Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on remote control, signal monitoring, EAS and tests.
“A good modulation monitor,” says Jeff Zimmer, southwest regional engineer for Family Stations Inc., “is invaluable in establishing the best processor settings and remote monitoring of signal quality.”
Family Radio is Christian-based teaching and music, with approximately 70 AM, FM and translator signals across the country.
Zimmer’s region encompasses southern California, Utah and Arizona. He recently deployed an Inovonics 526 AM Modulation Monitor at KECR(AM) in the San Diego market. His existing mod monitor was getting old, and he was given the opportunity to beta test the 526 before it became generally available last spring. He purchased it based on his testing.
“The most useful feature to me is the modulation history graph, with a time span extending from one minute to the last 24 hours. Graphs for Positive, Positive Peak, Negative and Negative Peak can be toggled on and off.”
He installed a new on-air processor shortly thereafter, and he found the graphing function in the 526 invaluable for monitoring and adjusting the processor for various program types, music and speech, and normalizing the Day/Night levels. The history meter will also track RSSI, SNR, MDCL, Audio, and Loudness levels.
Zimmer said the receiver section of the 526 is both selective and sensitive.
“While it was in the rack in the transmitter room with both 5 kW and 50 kW co-located stations, I put a simple whip on the antenna input. I picked up all the stations in the market. It would be useful for a central monitoring location for several stations in a market. I imagine with an external antenna and without adjacent transmitters, it would be even better.”
Other useful features of the 526 are audio and RF spectrum analyzers, the latter including the NRSC mask, which was also helpful in setting up the processor. It also includes an O-scope showing IF and audio signals. There’s a scheduler for Day/Night, time-settings to normalize the mode-change power levels.
