> Sounds like a great idea! A station we just sold has a
> subcarrier station that serves the community where the
> station is (main channel does not). He has been very
> successful with it, even running it as a commercial
> operation with ad revenue. Check it out at
www.htradio.net .
> He has sold or placed well over 8000
> SCA receivers out in the market. Folks hear it in
> restaurants, in thier cars, at home, etc. It really serves
> the community in Jackson, CA well.
> The owner of the SCA station is Jim Guidi. Contact info on
> his website. Really nice guy to chat with. I'm sure he can
> help you figure it out. And, yes, you can run more than one
> subcarrier for two different services. Standard subcarrier
> freqs. of 67 & 92 khz. Jim can help you with the where to
> buy the radios part, too. I have a imported portable radio
> here that he set me up with, and he sells this type very
> inexpensivly to listeners, so a purchase direct from his
> supplier would be the way to go for you. Modulation Sciences
> sell the
> SCA generators, called a "Sidekick" that plug into the
> transmitter, or can be fed from the studio on an STL that
> supports it.
> The "Sidekick" list for $3950 each, but may be sold for a
> bit less. Check with my rep at Broadcast Supply Worldwide,
> Gary Beebe for pricing. 800-426-8434, or your favorite
> vendor.
>
> Let us know how you make out with this project...
>
> dave/fmnostatic
>
>
> > Hello. I'm new to this board, but I'm looking for
> > engineering information on the technical feasibility of
> > doing foreign language broadcasting on a sub carrier
> > frequency of our main channel. I'm the General Manager of
> a
> > college station in Lowell, MA, an area with an extremely
> > large immigrant population. There is also a very active
> non
> > profit community, so I'm hoping to get grants to purchase
> > radios to distribute them cheaply. I've got a broadcast
> > studio lined up at the local Public Access station, so
> that
> > shouldn't be a problem. What I'm looking for is:
> > -Is it possible to broadcast a reading for the blind
> service
> > in addition to foreign language programming?
> > -Where would it be possible to buy thousands of SCA
> > receivers?
> > -Is there other technical information I need to know to go
>
> > through with this?
> > -From what I've read, SCA is unregulated, so would it be
> > possible to do commercials on an SCA broadcast on a
> > non-commercial station?
> >
> > Thanks for any help you can offer
> >
>
Yes.. You would be well served by the Modulation Sciences Sidekick SCA generator. They are about the best you can get for the generation. You can have two subcarriers plus broadcast stereo and RDS. It takes some overall modulation away from your main, so if you're not in a loudness war, you shouldn't have to worry about that too much. Keep in mind you will need some way to get the audio to the tower if you don't have a composite STL. (If you're Optimod is at the studios, you can inject the SCA there.)
As far as the radios are concerned, see
http://www.radiosca.com/
You can get radios from them that are tunable, will get BOTH the 67 and 92 subcarrier signal, and are only about 30 bucks, or less if you buy them in bulk. I own a couple and love them.
Analog SCA is one of the most underutilzed resources in broadcasting. I'm glad to see someone wants to make use of it. Fidelity of SCA isn't great, coverage is less than the main, but it's still a wonderful thing. Hell, it's a signal that you don't even have an additional electric bill to produce. How neat is that!? It's even compatible with HD if you choose to do that. (according to research I've seen) The 67 would be the one less effected by HD, by the way.
Good luck!
<P ID="signature">______________
--- THE Insultant ---</P>
