1:30pm. Wednesday. Took a little bike ride after the show. Riding the bike is about all that I can do since the big rolling tire across the highway media incident. But thankfully I've got the bike, because it's a perfect day on a perfect trail and I ate the perfect sandwich at Grindworks in Griffith.. You'd think that since I was riding my bike I'd go full tilt and not eat while riding so I can lose weight. But that's not really in my purview. I prefer to live life on a reasonably full stomach... at least not an empty one. My daughter eats every three hours and she's thin as a rail. I'll try the same strategy. What the hell. I rode to US 30 and tried to weasel my way through Pine Island subdivision to the Trek store to buy a satchel for over the back tire. You just gotta have a place to hold your phone, and maybe a turkey and apple bacon sandwich. Or maybe a batch of popcorn from Lady's Popcorn in downtown Griffith. I ate a sandwich at Grindworks, bought some popcorn at Lady's, and stopped to see longtime customer Dave Davila at Quik Scripts. He liked the carmel corn and the cheese corn and since he writes me checks he gets the popcorn. I bought a selfie stick off of him and we tried to use it to take a selfie by his new Porsche. But I can't figure it out yet so all you get is one second of video (below). Last night Angel the radio station maintenance wiz helped me fix a couple of problems. Most importantly, we couldn't get the radio station to stream on the internet. This is a problem in that my brother in Columbus, Ohio, listens in the morning and so does my sister in Northport, Long Island sometimes. Every one else who streams matters, just not as much as my brother and sister. Angel and I took the streaming system apart piece by piece. For those of you interested in the art of radio station maintenance.. first you find an out from your main mixing board. We're using a two-channel stereo RCA connector. You might think that this isn't right in that we're an AM mono station, and why the hell would you hook up two channels when you only broadcast through one... but remember, when you stream on the internet you can do so in stereo. In fact, listen to our stream either at my website jed.tv and our streaming at tunein.com. Both are in stereo and often sound better than the actual signal off of the tower. The main difference quality-wise is that the audio on the stream is not nearly as cleaned and processed as the audio off the 400-foot tower of power. What does that mean? What happens in radio... and all audio including music and birdcall recordings... is that you bring in all of your sound sources into a main mixing board... and then you send the whole mess to wherever you want it to go. Usually that's a recording device or, if it's live, a big speaker that will blow your ears out. In AM radio, right before the transmitter shoots the sound up the 400 feet of steel, the sound goes through a bunch of machines that I only know about some. There's a modulator and a processor and an Arbitron monitor and a few other things related to emergency communication. It's really an impressive rack of expensive machines. When it's all said and done, by the time to audio reaches the transmitter, you get relatively clean, if not altogether deep, sound. If you're doing an interview and your voice is a lot stronger in volume than the other person's, the processor will bring your voices up to near the same level. But on the streaming, you have to be a lot sharper on riding the mixing dials. If you allow your voice to go through the mixing board at a higher volume than that of the person you're interviewing, then that's what it will sound like to the person that's listening online. It will be unequal volume and they'll have to strain to hear the person you're interviewing. That's only part of the reason why I ride the dials like a Harley-Davidson motorcyle, constantly adjusting the speed and direction so that I don't fall flat on my ass. (By the way, you could take the out and run it through a dedicated processor before you send it to stream. Processors are not that expensive, maybe a couple hunnerd bucks, but I'd rather just ride the dials old-school. Keeps you on your toes) So the audio leaves the board... and then you gotta encode it. This basically means to change it from analog to digital and put it in a form that could be read on the other end by an instance of Shoutcast that's on a server. For a long time, we took the analog signal into a computer, which had icecast on it, and that would change it to digital and then send it to our streaming servers at Streamguys in California. But really the best way I found to encode the audio for streaming for the small radio station is to use a Barix instreamer (about 375 bucks). You take the little metal Barix box that's about the size of an apple and you plug it into a router switch. And then you plug your laptop in to the same router switch. You put a pre-designated url in your browser and that will allow you to log into the Barix box. Once in the Barix box, you can set things like bit rate and compression and volume even, but really you can get away with using default settings. At least at first. The main thing you're trying to do by being in the Barix software is to point the stream to where you need it to go. We have been one of Streamguys' longest-running radio clients. You call them, set up an account - usually for somewhere around $100 a month, depending on how many listeners you want to handle - and they'll send you a url to hook up to. It's that simple. When we first started streaming, there was a lot to address in what kind of players to put on your site and on your blog and stuff. But in the past couple of years that's been simplified and pretty much all you have to do is copy a link and put it on your website and people can listen to your amazing radio. We also direct a stream from Streamguys to Tunein.com. This is important. Four years ago, we signed up with a company called Boost Media to have our own, station-dedicated