Let’s get caught up with the Radio World mailbag. Here’s a sampling of reactions to stories from the past six months or so. Submit a letter about any article to [email protected].
DMM on the cheap
I thoroughly enjoyed Mark Person’s article on multimeters (“Here’s Something I Cannot Live Without”), although I will take issue with his point about DMs that cost around $20 and/or come from China.
A few months ago my equipment bag was stolen. While the K3/0 Mini and RRC box were the biggest loss, also in that bag was a classic no-name multimeter, probably 25 years old, with my WQ6X call sign stamped on the back, not visible unless you take it out of its rubber case.
Looking for a replacement meter on e-Bay, I found several that cost around $25. But one priced at $18, prolly Chinese, also came with tools and a soldering iron all in a zip-up case — with free shipping, no less. It’s shown in the photo.
Note only does the meter work great, but I recently made use of the soldering iron to repair a set of munged audio cables.
Bottom line, don’t necessarily judge a unit by its price. My current-handling requirements are minimal, so the unit is adequate for most of my purposes. My most frequent use of a DMM is for the beeping continuity tester.
Ron Fitch
Changes at CBC
About the Q&A with Jon Medline, CBC/Radio-Canada’s executive director, policy and international relations (“A View of Radio Issues from CBC/Radio-Canada”):
What I miss most often about CBC is the AM band services, as well as HF broadcasts.
When traveling in geographically challenged regions with no local service, it’s handy to have a voice keeping you informed.
I understand the simplicity of FM and the reduction of costs, but many times we cannot hear FM station in many regions.
Frederick R. Vobbe
Analytics with a caveat
Regarding the article “Cumulus Lays Out Its Reasons for Embracing DTS AutoStage”:
What’s not mentioned is that DTS only gathers information from “connected” cars, meaning vehicles with infotainment systems with built-in internet connectivity.
Vehicles that fit this requirement are typically newer, mid- to high-end models generally not driven by folks in the lower economic classes. Indeed, my family’s vehicles are a late-model Ford car and Chevy truck, neither of which are “connected.” And I’d consider my family to be solidly “middle-class.”
Indeed, a recent DTS press release informs us that it is “integrated into 10 million vehicles globally” but consider: There are over 13 million passenger vehicles registered is California alone!
That Cumulus suggests that DTS AutoStage is a viable replacement for Nielsen simply misses this point: Until the majority of all the vehicles on the road are “connected,” a large majority of DTS’ data will be skewed towards the higher economic demographics, those who drive newer, high-end vehicles, significantly under-reporting the actual actual listening by those of us whose cars and trucks are not “connected.”
Mike Worrall
Los Angeles
Say what, now?
Re Dr. Paul Tapper’s article “I Can’t Understand What They’re Saying” in the August Opinion section:
I’ve noticed the same problem in TV, but there is a way to measure unintelligibility there that does not exist in radio.
Turn on the captions. Notice how little sense the captions for spoken audio make when intelligibility is low.
If the AI of a caption machine cannot understand what’s being spoken, why would anyone think listeners would not change the channel under such conditions?
Why some TV stations keep employing reporters without insisting that they attend diction classes is more than I can understand. Thank goodness for the mute button.
Dick Abraham
Thanks, Bob
Paul, thank you for that wonderful interview series with Bob Orban. I so enjoyed reading the history of this great man.
Back in the day in the mid-1970s, I was the first in Detroit to have an Optimod 8000 on the air, at what was then WWWW on 106.7 MHz. The excitement of having the cleanest and loudest signal on the air — until everyone else figured out what enabled that and bought their own! — is still a clear and happy memory.
When CBS was involved in ISO/MPEG/CCIR testing in the early 1990s for low-bit-rate perceptual coding algorithms, it was the biggest and most humble thrill of my life presenting a paper and panel on its progress at the NAB while sitting up on the same stage with Bob Orban.
Thank you for presenting and preserving an account of his work.
Greg Urbiel
A sign for your desk
In response to the article about Bruce McKirdy headlined “Radio Can’t Cut Its Way to Prosperity”:
Larry Grogan, the VP/operations at Susquehanna Radio, had a sign made for each General Manager’s desk. It read: “You don’t have an expense problem. You have a revenue problem.”
That was good advice in the ’90s and it is true today, even though today’s corporate doesn’t understand it.
Bill Ruck
San Francisco
[Check Out More Letters at Radio World’s Reader’s Forum Section]
