KUVO

1
(No Transcript)
2
KUVO

• Single outlet NPR station
• Classic Jazz format
• In August this year on the air 19 years
• Minority controlled (Hispanic)
• President CEO Florence Hernandez-Ramos

3
KUVO

• History of technical innovations
• First all digital broadcast plants in Denver
• We wanted to be the first FM HD Radio station in
  Colorado

4
KUVO HD Radio

• CPB HD Radio seed grant applied for in July
  2003
  
• Application approved in December 2003

5
Our Initial Plan

• Antenna combining at our new site on Mt.
  Morrison
  
• PREC had a lot of engineering data on Ant
  combining
  
• Initial estimates of the amount of isolation were
  off by a factor of 10 dB
  
• 60 dB isolation needed

6
Our Initial Plan

• Construction delays of more than 2 years at the
  Mt. Morrison site made our initial plan
  infeasible
  
• This would cause us to lose our CPB Grant

7
KUVO Lookout Site

• Tower built in 1952
• Doesnt conform to current EIA wind specs
• Non-conforming zoning
• County will not allow any changes

8
The New plan

• We know we are going to be at our existing site
  for at least 2 more years
  
• We cant make any changes at our existing site
  due to zoning
  
• Adding an aux antenna for HD Radio was out

9
High level

• Not great energy efficiency
• Spectral re-growth potential
• Transmitter isolation can be an issue
• At the time of our evaluation high power
  isolators were not readily available.

10
Low level

• Our TXPO is 6200 watts which would make us a good
  candidate for low level
  
• Transmitter Isolation is not an issue
• Spectral re-growth can still be an issue

11
Results

• We opted to go with low level hybrid
• We would have to buy a new transmitter
• For us it seemed to be the best answer

12
Evaluating Transmitters

• We have had a Nautel FM-10 on the air for almost
  5 years
  
• In more than 40,000 hours of runtime only 3 hours
  of downtime (seized fan in exciter)
  
• 99.9999 uptime

13
Evaluating Transmitters

• Nautel Customer Service
• 7/24 tech on call
• No mod of the month club
• Maytag repairman

14
Evaluating Transmitters

• Nautel DSP Based adaptive pre-distortion
• Eliminates any potential spectral re-growth

15
Spectral Re-growth

• When FM HD Radio carriers combine with the main
  analog carrier and create harmonics
  
• Harmonics will show up on second, third and
  fourth adjacent.

16
Spectral Re-growth
17
Adaptive Pre-distortion
18
Adaptive Pre-distortion
19
The Nautel V-10

• At the NAB Show I ordered the Beta V-10
• I needed delivery soon to be the first FM HD
  Radio station on the air in Colorado
  
• We agreed to a July 24th delivery

20
STL Design

• 44.1/16 uncompressed audio times two (Tomorrow
  Radio support)
  
• Ethernet capability for control, RDS PAD
  support
  
• RS-232 for dedicated devices
• POTS lines

21
STL Design

• Harris Intraplex (four frames) with E-1 output
• E-1 has 32 time slices vs 24 for T-1
• Microwave 11G

22
PAD RDS Support

• STL Ethernet capability lets us talk to the NE
  IBOC which generates the PAD from the studio
  
• M-50 exciter has built in RDS generator
• The Radio Experience will format up our data and
  ship it to both PAD and RDS

23
HD Radio Processor

• We evaluated HD Radio processors from both major
  processor vendors
  
• We fed duplicate AES/EBU program feeds from our
  plant to each processor.
  
• We used identical D to A converters on the
  output
  
• Levels were matched to 0.1 dB

24
HD Radio Processor

• We conducted listening tests with Programming and
  Engineering staff
  
• We listened to straight through (no processing)
  to the HD Radio outputs
  
• We heard significant differences between
  processors even with no processing (straight
  through)

25
HD Radio Processor

• We listened to the stock presets
• We listened to everyones opinion
• As result of the listening tests we purchased an
  Omnia 6 EX HD

26
(No Transcript)
27
Site Prep

• Transmitter arrival date July 24
• Ordered up the Myat plumbing from BSW
• Install 3 1/8 Dielectric coax switch
• Prep the electrical 208 VAC 3ø 60A
• Prep grounding with 4 inch CU strap

28
Lightning Protection

• This isnt your Dads tube transmitter
• Proper planing will result in reliable
  performance
  
• Lots of 4 inch CU strap on everything

29
4 inch to the V-10
30
Lightning Protection

• Ground the Antenna feed lines at where they enter
  the building
  
• Nautel TVSS on breaker panel
• Ferrite cores on everything
• Ferrite cores provide a very high impedance to
  common mode transients ( I.E. lightning)

31
TVSS

• 4 inch ground strap to plant ground

32
Lightning Protection

• How do we know if we have done a good job?
• We took a hit to the tower next to us
• Feed line arc over in the bottom bay of our
  Shively 6810 BR
  
