Engineers Part One

General Radio News and Comments, Satellite & Internet Radio and LPFM

Postby Jack Bennest » Thu May 18, 2006 5:18 pm

CHNL REBUILDS ITS STUDIOS
by: DAVE COULTER
Thanks to Broadcaster Mag

NL Broadcasting Ltd. of Kamloops, B.C. was granted a new FM license in July 2005 by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). This was something the company had taken two years to achieve and, although it had been hard work, we knew the hardest part of the project was yet to come.

NL Broadcasting was already operating two stations in Kamloops and another growing operation in Merritt, an hour south.

Although we had been aggressive with our studio updates a decade earlier, almost all aspects of the facility were at the end of their usefulness. We knew it was time to upgrade.

This would mean I would be building or refitting three on-air rooms and another three production facilities within 12 months while keeping the existing operations ? and the transmitter repeater systems spread over 40,000 square km ? functioning without any interruptions.

I had attended NAB 2005 in Las Vegas with the GM and operations manager prior to the license being granted, as we hoped to have our equipment wish list pretty well in place should we have a positive decision from the Commission. We wanted to once again feel that we had the technology to take us through the next decade. And it was the GM who was insisting we not think short term and encouraged me to not overlook some of the more high-end products out there.

An Exciting Time To Be Looking

The key components that obviously had to be replaced were the tired consoles and the automation system. It was an exciting time to be looking at the options available to us as so many manufacturers had moved into networked audio solutions.

Our infrastructure had always been miles of cable, distribution amplifiers and jackfields, so you?ve got to know how excited I was to see how we could distribute just about any source to just about any destinations via some kind of network link. We had never owned a traditional routing switcher as the facility had just expanded bit by bit, never in a phase large enough to justify the major expense.

The solution was one that excited me from the start and from there I compared other networked solutions and started the process of nailing down budgets with pros and cons of the various manufacturers. The budgets for complete solutions were getting pretty high, but we were prepared to sacrifice other areas to insure we could take advantage of the technology.

During the back and forth with Wheatstone, Darrin Paley kept me abreast of a new option that was being worked out by their designers. Their console with the optional Net-75 panel was being reworked to give it more capacity. Just as we were reaching the point of making a decision on whose and what technology we would go with, the new product was offered to us.

For our six studios, the solution fit like a glove. The new consoles gave us all the flexibility we would ever need and the technology is simple to implement and maintain. Although we didn?t want to make the decision based on price alone, no one could touch the value we got.

Other factors were that we still had the backbone of a traditional console to fall back on. We could easily have back-up feeds that did not rely on any networking. The network was simple Cat5e that anyone could install and maintain. The only real proprietary components were inexpensive to back up and easily swapped out should there ever be a failure. The consoles themselves have been around for a long time, and the flexibility for local analog or digital inputs and outputs gave me all the choices I would need.

We took delivery of all six consoles in January. As rooms are renovated and millwork installed, I am putting them into action.

I thought at one point I?d better not let the GM know how easy the consoles are to install but I?ve since found out that it didn?t take him long to realize that this meant I had more time to look after other things that one can normally let slide during major studio renovations.

Now we joke about the single ?red network? cable that I plug-in that takes care of all the I/Os. Having the controls follow with the audio sources makes it easy to move any automation system to any console seamlessly. With extenders on the PCs we can patch any PC controls to the same rooms in seconds.

We have a active newsroom with eight workstations that required audio sources. Using the new software here and in the other jock prep areas, we easily distribute the audio anywhere we want. I have simple, complete control over who can switch what source or destination. Remote location audio is now only a mouse click away for anyone.

The system has required almost zero support. Within hours one can configure and have audio available throughout the network. It is intuitive software and simple hardware connectivity. I?m going to be able to remove miles of multipair cable and gain back a wall in the rack room that was tied up with the dozens of R66 blocks and jumper cables.

Now, in minutes ? or even seconds ? I can give anyone access to audio that previously would have taken hours to jumper and document or worse ?run cable to. The new equipment is giving me the flexibility to deliver like never before.

Dave Coulter is Chief Engineer of NL Broadcasting Ltd. in Kamloops, BC. He may be reached by phone at 250-372-2292 or by e-mail at dcoulter@radionl.com
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