20 Years of Radio magazine: September 1994

Jul 1, 2013 6:00 AM, By Chriss Scherer, editor

The first issue of Radio magazine (originally titled BE Radio) was published in January 1994, but its roots go back much farther. In 1959, Broadcast Engineering magazine was launched to cover the technology of radio and television. By 1994, it was realized that while the two services are related broadcast efforts, the needs of their specific audiences warranted splitting the content into two publications.

Radio magazine, now part of the NewBay Media group of publications, continues to cover the technology of radio broadcasting. Now in our 20th year, we’ll look back at the first year of publication, which had six issues.

Features of the September 1994 issue:

� While testing of digital radio systems were underway, the various systems of the day all used spectrum that was not available in the United States, which pretty much left an in-band system as the only option for terrestrial broadcasters.

� We examined the current state-of-the-art in audio management systems. That term was used to describe the computer-based systems that would store, record, schedule and play audio on the station. The term automation has still stuck, even though that’s really only a small part of what the systems can do today. Some of the products noted in the issue: Arrakis Digilink, Computer Concepts DCS, TM Century Ultimate Digital Studio II, and ITC DigiCenter.

� We outlined the key aspects to consider in choosing an on-air audio consoles. Analog was still the king then, and the PR&E AMX, Wheatstone A-500 and LPB7000 were some of the products mentioned.

� John Battison provided some tips on getting the most from transmitter tubes.

� New products in the issue included the Otari MR-10, the Shure M367, Scott Studios CompuCart, Tascam DA-60, Audioarts A-50, Audion Labs VoxPro, and the QEI Quantum series.

July 2013

Check HD Radio Performance with Modulation Error Ration, a tower safety review, Field Report on the Inovonics 610, USB audio interfaces and a look back at 20 years of Radio magazine….