I am curious as I used to work at a radio station back in the 90’s where the old equipment was used. Basically the mixer with the cd players, cartridge players, telephone line, microphone line, satellite news all connected to it. So what is different about that setup now in radio stations? So yeah wondering what role the computer plays for the dj??
CD players are still around, but turntables are mostly gone. Cartridge players are pure history, Network stuff is mostly delivered by Satellite and telephones are now used on air for basic call ins, but we use modem style codecs and ISDN lines for remotes. At the 6 stations where I am Chief Engineer we have three computers in each control room for basic music and commercial playback, recording and editing for playback telephone callers, internet access, special effects, and most of the DJ’s bring in their laptops which we interface with the consoles and networks. I have about 10 Satellite receivers for various things, 4 ISDN systems, 5 POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) codecs for digital audio, T1, Microwave and VHF RPU equipment. there is a turntable out in storage I can bring in if we really need it, cassettes are rarely used, digital audio tape is pretty old hat, I have no reel to reel machines in service, and even minidisk is becoming obsolete. We burn CD’s with audio to keep, and send and receive audio over the internet.
Not the same as when I started 45 years ago!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Quite often now, pretty much all of the audio is played back via the computer. The computer is often replacing the DJ since the basic program clock can be automated. Of course, there still is a mixer and mic, at least most of the time.
The first station I ever worked at had two turntables, a cassette deck,
a reel-to-reel and 3 cart players. It used a phone patch to connect to the line for the ABC and Mutual news feeds. We played 45 rpm records for most of the broadcast day.
And, people generally only lost their jobs when stations sold..not due to the format change of the month.
My station now can be operated either way, as I still like doing some of the old-fashioned shows every week.
References :
24 years in radio
March 1st, 2010 at 7:51 pm
CD players are still around, but turntables are mostly gone. Cartridge players are pure history, Network stuff is mostly delivered by Satellite and telephones are now used on air for basic call ins, but we use modem style codecs and ISDN lines for remotes. At the 6 stations where I am Chief Engineer we have three computers in each control room for basic music and commercial playback, recording and editing for playback telephone callers, internet access, special effects, and most of the DJ’s bring in their laptops which we interface with the consoles and networks. I have about 10 Satellite receivers for various things, 4 ISDN systems, 5 POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) codecs for digital audio, T1, Microwave and VHF RPU equipment. there is a turntable out in storage I can bring in if we really need it, cassettes are rarely used, digital audio tape is pretty old hat, I have no reel to reel machines in service, and even minidisk is becoming obsolete. We burn CD’s with audio to keep, and send and receive audio over the internet.
Not the same as when I started 45 years ago!
References :
45 years in radio Certified professional Radio Engineer