Re: Long Top-of-the-Hour Station ID strings

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

Sven Franklyn Weil wrote:

>Wouldn't there be a way, with all this digital technology available, to
>develop a system that inserts the call letters for that particular
>station in the network when it has to ID itself instead of hearing ALL the
>station call letters in series?
>
>You know...install some sort of hard drive, cart machine, minidisk or
>something at the repeater stations' transmitters and when it comes to ID
>time, central control sends a subsonic tone down the line to trigger the
>ID "carts" (for lack of a better word) at each individual station?


It depends on how smooth you want it to sound.  A simple solution would be 
a cart machine on a timer so the cart fires once an hour...levels could be 
set so it over-rides the normal signal or use a relay to switch between the 
2.  Of course this method would sound a bit clunky in as much as the remote 
ID fires at a specific time regardless of the programming on the primary 
signal.  It's been done...often when an AM is simulcasting a sister FM, but 
they don't wish to acknowlege the simulcast.  WMJX did this when they were 
simulcasting on 1150, it was also done more recently when WWKB was 
simulcasting a co-owned FM.

Of course when the repeaters simply rebroadcast an off-air pickup, you're 
adding more equipment that must be maintained at a remote site...with no 
way to know for sure if it's working.  It's usually just easier to ID 
everybody at the same time...this way you know you're not missing any.