Radio Broadcast Studio Equipment and Design!

[Rolo 46]

Check out community radio
Its simple self op stuff,journalism based
Not like music, thats mp3 and comes from a server.

[TinderArts]

If all content is produced in house it is an easier setup. Once you need to connect to the outside world for guests, show feeds and the like, it requires getting familiar with ISDNs, audio over IP, codecs and the particular needs/limitations of the stations/studios that you may be connecting with. Phone hybrids and switchers are also common.

There are good materials to be found at many of the associated manufacturers websites. For instance, Telos has great basic info on ISDNs (Telos - Broadcast Studio Equipment) -

The Codec Company, Audio over IP, IP Audio, IP Newsgathering, IP Codecs - Tieline Technology
Telos - Broadcast Studio Equipment
MUSICAM USA

Some music engineers do well in the broadcast field, others not so much. If you can get time to be a fly on the wall for a local radio show, it will give you a good operational idea of what you are in for.

[Richard Crowley]

There are books on broadcast engineering, etc. But there isn't anything fundamentally different between equipment installation/wiring for a radio studio vs any other kind of audio (or video) studio.

If these facilities are already designed and specified, then your only job is to provide the equipment as listed and interconnect it as described. If your FOAF is supposed to be doing the design and specs, that is a very different matter and he may be in over his head if he has no previous experience in broadcast operations.

Exactly what is the scope and expectations here? Your question isn't focused enough to really provide any helpful response.

I just returned from 3 weeks in ZA and I am still recovering from getting sick over there and again on the 21 hours of air travel home :-((

[RedEyeJedi]

Fantastic guys thank you... One of my students is the music manager at a local university station so I reckon I can get in there and scope about and see what goes on, what kind of gear they using etc...

Ja, as I thought, I'm sure the type of equipment is fundamentally the same in terms of signal flow etc... I assume compressors will be used in abundance, but just not sure exactly where in the chain, is all music played through a compressor/ limiter before it gets broadcast...
As well as the presenter?

I will try my best to go and be a fly on the wall at the local station and observe and will prob come back here with some questions once i have a bit more idea, if that's ok

Thks again!

[RedEyeJedi]

Originally Posted by rcrowley

I just returned from 3 weeks in ZA and I am still recovering from getting sick over there and again on the 21 hours of air travel home :-((

Ah man I'm sorry to hear that! What kind of sick? It sucks your experience was a negative one... What was the nature of your visit and where did you go?

[0VU]

Originally Posted by RedEyeJedi

Does anyone have any resources I can check out and read up on?

In the UK at least, construction, wiring and operation practices in a broadcast environment do differ in terms of commonly implemented methods from those normal in a music studio so it's worth doing some research. (They don't have to differ but seem to have evolved down slightly approaches.)

Check out a book called "How to Build a Radio Station" by Dave P Walters (ISBN 9781847287076). Iirr it was downloadable as a (paid for) pdf.

Apart from some rather ...er... idiosyncratic spelling it's an excellent reference which covers all the basics of design, construction, technologies, equipment, best industry standard practices etc. and assumes relatively little starting knowledge on the part of the reader.

Dave Walters has excellent credentials for writing this book, having built/tech managed radio facilities for some of the biggest commercial radio stations and networks in the UK and Europe and, apart from his spelling(!) has produced an easily readable reference in a fairly niche field.

(In the interests of disclosure, no, I'm not Dave Walters but, yes, I do know him and have done for about 18 years. And a thoroughly good bloke he is too.)


There's also a load of technical papers about most aspects of creating a radio station available online from BBC Engineering. These include a lot of useful info but they're a pretty dry technical read and do generally assume some (or a lot of) experience on the part of the reader. Some of the older papers are now rather out of date in their descriptions of best/current engineering/design standards but the underlying info is still valuable. They're also free.

[RedEyeJedi]

Originally Posted by rcrowley

Exactly what is the scope and expectations here? Your question isn't focused enough to really provide any helpful response.
:-((

Sorry about that, basically it's a contact of mine who is supplying equipment to some radio stations (small, I imagine) and he contacted me through a mutual friend to help him out with connectiing the gear and advice about such things...

As I said, I am familiar with a studio environment just not radio specifically so basically want to read up and educate myself

I reckon I will have more specific questions once I go into a station and have a look see!

Sorry if I'm a bit vague

[Richard Crowley]

Sorry, it still isn't clear whether your friend is actually designing the signal path and specifying the equipment, or whether he is supplying and installing equipment already specified by the system engineer? Bolting equipment into racks and wiring it together is not fundamentally different because it is a radio studio. But SELECTION of which equipment to use, etc. is a rather specialized field that is not particularly the domain of amateurs.

It also depends a lot on what KIND of radio station(s). A simple satellite downlink or repeater is rather different that a complex of live studios which is different again from a station run from a local automation system.

During my visit to ZA, I visited a radio studio up on the 15th floor of the South Africa Broadcasting Company skyscraper in Johannesburg. I even took a couple of pictures although the security at SABC was extraordinarily tight and they wouldn't let me take my camera. The facilities seemed like 15-20 years old and equipment maintenance didn't seem like a high priority, but the studio was amazingly quiet when they closed the big sound door.