• No damage to our FM-10

33
Site Prep

• Program the Omnia 6 presets and day-parts
• Install the microwave system
• Book the fork lift
• Book the movers
• Schedule the assistant engineers

34
Transmitter Arrival
35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
AC Power Installation

• 208 VAC 3 Phase
• 60 Amps
• 6 wire THHN Hots
• 8 wire THHN ground

39
AC Power Installation

• 208 VAC 3ø is looped through a pair of ferrite
  cores
  
• Note the ground doesnt go through the ferrite
  core

40
Initial Power up

• 16 hours from arrival to initial power up
• No surprises
• Typical Nautel delivery
• Everything you needed and more was provided

41
Building the Aux Rack

• More ferrite cores on everything
• Wiring dressed, tie wrapped labeled

42
Building the Aux Rack

• More ferrite cores

43
Commissioning

• Nautel arrived on the 28th
• On the air July 30th
• Setting modulation levels with HD Radio sideband
  on problematic with our QEI mod monitor
  
• No significant V-10 problems found
• David Maxson Broadcast Signal Labs testing

44
Commissioning

• We had our usual frequency testing service check
  Davids results

45
(No Transcript)
46
Commissioning bugs

• Minor bug with remote interface alarm tally
• M-50 exciter firmware bug when powered from UPS
  and transmitter power cycled.
  
• These firmware issues were fixed with updates
  within 24 hours onsite

47
How does it sound?

• The new V-10 with its M-50 exciter made the best
  audio I have ever heard on FM
  
• The M-50 exciter has built in variable delay on
  all of its inputs (composite, digital stereo and
  analog).
  
• The M-50 has 6 presets with all parameters
  storable

48
HD Radio audio

• The HD Radio side took 8 seconds of analog delay
  to match the digital signal
  
• Artifacts are noticeable on previously data
  compressed material (NPR feeds, ATRAC mini disk
  and ISDN feeds)
  
• We inserted a Harris NeuStar on the HD Radio feed
  to manage these problems

49
NeuStar

• Image packing
• Noise reduction
• Helps clean up the artifacts of the HD Radio codec

50
HD Radio

• We needed to educate the KUVO Staff as to the
  benefits of HD Radio
  
• We held a staff meeting on August 2nd

51
HD Radio

• We created an HD Radio information handout for
  the KUVO staff
  
• We did a KUVO Staff demo with the HD Radio
  receiver antenna in a bad multi path area
  
• We switched back and forth between HD and
  analog.
  
• The difference was quite noticeable

52
Promotion

• Being the first means more than building it and
  hoping someone will listen!
  
• We teamed up with Ultimate Electronics SoundTracks

53
Ultimate Electronics

• They have 7 locations in the greater Denver Metro
  area
  
• They had sold zero HD Radios in the Metro Area
• They are a Kenwood HD Radio dealer

54
Ultimate Electronics

• We proposed a multi pronged approach
• Sponsorship of Dianne Reeves Colorado Symphony
  Orchestra live broadcast
  
• HD Radio give away
• In store remote

55
Dianne Reeves CSO

• Ultimate Electronics sponsored the broadcast
• Kenwood provided the funding

56
Dianne Reeves CSO

• We broadcast it in 5.1 using the Harris/Neural
  5225 watermarked down mix system
  
• The mix down stereo was great

57
Dianne Reeves CSO

• We used APT Tokyo with 2 ISDN lines to ship the
  signal to the studio
  
• This gave us 256 kbps
• We used the APT Enhanced APT-X codec to reduce
  the artifacts
  
• 15 KHz bandwidth 4 to 1 compression
• Strings sounded great

58
(No Transcript)
59
Dianne Reeves CSO

• We didnt promote the 5.1 aspect of the broadcast
  since there was only one decoder available
  
• You can hear a demo of the 5225 at the Neural
  Suite here at the NAB Show

60
Dianne Reeves CSO
Dear All, I completely concur with Gene and loo
k forward to our next opportunity for
collaboration with KUVO. I heard the broadcast
on Friday evening and was absolutely blown away
by the sound quality. Many thanks for all of
your efforts! All the best, Cyndi Cyndi
Mancinelli Vice President of Artistic Operations
Colorado Symphony Orchestra 999 18th Street,
Suite 2055 Denver, CO 80202 USA
61
Ultimate Electronics

• Give away 12 Kenwood HD Radios starting mid
  October
  
• In store remote November 20th

62
KUVO Promotion

• Colorados First FM HD Radio station tag line is
  used coming out of the top of the hour news
  
• 40 second information spot runs once per hour
  600 AM to 700 PM
  
• Tag line on all email, letterhead and business
  cards

63
So what have we learned?

• Planing was key in the success of our project
• Promoting HD Radio is the key
• Being the first has its advantages
• The Nautel V-10 has been 100 since July 30, 2004
  almost 2000 hours
  
• Simply the best HD Radio transmitter

64
(No Transcript)
65
KUVO HD Radio Project