This Week In Radio Tech (TWiRT‪)‬ guysfromqueens

As we are all very aware, being a technical person or layman, the recent CrowdStrike outage caused disruptions on a myriad of computer systems worldwide, affecting multiple industry sectors and millions of people in some way, shape, or form. Approximately 8.5 million devices were affected, leading to outages in various sectors, including airlines, healthcare, and financial institutions. Some broadcasters were affected, but it seems most radio broadcasters were spared. Why is that? What crippled many very large industries had relatively little impact on radio station operations. Three experts join this TWiRT episode: Shaun Dolan, Kyle Walker, and David Smedley. Together we’ll uncover how Crowdstrike affected some broadcasters, and we’ll learn about some best practices for IT security.







Show notes









* CrowdStrike IT Outage Explained by a Windows Developer







* Kyle mentioned SNMP Monitoring using Nagios







* Shaun introduced us to Incident Response - Here’s a TechTarget Article







* And here’s an article from Crowdstrike about Incident Response







* David Smedley mentioned the https://support.aiir.com/









Guests







Shaun Dolan - Partner at Inrush Broadcast ServicesKyle Walker - VP, Technology at Weigel Broadcasting CoDavid Smedley - Senior Support Engineer at Aiir.com







Host







Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio...

Radio’s beloved John Bisset is back! Author of the “Workbench” column is Radio World magazine, John is bringing us the best ideas from engineers since his last appearance on TWiRT, over six months ago. John’s Workbench columns are found at this aggregation page at https://www.radioworld.com/tag/workbench. Plus, Chris Tarr just drove 2,800 miles to buy a LOT of broadcast equipment.







Show notes









* Wet Switch Flood Detector - connect to your remote control system for water warning







* White LED Strip Lights, 20ft Dimmable Super Bright 24V Led Tape Light 6500K 360 LEDs







* Self-Adhesive Reinforcement Labels - Multicolored to mark normal indicator operation







* DIY 9 volt battery connection extender (parts)









Guest







John Bisset - Western US Sales at Telos Alliance & “Workbench” columnist at Radio World







Host







Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.MediaKirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio and the new Rave analog audio mixing console.The new MaxxKonnect Broadcast U.192 MPX USB Soundcard - The first purpose-built broadcast-quality USB sound card with native MPX output.

Larry Janus is no stranger to broadcast engineering, but his passion is excellent design of vacuum tube based audio circuits, and then controlling their functions using modern control electronics via WiFi. This passion leads to a clever integration of a tube-based mic pre-amp, fully remote controlled using a phone app over WiFi. This arrangement gives rise to some interesting and convenient possibilities for stage-placed mic pre-amps with remote control. Larry Janus joins us from his well-equipped home lab in Florida.







Show notes









* Larry’s web site featuring his 2UBES VTX-1 Dual Triode Tube Mic Pre-Amp with WiFi Control







* Criteria Recording Studio - Miami







* RadioWorld article about Gary Blau - W3AM - Silent Key







* History of the Fairchild 660 Tube Compressor







* Info on the ubiquitous 12AX7 vacuum tube







* Info on the I2C data & control buss, used in many electronic designs







* Larry does embedded design work at MANLEY Laboratories









Guests







Larry Janus - Audio Equipment Designer & Systems Engineer at MANLEY Laboratories







Host







Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio and the new Rave analog ...

Low Power FM radio is intended to be a community service. It’s for giving the opportunity for diverse thoughts and voices to spread over a community. However, it’s perfectly OK to have some radio fun in the process! Andy Denoncour, Frank Licata, and Grady Moates each played key roles in getting a new station - WGGG-LP - signed-on and serving the village of Ossipee, New Hampshire. The host and guests all agree that there’s a thrilling excitement to turning the radio transmitter ON for the first time, hearing your audio programming, and taking a drive to check out the coverage!







Show notes









* Ossipee 102.3 - WGGG-LP







* On an upcoming episode, we’ll talk with Grady about advances in the HEBA antenna.









Guests







Andy Denoncour - Engineering & Support at Comrex CorporationFrank E Licata - Founder at WGGG-LP, Ossipee, NHGrady Moates - Owner at LOUD and Clean Broadcast Science







Host







Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio and the new Rave analog audio mixing console.The new MaxxKonnect Broadcast U.192 MPX USB Soundcard - The first purpose-built broadcast-quality USB sound card with native MPX output.

U.S. Broadcasters are required to provide emergency alerts to their audiences, but many radio stations use IP-based signal distribution — something incompatible with old-style EAS boxes. What is needed is a simple way to interface the real-world over-the-air reception of EAS events, filter and process the messages, and — if necessary — incorporate the alerts into the modern audio-over-IP (AoIP) air chain. Doing this right involves some innovation, but once done well, there are several distinct benefits. Bill Robertson from Digital Alert Systems joins Kirk Harnack to explain how this award-winning implementation works, and why it makes EAS better and more effective.







Show notes









* EAS at the Edge℠ - What does that mean, and why should I care? - blog post







* Video from NAB 2024 - EAS at the Edge from Digital Alert Systems









Guest







Bill Robertson - VP, Business Development at Digital Alert Systems







Hosts







Kirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio and the new Rave analog audio mixing console.The new MaxxKonnect Broadcast U.192 MPX USB Soundcard - The first purpose-built broadcast-quality USB sound card with native MPX output.

Tim Berry is already thinking about this fall’s sports broadcasts on the Vol Network. With over 60 radio affiliates and many thousands of listeners depending on high quality, live play-by-play, it’s Tim’s responsibility to make sure these broadcasts get from the stadiums and arenas to the Vol Network headquarters and beyond. Effective planning is essential! And this planning discipline works for other broadcast engineering tasks, like transmitter replacements. Chris Tarr adds his own experience and expertise to our discussion.







Show notes:









* What is the Vol Network?







* Tim Berry - WN4GBI and East Tennessee Amateur Repeaters







* Chris uses VLC Media Player to receive and monitor multiple Internet streams









Guest







Tim Berry - Chief Engineer at WUOT-FM and Chief Engineer at the Vol Network







Hosts







Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.MediaKirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







Sponsored by







Nautel and the HD Digital Radio Test DriveBroadcasters General Store, with outstanding service, saving, and support. Online at BGS.cc. Broadcast Bionics - making radio smarter with Bionic Studio, visual radio, and social media tools at Bionic.radio.Angry Audio and the new Rave analog audio mixing console.The new MaxxKonnect Broadcast U.192 MPX USB Soundcard - The first purpose-built broadcast-quality USB sound card with native MPX output.