[BC] Dealing with loss of audio

[Reader]

At KPLX, we used an old Roland Compact Flash recorder to notify the jocks if
the station was off or not.  They listened to a 'Near' air signal -- air
processing, but split before it hit the HD delay (no obscenity delay here).
Near Air was routed through the CF recorder, and the jock listened to its
output.  An professional analog receiver was used to supply a closure for No
Audio and one for No Carrier.  The closures triggered the appropriate cut,
so the jock would hear the announcement.  This was backed up with an Enberg
alert panel that flashed at either No Audio or No Carrier.

Of course, since the Near Air was originated by the processor at the
transmitter site and returned via T1, if the T1 went down, we could still be
on the air, but jocks would hear silence.

When I left (May '06) we did not have any HD monitoring set up.
--
Chris Oradat

-----Original Message-----
From: RichardBJohnson at comcast.net
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 12:02 PM
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List

One problem, that gets exacerbated with digital inks is that
even if you have a real DJ in the studio, the studio monitor
is seldom the off-air signal, but rather the before-processed
output of some digital whizzbang like an audio board in a
computer.

So, nobody knows if the transmitter is off-the-air. Several
months ago, WCRB was off the air for a whole day and
nobody knew. The carrier was on, fat dumb and happy.

  -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Paul B. Walker, Jr." <walkerbroadcasting at gmail.com>
 > I gotta wonder how they "aired the wrong format" for 8 1/2 hours ... and
no
 > one noticed. That's just.. well, goes beyond way wrong.