Monitoring remote transmitters

[notlob]

• Seems to me a "network" operating a system of remote transmitters and translators would have a quality system in place monitored from its office to insures its network is operating nominally.
  
  Apparently the array near Worcester used by several stations was hit by lightning this past Monday. At least one station was knocked off the air but since restored. It is off air again today. When I called the office the staff person was unaware of this.
  
  • Do networks usually have monitoring systems?
    Should normal operating practice be for the station engineer/general manager to inform the office staff and update the website with status/estimated time to repair, thus informing broadcast status to its listeners?
  
  Perhaps this is evidence that this station has outgrown its ability to manage its "network."

 

[Deleted User]

I am old, so I am used to taking transmitter readings every 2 hours.

When I am working, I call and verify the transmitters are on, and in one stations case, the tower lights are lit when they should be.

If either station was to go off the air, nobody would know unless they listened to the stations over the air, or they dialed in and verified the transmitters were on, but even then that does not mean there is audio getting there or out of the place.

A GOOD remote monitoring device will be set up to notify people if there is a problem, and switch to a backup audio source if there is no audio detected from the studio for more than a minute. If we were to lose our telco to the transmitters, we could switch over to a internet fed backup feed, but unless someone knew there was an issue by actually listening to the station on a radio we'd have no clue. Neither of our systems are set up to notify someone if there is a problem that I am aware of.


IMHO since many stations are running unattended I would think this would be a FCC requirement that there be a notification requirement, especially where tower lighting is involved.

I know of one FM on the south shore where the engineers installed a macro that activated one of those 99 dollar programmable LED signs that would flash in the air studio when the plate voltage wasn't seen, because there was an instance of the station going off the air, and it was not detected for a while because the air monitor was picking up the exciter that was still working away IIRC

 

[uncamark]

• Perhaps this is evidence that this station has outgrown its ability to manage its "network."

Does this station have call letters that start with "W," end with "B" and have "U" and "M" in the middle?

Why don't you just say that you're trying for a license challenge and be done with it? As if the FCC will consider it--they've washed their hands of format changes ever since the WEFM Chicago case back in 1972.

 

[aaronread]

Just because some random staff member who answers the phone doesn't know that a given transmitter in a network is down, doesn't mean the engineer doesn't know it. Who matters more in that situation?

I have silence sensors and power sensors on our transmitters (both of them) and I know it when something goes wrong (and it's always at 3 AM, isn't it?) because I get a call on my office phone, my cell phone, and the "ring all phones" number in our studios/offices. However, I don't send an email out to all our volunteers and students when it happens...I just go and fix the problem. If it's going to be a long-term problem (more than a few hours), I usually try and put a notice up on our website as quick as I can, and/or make a Facebook post about it, but even then...I don't bother the staff. They know to thank anyone who brings it to their attention and to pass the message on to me.

Anyways, if indeed you are talking about WUMB, I know their Chief Engineer personally and I know he is very, very good about crossing his "t's" and dotting his "i's" when it comes to transmitter remote control, monitoring, maintenance and FCC compliance. So I would wager a goodly sum of cash that if indeed WBPR is off the air, he knows about it and was probably working on it long before anyone else even noticed the problem.

 

[4CX1000A]

I am old, so I am used to taking transmitter readings every 2 hours.

A GOOD remote monitoring device will be set up to notify people if there is a problem, and switch to a backup audio source if there is no audio detected from the studio for more than a minute. If we were to lose our telco to the transmitters, we could switch over to a internet fed backup feed, but unless someone knew there was an issue by actually listening to the station on a radio we'd have no clue. Neither of our systems are set up to notify someone if there is a problem that I am aware of.

Backup audio feeds are excellent if one can afford them. Unfortunately, sometimes one can't.

Moreover, backups have to be regularly tested to make sure they'll work when they're needed.

And sometimes even so they let you down. When WCRB moved to 99.5 in Andover, an ISDN line was installed for backup. Unfortunately, it proved to be useless because whenever the T1 died the ISDN died too. I then tried using a Comcast Internet connection as a backup, but on two occasions it too failed: once during the great ice storm of December 2008, and again a few months later when a telephone pole on the street near the site caught fire due to a bizarre electrical problem. However, neither of those kept us off the air because I had a second studio automation system running at the transmitter site, automatically kept up-to-date with current music, voice tracks, and spots. After the ice storm we had to run the station on it it for three days before Verizon got the T1 working again.

 

[aaronread]

Backup audio feeds are excellent if one can afford them. Unfortunately, sometimes one can't.
Moreover, backups have to be regularly tested to make sure they'll work when they're needed.

This is an excellent point. Although we're getting a little into thread drift, it's worth mentioning that over the last 20-odd years there has been a subtle but definite shift in the concept of "reliability" when it comes to telecommunications as a whole. It used to be that reliability was paramount above all. For example, remember in the 1980's when if your phone...which was almost invariably a landline with no wireless component at all...went out it was a big deal? And it almost always signified that a tree had fallen and taken a telephone pole with it, or some similar issue. I distinctly remember being a kid during Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and marveling that although our neighborhood lacked AC power for nearly a week, the phone worked just fine the entire time.

Cellphones, among other things, changed all that. Now convenience trumps reliability, and we think nothing of having a phone that often will not work well, or at all. I'm not saying this is bad or good, per se. I am saying that mindset extends to ALL telco so it's damn hard to have a truly foolproof backup system. A "redundant" T1 or ISDN...or even a "landline" phone...is all too frequently carried on the same circuits as the mainline...and thus just as susceptible to problems as the mainline is. Anything wireless...licensed or unlicensed...might work fine in normal times, but in an emergency it can croak as the overall situation changes. (think Katrina when, at first, the cell networks were technically functioning but were totally overwhelmed) Even satellite, an expensive "backup", can die on you if your dish is blown away in a storm.

Used to be that the old DACBUC calculation (Dead Air Cost vs Back Up Cost) was pretty straightforward. If being off-air cost you X dollars in advertising make-goods and lost audience, then you paid Y dollars to have a backup. And usually if you did things right and spent the money appropriately, you could get a truly redundant backup that you could feel solid about. Otherwise your DACBUC calculation would show that it wasn't worth enough money to do it right, and made do without. A lot of college stations are like that, for example...it costs them little to be off the air, even for days, so they don't spend much on backups.

Nowadays, even if you spend a lot of money that's justified under DACBUC, it's still something of a crapshoot that your backup will be there when you need it. And, conversely, you can spend comparatively little money and get at least some functionality in a backup. This makes things harder, especially when the boss is looking at a backup solution that costs $500 and thinking it'll work just as well as a solution that costs $50,000. And the hell of it is, he might be right...but not because the $500 is that good, but rather because the $50,000 solution is that unreliable!