We're getting an new main transmitter for the FM.

It's state-of-the-art, with all-digital capability. Before long, we'll be 100% digital (excluding the announcer's microphones, of course).

Now: I have to figure out how to cram something that wide into the existing space .. . ... but hey, that's why they call me an ENGINEER! :)

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2001

Answers

Hey, bear with me.

All us radio engineers are Gadget Freeks at heart. :)

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001

Can I play with it?

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001

Cherri,

Only if you behave. :)

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001

Too bad you can't see anything on radio (but for some that is a plus).

CNN's videophone in demand

Technology sought after success in China

05/01/2001

Associated Press

NEW YORK – The pictures were grainy, the movements jerky. But when CNN transmitted live pictures by videophone of a U.S. surveillance plane crew taking off from Hainan island to freedom on April 11, it marked a pivotal moment for television news technology.

The company that makes the equipment used by CNN has since been inundated with inquiries and orders by other television news organizations and is trying to keep up with demand.

"There was a knee-jerk reaction the next day," said Peter Beardow, president of the London-based 7E Communications Ltd. "Most major networks rang up and said, 'Can we have brochures?'"

His U.S.-based sales representative said he has taken more than 50 orders.

While the technology used by CNN is not new to TV, and most competitors own some variation of it, the Hainan story represents the videophone's coming-out party. It's likely to popularize a tool used somewhat sparingly to date.

A museum that collects journalism artifacts asked CNN to donate its videophone for display, if the network can get it back. Chinese authorities confiscated it.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

CPR,

It's based on the same technology that lets me see jerky pictures over my 33.6K Sportster at home, or send 2 channels of 15khz audio over a POTS line with my Matrix/Vector setup at the station.

I work with the stuff daily, and it still amazes me how good the compression algorithms are. I was very skeptical of IBOC digital radio at first, but now, I accept it. Putting a couple of 10khz audio channels on a phase-modulated carrier is child's play compared to some of the other stuff we're using.

And satellite channels? Shoot, they cram half a zillion signals into a single channel now. MPEG rules. :)

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001