The Newsletter of Crawford Broadcasting Company Corporate Engineering JULY 2018 • VOLUME 28 • ISSUE 7 • W.C. ALEXANDER, CPBE, AMD, DRB EDITOR A New Translator that we voluntarily shut this translator down to Just before press time, the FCC granted our eliminate interference to a co-channel station out application for a new translator for WDCZ(AM) in west in Ann Arbor. We are currently looking at some Buffalo. This application was filed in the last other sites and may well file an application to move (Auction 100) window, and it was a to one of them soon. singleton. It will be a 150-watt translator on 94.1 MHz at 469 feet Objection Dismissed above average terrain, employing a It has been all over the 10-element Yagi antenna oriented trade press that the FCC dismissed 35 degrees True. the informal objection that the Long term, we may well Prometheus Project et al filed increase power on this translator. against all the outstanding The original application was for translator applications. Prometheus, 250 watts, but in the long-form an LPFM advocate, alleged that the filing, I backed that down to 150 FCC had ignored the requirements watts to keep the contour on the of the Local Community Radio Act U.S. side of the border. We can in its four AM translator windows. likely get 250 watts with Canadian The FCC said, “Au contraire,” and concurrence, but that’s likely and broomed the objection aside, not certain, and I didn’t want to immediately granting 600+ of the take a chance on a problem with outstanding translator applications. Canadian coordination possibly Prometheus can still appeal, but the delaying (or outright killing) our FCC gave them a pretty good application. It was, after all, a one- “smackdown” in the dismissal, shot deal. setting the bar very high for any appeal. We may also think about moving it closer into Buffalo at some point, depending on the Uplink Registrations coverage we get from the Boston site. Of course, we Back in May, we took advantage of the would have to pay rent at any in-tower site, so that FCC’s 90-day (recently extended another 90 days) C- would have to be factored in. band earth station registration window and filed So, what’s left? Just Rochester in terms of registrations for most of our existing C-band new translators. The mutually exclusive (MX) status downlinks, the idea being to (a) provide those earth of that application has been cured by a filing made by stations with interference protection, and (b) to our friends at Genesee Media. At some point soon, bolster the number of C-band earth stations that the we should get notification that our application is now FCC knows about and considers in its proposal to a singleton and we’re good to file the long-form open up the C-band satellite frequencies for terrestrial application. mobile broadband. In June, we got grants on all those We still have the issue of the 107.1 MHz registration applications, so we’re as good as we’ll Detroit translator to deal with. Readers may recall ever get in that regard. 1 The Local Oscillator July 2018 AMs, WCHB and WRDT. Those Nautel J1000 transmitters are amazing boxes. We’ve had one on the air in Denver on the night site of KLVZ since 2005, and it still amazes me – it’s one of the loudest signals on the dial. Now we’ve got the same box on the two lower-power Detroit AMs, and of course we have a new NX50 on 50 kW WMUZ(AM), which means that with the new processors, we’ve got the very best AM signals in the market. That’s the idea. Comments Crawford Broadcasting filed comments in a couple of different rulemaking proceedings in recent weeks. One was in response to the FM translator Word is that the FCC will take up this issue interference proceeding, and the other was on the at the July meeting. I sure hope they consider the proposal to share the C-band with mobile broadband. ramifications of shared use of longstanding C-band Anyone who is interested can read what we filed on satellite spectrum. Undoubtedly, the wireless carriers the FCC’s ECFS page or at are pushing this. http://www.crawfordbroadcasting.com/Eng_Files/Co We’ve known since Marconi that there is a mments/. finite amount of data that can be passed in a fixed amount of bandwidth. With the ever-increasing Some Sad News demand for data bandwidth by mobile devices, the It is with sadness that I report that Dick demand for more bandwidth by the carriers is also Warren, chief engineer of our San Diego station, increasing. They simply cannot meet the demand KNSN, passed away on June 20. Dick had told me within the constraints of the frequency bands they on the 18th that he was out for a while with a medical have been allocated, so they are pushing to take issue and that another local engineer would be spectrum away from existing users for their own use. watching the store for him. I didn’t know it but he It’s going to be interesting (in the Chinese was then in the hospital following a stroke. He proverb sense). apparently had another stroke on the 20th, and that one took him home. Equipment Upgrades Dick was a real sweetheart, a gentle soul and We continue to upgrade our audio a delight to work with. He had been our engineer processors throughout the company, replacing 2003- since September of 2014, and I did not have a single vintage Omnia.5EX units with new Omnia.9 complaint in all that time. He took great care of our processors. Those things are amazing! That’s the station. He will be sorely missed this side of heaven. sentiment shared by everyone after we install them. When you can scan the radio dial in a market Welcome! blindfolded and easily tell which stations are The sad circumstances notwithstanding, we Crawford’s, that’s something, and that’s what we get welcome Bill Lipis as the new contract engineer at with these new boxes. We find our stations head and KNSN. Bill comes highly recommended, first by the shoulders above the rest of the stations in the market. fact that Dick entrusted him with watching over KNSN during his hospitalization, and also by other respected engineers in the market. We very much look forward to working with Bill going forward. In addition to audio processors, we have replaced the main transmitters on two of our Detroit 2 The Local Oscillator July 2018 The Motown Update by Brian Kerkan, CBTE, CBNT Chief Engineer, CBC – Detroit Greetings from the Motor City! Summer is broadcasts for WMUZ and WCHB. The event also here, and with that comes air conditioning had live music. We provided the PA for the bands, maintenance. Even with proper maintenance, things and I am glad our planning paid off. We bought two can and will happen from bad contactors, to start mixers, in case we had an issue. It’s always good to capacitors. Even condenser fan motors after sitting plan for such a thing. In this case, it paid off. The over the winter can become an issue. Mackie console let out a puff of smoke and the smell And so it was on the of burnt electronics when first really hot day here in powered up. We were able to Detroit. The temps were over 97 reconfigure our setup with the degrees, and two of our A/C backup mixer and everything units at two transmitter sites went well. No one was aware we failed. Fortunately, I was able to even had an issue. make the repairs necessary, and it One of the things I am helps that we have HVAC parts currently working on is a Burk- outlets close to our transmitter based silence sensor screen that sites. If I had to wait on a we will use in the control room contractor, it could have been to replace the old Enberg panels. several days until the units were It will provide flexibility and tie fixed. We have a schedule to in to the system we already use check filters and belts, as well as for monitoring. cleaning the coils on the condensers. I really enjoy developing custom views on Our new Nautel J1000 transmitters are on Autopilot that are both easy to use and see. I try to the air for WCHB and WRDT. The new installation lay everything out to make it easier for the operator gave us an opportunity to clean up some of the on duty to respond when needed. Figure 1 shows an wiring, and to lay things out a little better in the example of the 10-tower screen I put together for transmitter rooms. WMUZ(AM). I wanted to make sure that the critical measurements are readable from across the room. I like the number of tools that are available to integrate external sources, which include security cameras. At long last, I have received my CSR SPI programmer, which I ordered a few weeks ago. I plan on doing testing and development of the CSR 64215 chipset for high quality wireless Bluetooth audio transfer to Android and Apple devices. I am trying to further streamline remote broadcasts here at CBC-Detroit down to a very clean implementation. If everything works as planned, all that will be needed is a cellphone or wireless tablet device and an XLR pro microphone and my custom Figure 1 - 10-tower AP screen for WMUZ(AM).