[RedEyeJedi]

Will make sure all the details before i post back here then... I actually don't know all that much about the gig to be honest. I got a call this morning from a guy about the prospect and I said I was interested in helping him out...

So immediately after i posted to see if I can access some resources and bump up my knowledge on the subject of radio stations and broadcasting before I speak to him again about what exactly is what etc.

[RedEyeJedi]

Thanks 0Vu, that seems like exactly what i was looking for... $60 on Amzon, thats a bit of a stinger hey, but seems like a worthwhile read for my purposes.

Dave

[RedEyeJedi]

Originally Posted by 0VU

Check out a book called "How to Build a Radio Station" by Dave P Walters (ISBN 9781847287076). Iirr it was downloadable as a (paid for) pdf.
.

Any idea where I can get ahold of this pdf??
willing to pay of course, its just $60 from amazon plus shipping to South Africa is a little too much sting for a book at the moment, especially with the highly unfavorable dollar-rand exchange rate.

[daku]

Originally Posted by RedEyeJedi

Hey guys,

A friend of a friend has asked me to help him with a contract where he is supplying equipment and helping setup some small radio stations around the country...

Im Im farily adept at studio stuff and digital anlog I/O, equipment etc, but i have never even been into a broadcast station...

Does anyone have any resources I can check out and read up on?

I just dont wanna seem like an ass!

I assume that the equipment and connections are very similar to a music studio environment in terms of mics, compressors etc.
but beyond that im in the dark!

Advice would be greatly appreciated!

Ohh, radio world, I spend some time there so this post will be long but without what kind of radio you are building is tough to make proper
discussion.

Decisions about equipment and "sound" are also biased from country to country with different school of radio and sometimes laws and ITU recommendation with extra complication like profanity delay or EAS (emergency alert system) but this can only be seen in US I'm not sure, I was always more in Italian kind of school where different things are important but everybody are partially overlapped with broadcasting dominant US.

I will start learning from equipment catalogs
(Broadcast Supply Worldwide |Equipment for Radio Broadcasting and Audio Recording | BSWUSA.com, Broadcast Warehouse - Great Radio Starts Here, We make radio happen - Broadcast Partners)
then after few conversation with ppl involved in actual future radio you can make detail plan about what is best workflow for that radio station and from there you can make list with equipment and other important things like space planning, room acoustics and other little sound tricks.

The different stories from other ppl radio can help, you can find them here:
(Digital Radio – FCC - HD Radio – Pandora - XM Sirius – Shortwave –, Radio magazine - The Radio Broadcast Technology Leader, Broadcast & Production - HOME PAGE & NEWS)
Some web pages have back issues online in pdf or nxt, newbay media have lot of radio themes covered every month from different perspective.

The analog chain usually better excite listeners, but with source like mp3 digital can make better match and control deviation especially with new broadcast recomendation (after all you are not alone in air), the proper reading about listeners habits at least in US can be find in arbitron web pages.

Most resources on net are US based so this sometimes don't apply to your situation/market/country...

The two most important things are FM audio processing and decent microphone (voice talent) obviously everything in between counts but in sound on radio it is about larger than life, better than cd etc, so names here are: Orban, Omnia, Neumann, EV (in US) for mixers I will go to Soundcraft, Lawo, Klotz-digital, Yellowtec, D & R or hi-tech Studer the telephone hybrids Telos but connection with others in network can be telecommunication challenge.

You can spend lot of budget on one piece of equipment so important question is what kind of radio is that future station/s and what matters in that station/market.

Omnia One, A&H XB14, Rode, EchoAudio, ZoomH2n, Dynaudio Acoustics, Denon Tuner, Jazler, Wavelab, TotalRecorder can also make good radio station after all, it is about people who make program mostly and carefully planned workflow and preproduction with smart ups and double backup for automation software. If its small, better avoid fancy IT architecture and digital desk with hard to repair parts.
Sometimes it is also easier in network to be standalone with ocassional preproduction program from sister station without ISDN, yagi link mess...

Sometimes limitation is more ground related so proper antenna with adequate gain, power and height is more important than audio studio equipment but basically you can do it with above list.

Other links and books.
goggle : local radio handbook
ITU,
EBU especially 3276
Gross, Reese - Audio Production Worktext, Focal
Gross, Reese - Programming for TV-Radio-Internet, Focal
Gross, Reese - Radio Production Worktext Studio and Equipment, Focal
Warren, Steve - Radio - The Book, Focal

I hope it helps for starting your voyage,

Best

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I have been a station manager at a radio station, I have been an engineer and technician at numerous radio stations and put a lot of stations on the air in my life. The equipment is similar to but not the same as recording studio equipment.

There are lots of books on radio station design and wiring, I suggest doing a search on the WWW. It is not something for the novice to even consider doing. You should team up with someone who has done this before and work with them for a while before going off on your own. FWIW...