Re: How many "trimulcasts" out there?

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@xtdl.com>]

At 02:16 PM 3/19/98 -0400, Martin J. Waters wrote:

>        As a DXer, I wish more satellite stations would use those
>identifiers at the end of songs. I have presumed that the satellite feed
>carries a cue tone to fire them (there's always a pause before the
>satellite DJ comes in at the times when there's an availability for the
>stations to do this). I find it hard to figure why a station would NOT use
>these opportunities to mention its calls, frequency, or whatever positioner
>it is using.
>
>

My guess is that the automation on their end isn't sophisticated enough to
handle the "magic calls", as they are referred to.  When I worked at the
"old" WNHQ about 4 years ago, they were satellite outside of drivetimes.
The setup on our end was pretty crude.  3 cart machines...one with a legal
ID, one with a fairly generic sweeper, and one with the weather.  We had to
build a reel containing all commercial breaks with a 25 Hz tone at the
beginning of each break.  It was controlled by a fairly simple (it fit on a
5.25" floppy) program running on a PC.  Crude, but it more-or-less got the
job done.  Main problem was when, for one reason or another a tape deck
didn't sense the cue tone and didn't recue...a legal ID every :40, or
whatever length cart it was on.  

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