The Broadcasters' Desktop Resource

THE PPM WATERMARK

The PPM system uses a unique encoded watermark that is made up of ten modulated carriers, output changes according to a unique algorithm designed by its contract developers, Martin Marietta, a top tier defense contractor.

The design criteria was to make these carriers robust to the PPM receiver, while being transparent to the audio content of the program.

THE PROBLEM

This largely works – with ONE GLARING PROBLEM: PPM encoders mess up the transmissions of EAS data (“Duck farts”). Put a PPM encoder after an EAS encoder and no one else can pick up any transmitted EAS message.

This is a big problem for LP-1 EAS stations. I am CE for one of these (a class B FM that is the LP-1 EAS station for half of an East Coast state) and we failed our 2019 National test for this reason. No one listening to us picked up our test, including three TV stations.

Moving the PPM unit before the EAS box quickly fixed the problem.

PROBLEM FIXED, BUT NIELSEN UNHAPPY

But now we get to the Nielsen problem – by putting the PPM in front of the EAS it is impossible to run EAS on a station’s stream without also having that PPM watermark on that stream also.

To rewire things so the audio is split before the PPM encoder means that the radio station will have dead air on its streaming during any EAS test or alert. With smart speakers (Alexa) becoming the home radio of 2020, I think this is a bad thing for the general public. Not to mention that I know of at least a dozen mom and pop FMs that are using an FM tuner to feed their streaming, meaning the radio stations PPM watermark is on that stream by default.

NIELSEN NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND “SIMULCAST”

It is well past time for Nielsen to converge with reality and realize that a 100% simulcast is just that – a 100% simulcast. The main reason that this is not a bigger problem is that most stations do not have other stations monitoring their EAS.

Unfortunately, some stations are LP-1s – and lots of other stations do monitor us.

Dana Puopolo

dpuopolo@usa.net

What do you think? Let us know what is on your mind

LOSING POTS COPPER?

By Clark Novak

Quoted: “It is no secret that with the larger number of cell phones than landlines in use the local/regional phone companies are pulling out more copper. In 2017 alone, 20 state legislatures voted to permit AT&T to end landline service. POTS may soon be just a memory.”

This gives me chills.

As my IT friends say, “Data you only have 3 backups of is data you don’t care about.” I think the same attitude toward redundancy goes for the PSTN: communication methods must be redundant, whether that means redundancy-in-kind, or by alternate means.

Digital services, whether cell, WiFi or broadband, are too easily disrupted by too many methods to rely solely upon, in my opinion. By contrast, the “old-fashioned” copper network was hardened over the course of more than a century with multiple levels of redundancy, both in infrastructure (hard lines), routing (multiple switching networks) and transmission method (analog, digital, copper, fiber, microwave – if there’s any of that left!). It’s even self-powered, with local switch battery backups that can last for weeks.

The cellular network lacks any protection of that kind – when the utility feed to a cell tower drops, there’s [usually] no backup power.

I know: profits above all. But man, the loss of the copper-based PSTN would be a huge step backward in public safety and actual utility, as we’ve seen during recent natural disasters where cell grids went offline but the copper network functioned perfectly for emergency communication. IMO, the legislators allowing this to happen are either stupidly short-sighted or have been paid off to vote this way. And the FCC and FTC are complicit too – paper tigers since the 1990s.

Sometimes I just don’t know where all the smarts went. Certainly not to the Statehouses. :p

And yes, I keep a copper landline in my house. Service has degraded a bit since AT&T “upgraded” the local switch from the crossbar to digital, and it costs me $25 a month for which I get mostly robocalls. But when the power is out (as has happened here during fires, storms, and earthquakes), the d*mned thing works. My cellphone often doesn’t.

end rant!

Clark Novak

Radio Marketing

Your View?  Let us know!