I was speaking of the EAS system that I operate at a 50,000 watt station on the east coast that I work at.
I have no such EAS system at my part15 station. During blizzards, and recently during Hurricane Irene, I did run National Weather Service updates.
At my real job, we recently upgraded the EAS. It is much easier for operators to run messages now.
The one thing they changed as a fail safe is that the EAS message now will run over anything that is playing on air at the time. This is if the message is dire, ex. tornado, nuclear attack…
Weekly tests are still run manually.
EAS Stuff
A couple of EAS units recently sold on ebay for about 120 bucks each.
“The one thing they changed as a fail safe is that the EAS message now will run over anything that is playing on air at the time. This is if the message is dire, ex. tornado, nuclear attack…Weekly tests are still run manually.”
Wasn’t the EAS system supposed to do that in the first place???!!!
Each state is supposed to have their own EAS protocol and procedures. The system is supposed to be set up so that each station which is equipped with one is programmed not just for picking up primary and secondary, but also could be programmed for any localized events or other warning messages.
That is why that front panel has all those blank label tabs and buttons on the left after the “weekly” test button.
The problem is not the EAS units or the system itself…it is that no matter what devices you put in the racks, without the people physically there to do the job, no amount of updating or revisions will solve the problem when a function requires a person to be there to act accordingly for a given situation.
Take the train derailment as an example. A localized event that was extremely dangerous and no doubt deadly. Now with that, does a local station need to have its LP-1 or LP-2 or timbuckthree station send an EAS trigger first before someone locally takes action?
Basic protocol for each state allows for local authorities to contact the state level, to which the local authorities must be instructed on those state protocols and be very familiar with them.
Now here is the real question.
Obviously the derailment was a very high potential to cause a lot of deaths and damage to the environment. Did the local authorities contact the state coordinator so an EAS message could be sent to the LP-1, issued by the state, to trigger that local station’s EAS?
Obviously that did not happen either…at least when it should have happened…like right after the derailment!
The system cannot work when it requires someone to enter information up the chain of command and send that down the pipe so that proper EAS gear triggers in the proper locations. It also cannot work on a local level if there is no one on duty at the local station to push that same button…the ones below the “weekly test” button.
The EAS system was SUPPOSED to be an improvement over the old EBS system. I think it turned out to be more problematic.
Nothing prevents a station from programming all those blank tabs and buttons for local event triggering. Back in the old EBS days, all it took was two switches flipped opposite of each other, a sub-audio input path on the consoles, and fading out the normal program and bringing up the EBS fader, followed by someone turning on a mic and saying something as to why everyone just heard that irritating two-tone audio that just interrupted their favorite song.
I remember something said, and even written in the EAS procedure manual, that the EAS system is supposed to be “less intrusive” to programs unlike how the old EBS system was.
Well obviously the “less intrusive” passes muster….as to the EAS doing its job reliably on a more local aspect…
..it FAILS miserably.
And the only reason why it fails miserably is because these days there is no one on duty at the stations anymore…not like it used to be anyway.
RFB