Installing Burk RDS Unit

[Stick_Davis]

We have recently purchased the RDS Master from Burk, and have it configured to work with our automation system to display title/artist. However, we're running into a problem. Is there a way to keep the RDS unit in the control room at the station and send the signal via the STL?

Or must it go to the transmitter site? And if so, how do we now get the information from the automation system to the unit?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ssnake]

> We have recently purchased the RDS Master from Burk, and
> have it configured to work with our automation system to
> display title/artist. However, we're running into a problem.
> Is there a way to keep the RDS unit in the control room at
> the station and send the signal via the STL?
>
> Or must it go to the transmitter site? And if so, how do we
> now get the information from the automation system to the
> unit?

It has to go at the transmitter site; the RBDS generator needs to be fed the composite signal. Even if you keep the stereo generator at the studio, your composite STL probably wouldn't pass the RBDS subcarrier.

If the unit has TCP/IP capability, you could install an Internet connection at the transmitter and interface the automation that way. Depending on your STL, you may have a data channel that you could use. If you're not too many miles away and have line of sight, you could run a point-to-point 802.11 link cheaply.

 

[DudeFan]

> > We have recently purchased the RDS Master from Burk, and
> > have it configured to work with our automation system to
> > display title/artist. However, we're running into a
> problem.
> > Is there a way to keep the RDS unit in the control room at
>
> > the station and send the signal via the STL?
> >
> > Or must it go to the transmitter site? And if so, how do
> we
> > now get the information from the automation system to the
> > unit?
>
> It has to go at the transmitter site; the RBDS generator
> needs to be fed the composite signal. Even if you keep the
> stereo generator at the studio, your composite STL probably
> wouldn't pass the RBDS subcarrier.
>
> If the unit has TCP/IP capability, you could install an
> Internet connection at the transmitter and interface the
> automation that way. Depending on your STL, you may have a
> data channel that you could use. If you're not too many
> miles away and have line of sight, you could run a
> point-to-point 802.11 link cheaply.
>

The Burk Unit has an ethernet connection. We're lucky.. we're able to run Cat 5 to the top of the building. An Internet connection would be my second choice if you can't run serial or ethernet data through the STL.

 

[awsherrill]

> It has to go at the transmitter site; the RBDS generator
> needs to be fed the composite signal. Even if you keep the
> stereo generator at the studio, your composite STL probably
> wouldn't pass the RBDS subcarrier.

I took a look at the RDS Master setup guide at the Burk site. It looks to me like it has a loop-through mode, which would allow the composite out of your stereo generator to be mixed with the 57-kHz in the RDS box, then sent to your composite STL. This is, of course, assuming you are using a composite STL and have a stereo generator at the studio.

We are doing exactly this with a couple of different Moseley composite STL systems, and it works great. No problem passing the RDS through the STL. We are using the Audemat FMB-80 encoders, which I believe are functionally the same as the Burk unit.

If you are using a digital STL like the Moseley Starlink or the Harris CD-Link, you would have to put the RDS unit at the transmitter site. You could send the artist/title data over one of the data ports on the STL. As it happens, I also have a station with this arrangement, and it works fine.

 

[ssnake]

> We are doing exactly this with a couple of different Moseley
> composite STL systems, and it works great. No problem
> passing the RDS through the STL.

I just checked the specifications on Marti's composite STL, and studio-side RBDS should work with that as well. It has a couple of subcarrier inputs, and although RBDS is not specifically mentioned, it should pass through on one of those.

 

[Stick_Davis]

> I just checked the specifications on Marti's composite STL,
> and studio-side RBDS should work with that as well. It has
> a couple of subcarrier inputs, and although RBDS is not
> specifically mentioned, it should pass through on one of
> those.

See, here's the problem.

The stereo generator is at the transmitter site. Is there any way to pass the RDS signal through on one of the subcarriers of the STL to keep it at the studio?

 

[awsherrill]

> The stereo generator is at the transmitter site. Is there
> any way to pass the RDS signal through on one of the
> subcarriers of the STL to keep it at the studio?
>

Most of the mux channels I have seen on analog STLs are intended for subcarriers at 110 kHz and up, used for transmitter remote control. They roll off below 110 to keep the remote control signals from getting into the baseband.

I had Moseley modify an STL once to allow it to pass 92 kHz on the mux channels. I don't know if they could do that for 57 kHz, though.

You can try putting RDS on the STL subcarrier to see if it works (on the Burk, I believe you have to put it in "sidechain" mode to do this). If not, you'll have to leave the encoder at the transmitter site and find some other way to get data to it. Lots of ways to do that, depending on the circumstances.

 

[ssnake]

> See, here's the problem.
>
> The stereo generator is at the transmitter site. Is there
> any way to pass the RDS signal through on one of the
> subcarriers of the STL to keep it at the studio?

The RBDS signal needs to be phase-locked with the pilot tone, which is inserted by the stereo generator. You need to feed the output of the stereo generator into the RBDS generator.

Getting an network connection should not be too difficult as there are many options.