Readers’ Forum
No do-overs in tower safety
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Radio World’s cover feature earlier this year about tower safety struck a chord with me. While towers for broadcast require a host of safety rules and regulations for safe and cost-effective use, other radio services would do well to effect and enforce safety practices in their tower work, lest they end up emulating the climbing accident of Rev. Paul Bittner, W0AIH, who became a silent key hours before the November Sweepstakes domestic radio competition in 2018. The San Diego contest club, NX6T, has access to the “antenna farm” at WA6TQT’s mountaintop location in Anza, Calif. For several years, we have “suffered” a failed phasing cable on the 160-meter Tri-Square antenna array, consisting of horizontal wires strung between three 100-foot towers. Had the wires been hoisted properly using pulleys and heavy-duty rope, it would be a simple matter to lower them and make repairs in a couple of hours. Unfortunately it seems that tower climbing will be necessary to resolve this problem. We are unqualified to do such work, and a competent climber wants $1,000+ to do that for us. That’s a lot of money for a small contest club. Nevertheless, we are not foolish enough to attempt our own repairs. A possibility would be to use a drone to install pulleys and a new set of wires. Until that happens, we will continue to consider ideas such as base-loading three of the towers using phasing cables to effect proper directional characteristics. Proper installation in the first place limits disasters later. There are no “do-overs” from most tower accidents. Better to be safe and alive. While 160 meters is important to us, it’s not that important. Ron Fitch, WQ6X
What next for public radio? There’s no doubt that the budget rescissions are going to have a serious impact (“Public Media Stations Confront Money Crisis,” Oct. 8 issue), especially in smaller markets where fundraising capabilities are limited. Even the large markets are going to feel an impact. How about thinking outside of the box from a technical standpoint? Covid taught the industry that you can work from home and make great radio too. Coupled with AI, air talent can be located anywhere there is internet access.
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This opens up a whole world of air talent that you would never have access to any other way. Think of the programming opportunities and the potential for savings related to studio space. Using cloud-based AI like Super Hi-Fi to generate some portion or all of a broadcaster’s programming is certainly worth investigating, or even for programming HD-2 and HD-3 channels. Some AI automation vendors have “off the shelf” formats that can be rolled out quickly and cost-effectively. Add station branding and talent voices and off you go. Commercial broadcasters have embraced this technology to downsize studios and office space at significant savings without impacting quality. Dozens of AI-based channels are on the air with more being added every month. Another option for saving money lies in the delivery of content to the transmitter. We’re working with a broadcaster that is delivering content to hundreds of sites using Starlink with 5G backup. It’s cheaper than satellite, which is what they had been using, and gives them much more flexibility in station programming. Can this same cost savings be scaled down to a smaller, rural broadcaster? If you’re scratching your head over how to replace your aging STL equipment, it’s worth a look. We all want to help keep you on the air. Embracing some of the newest technologies could be an answer to reducing some of your large expenses. Mike Pappas SVP, Global Sales Orban Labs Pennsauken, N.J.
The downside of processing FM broadcast was a form of high-quality audio distribution (“Trends in Audio Processing,” radioworld.com/ebooks). But with all the processing, it no longer is. HD Radio was going to save FM but it will not, again due to all the processing involved. It would have been better if all the dynamic range processing was in the receivers for their intended environment. But that ship has sailed. Let’s just continue with loudness wars and pray that listener fatigue drives our audience away for good. Dennis Romo Las Vegas
radioworld.com | December 17 2025