SMPTE09 radio products on show

DAB transmission was a feature of the Rhode and Schwarz stand, Elan Audio had a new mobile phone reporter unit on show and Lumina displayed its latest BE brand of FM transmitters, as Steve Ahern walked the floors at SMPTE09 to check out some of this year’s latest radio equipment.

At a show like SMPTE, where so many microphones are on display, favourite microphone types were under discussion. One of the most mentioned mics was the Shure SM7, which was favoured for its warmth in most studio conditions. Some ABC stations preferred the more ‘lecturn style’ AKG CK47s, although others thought these sounded too hollow in larger studios.

Headphones are very subjective, but the most praised headphone brand was Sennheiser for announcer cans. For guest headphones, one tech said: “It doesn’t matter what you buy for guests, they will soon get broken, so choose something you can replace quickly and easily without too much cost and leave the choice of announcer cans to what the staff most prefer.”

Another hot topic was the demise of Telstra program lines. While many capital city broadcasters changed over to STL links long ago, there are still many physical program lines existing in regional areas. Macquarie Southern Cross is currently replacing lines at over 20 locations with links, and most other regional broadcasters are doing the same as the countdown to decommissioning landlines fast approaches.

A growing preference for smaller, desk-mounted speakers in broadcast studios, especially for talk formats was another trend discussed. Desk mounted speakers are cheaper and quicker to install. In talk stations, when the mic is on the speakers are off, and the mic is on for a lot of time in a talk radio format, so why spend money on quality speakers when you don’t need them was one practical comment from a radio installer.

Rhode and Schwarz was showing off transmitters and test equipment on its stand. The company has supplied most of Australia’s digital radio transmitters and is closely involved with the digital radio rollout process.

Lumina Broadcast Systems was showing its American BE brand FM transmitter, being offered at prices similar to lower quality transmitters. Lumina also stocks the latest ‘AVFlex’ Audiovault playout system, which interfaces with all types of music rotation programs and provides high levels of reliability in automated playout. Lumina also supplies my favourite single track studio audio editing software and control surfaces callexd Voxpro.

Elan Audio has improved its well known phone reporter product by integrating the mobile phone into a single mixer box. You put your sim card in the slot and the box can call a range of preprogrammed numbers for reporters to file back to the newsroom or live to air. The Phonebox has two mic inputs with integrated Automatic Gain Controls, line input and can also mix off-air monitoring input into the headphones for reporters to listen to their live cues.

The Phonebox is powered by rechargeable batteries that last 4 hours in constant use and about 12 hours on standby. Full details and photos at this link.

Elan also had one more cute offering for radio broadcasters on its stand, a programmable on air light. I tried to get General Manager Angelo D’Agostino to program it to say what most broadcasters say when people are talking too nosily outside the studio, “shut the F**! up,” but he was too well mannered to do that, so he wrote ‘Analog is good.’ You can write whatever you want when you put it up in your own studios. The message is changeable through a simple computer interface.

The SMPTE09 Exhibition finishes Friday afternoon this week.