PNB Meeting - Jan 2007 - Pacifica Operations Report

A) Radio

Radio is our core business. The obvious costs of doing business, regarding Radio Operations, encompass the personnel and equipment needed to make radio happen. This includes but is not limited to production, distribution, archiving and administration of our programming.

1. Specials and Remote Broadcasts

Pacifica continues to provide national special programming and national and local remote broadcasts. We need to build teams around the network to technically facilitate these broadcasts. The technology used to send audio from the remote location has changed in the last few years. ISDN was the main way broadcasters sent the audio to their studios in the past. Now we use POTS (Plain Old Telephone) and wireless phone services and Internet based technologies are becoming popular for real-time (simplex and duplex) communications as well.

2. Compliance

A taskforce comprised of staff from within the Pacifica National Office is composing a set of rules for compliance with FCC Language regulations as regards Profanity, Indecency and Obscenity. These rules would help protect the stations from FCC fines. The taskforce will be looking at some other FCC compliance issues such as Plugola and Payola to add to these set of rules.

Pacifica already has some compliance forms, documents, and hint-sheets on its support wiki, for subjects such as those mentioned above as well as Public file, EAS file and other FCC requirements.

Part of this process is to build relationships with many of the technically savvy people in the network, to see what is still necessary to add to the picture and to see if they can help us fill some of the holes, so (individually) we are not constantly rebuilding the wheel.

3. Technical Support

Support services are needed for a variety of items, mostly programming (from specials to regular programs) and distribution related. Additional support in the form of coordination, and planning are also provided.

4. In Focus: HD Radio

The attached report provides an overview of available HD (High Definition) Radio systems versus conventional FM radio systems. It explores the technologies involved in implementing the conversion to a hybrid-analog/digital transmission system, looks into the benefits and drawbacks of implementing HD Radio and describes where each of the Pacifica stations stands in this process

The Broadcast Operations Group, (a subset of the Technical Operations Group) met two month ago to talk about one of the subjects of this report, HD Radio). The discussion was lively, contained important technical and logistical information and lasted over two hours, and helped greatly in the composing the HD Radio report included below (3). The Technical Operations groups will continue to have discussions on various technology issues and problems as they arise. The next meeting will be to discuss the future of our KU satellite system (discussed below).

5. In Focus: Transition Out of Ku satellite

Pacifica’s main method of distributing live content is through our KU satellite system. The KU satellite operates two separate program signals (discreet left and right channels) on one frequency. The left channel is for regularly scheduled programs and right channel is for special programs.

Present status of the KU Satellite:
The hardware for our uplink to the satellite is aging and will need to be replaced if we continue with this means of content distribution. We removed the transceiver and controller from WPFW’s non-functional uplink and those units are now being tested in Berkeley to determine if they are in working order to replace parts that are 30,000 hours past the time when they should have been replaced.

We have approximately two more years on the contract with the company that owns the satellite (Clear Channel). We need to decide whether we will continue to use this technology, modify the technology, or if we will transition to different technological method of live program distribution. The receiver side hardware (Comstream ABR series Demodulators) that our stations and affiliate use to receive the Pacifica KU signal are failing at an alarming rate and those stations may need to make choices in the next year or two whether to replace that equipment. Since this equipment is moderately costly we need to make a decision about the future of the KU satellite fairly soon, before our affiliates start replacing their satellite demodulators for a system with an unsure future.

The system we use to automate the left (and now the) right channels of the KU uplink has changed. The KU’s automation system, up until recently, used NPR’s legacy system which ran on a OS/2 computer system. NPR has now changed their automation system to “an off the shelf” Windows XP based DAD system since the implementation of their Content Depot system, which is available to NPR affiliates. This system still has some teething issues but allows for much greater flexibility and utility than the old NPR legacy system.

We need to provide a backup system to provide for possible KU uplink or downlink problem. One such system is outlined below:

Currently we have 64Kb Internet streams-casts of both the KU left and KU right channels for our affiliates and sister stations. The inputs of the streams (generated by the KPFA in-house server) are coming off the output of a KU demodulator. This is beneficial because it allows people in other parts of the network to know if the KU system is working correctly. This is problematic because if the KU system is not working correctly due to weather conditions or technical issues, the streams will also be affected.

The solutions for a reliable redundant system for the KU satellite are:

• Move the streams off the KPFA server upgrade the bit-rate to 128Kbs and use hardware boxes (www.barix.com) to generate the streams sent directly to one of the Pacifica servers.
• Set up a 2nd source of Internet streams coming off the ABR demodulator at KPFT using the same kind of hardware boxes to generate 64Kbs streams going to Pacifica server on another internet provider. (If the KU satellite fails the KPFT stream sources could be switched to ISDN, or Comrex Access sources.)
• Pacifica can recommend inexpensive reliable hardware based Internet stream receive boxes (barix.com) to our affiliates so they can reliably receive these streams.

This system will provide a reliable way for Pacifica to distribute their live content with redundancy at almost every point in the program chain.

6. In Focus: Previously purchased Macintosh hardware

16 out of 18 iMacs accounted for - 14 at known locations.

National Office (3):
· 3 new, still in boxes

KPFA (3):
· 1 used for graphics at KPFA.
· 1 used by someone who wont use a PC at KPFA.
· 1 at New College used by Dennis Bernstein for Flashpoints.

KPFK (0):
· No information

WBAI (1):
· 1 Used for Video at WBAI (Locked in the chief engineer's room)

KPFT (3):
· 3 Being used to edit audio.

WPFW (2):
· 1 new, still in box. (In storage)
· 1 being used as a regular PC at WPFW.

Pacifica Radio Archives (2):
· 1 used for Video and Audio editing by Christopher Sprinkle.
· 1 burned out. The unit may still be under extended recall warrentee.

Unaccounted for:
· 2 iMacs at outside organizations
· 2 Macintosh Powerbook laptops – unknown

The supporting equipment purchased as part of this package seems to have been absorbed by the stations and the PRA.