app. This worked well. You opened the app on your phone, hit "Listen," and you'd be listening to my amazing radio. Then one day I called the Boost media number... and they closed down. Poof. I'll tell you that story one day but for now suffice it to say that you're better off putting your audio stream on your website and your buddy's website and aggregating sites like Tunein or Itunes. Screw that developing your own app stuff. That should be enough about streaming for today. Last night, Angel and I broke down our streaming system and couldn't find the problem. Finally, we called Streamguys - they're in California so their tech desk was still open at 9pm central time - and the woman there said that sometimes Streamguys just has to start our instance of Shoutcast that sits on their servers. Thanks for telling me. It took her ten minutes to restart Shoutcast - since we're such longstanding customers it could have been years since it last reset - and then we could hear our radio station through the speakers on my computer and through the Tunein.com app on Angel's phone. In the art of radio station maintenance, sometimes it's simple shit like that - call the streaming service and have them restart Shoutcast. Who in the Sam HIll would have ever thought of that? It’s Monday morning at 1:15, and you get the benefit of my indiscriminate insomnia. Which reminds me of something. Did you ever hear of the Radio Rule of Indiscriminate Disruption? It’s not that difficult of a concept, but first you must have a passing understanding of what it means to be in local radio. It means that you’re on call basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not entirely unlike my cousin Doug. He’s an obstetrician and I can’t tell you how many times we’d be playing golf in, yes I must admit, a betting two-man game, and he’d get a phone call. We’d all wait greenside as he spoke intently into his headset about 50 cc’s and contraction intervals and stuff like that. Eventually he’d mope back to the green – Sorry, guys, I gotta go to the hospital. A young woman’s having a difficult delivery. And that would be that. The three of us left would play a little three-man game for money just because we’re low-level gambling addicts and then after a few holes we’d give up on it altogether. Freaking Doug. Does he ever finish a golf round? So that’s the best comparison I can make to describe local radio. We’re like my cousin Doug, who can at any moment go from playing catch with his son Max to diving elbows-deep into placenta. It happens that fast. So it went on Friday night. You remember from the last blog entry that I was scheduled to go out to Maury Zlotnik field and announce the Munster at Morton football game. So I came home from the station about 3pm and took a nap. It’s just something you gotta do if you’re gonna wake up at 4:22am and then announce a football game at 7pm. There’s no other way. I woke up from the nap and walked downstairs to make a sandwich. This is another thing about local radio. Sleep when you can, like in the military, and eat when you can, like in local radio. So I put together this work of art with: - chicken salad with celery and parsley from Butterfingers Deli - sliced fresh tomato - a slice of mozzarella - horseradish mustard (yum) - sourdough bread from Strack & Van Til’s If you’re from the Calumet Region, then you know Butterfingers and Strack’s and you know how much of a work of art this sandwich really was. I also had a fresh bag of Ruffles and a really fizzy Diet Coke all set out on the kitchen table… along with the Times of Northwest Indiana sports section. That’s where they preview the Friday night football games, which I needed to read. To tell you the truth, and “you” being the one and only you who reads my blog, I hadn’t prepared at all to announce the game. Not one bit. I know who the new coach of Morton is – Zippy Morales – and I know who the coach of Munster is because he was defensive coordinator at Munster when I played there. And that’s about the extent of my knowledge of either team. It’s a little bit ironic in that a couple days ago I interviewed perhaps the best football announcer in America – Don Fisher. He’s been doing the Indiana games for 43 years… I’m not kidding. And I asked him – Hey, Don, does it ever get old? Truthfully, no. The games never get old. But as you know, Jim, since you’ve been doing this a long time also, that the prep for the games can get a little bit… cumbersome. That’s me paraphrasing what Don said in that I’m too freaking lazy to go listen to the podcast on this website and then transcribe his quote into this blog that nobody reads. But Fisher’s message is clear – it takes a lot of yourself to prep for a game, especially a football game. If you’re gonna do it right, you gotta know how to pronounce the names of about 50 players on each team and you gotta be familiar with the statistics of about 30 or so on each team. That goes from the passing stats of the quarterback to the number of tackles per game of the middle linebacker to the proportion of makes for the field goal kicker. Don’t forget the head coach’s lifetime record and then you gotta be able to refer to the last couple of games each team played and who made the winning touchdowns or game-saving tackles. I understand, Don, your plight. Forty-three years of prepping half a week to do one five-hour football broadcast on the radio. It’ll wear you out. So here’s my solution – don’t do it. Just show up and start talking. Works for me. Anyways, I was sitting at the kitchen table when my phone vibrated with a message. It was from afternoon host Ron Harlow. This message I will look up because it’s on my phone and that’s pretty easy. There’s nothing on. It’s here in studio but nothing on the air. I connected to back up. Dead air. Please advise. Now this isn’t my first rodeo with a text that threatens a perfect sandwich. So I did what I’ve learned to do over the years – and what I suggest that you learn too if you’re in local radio – I checked the little radio we keep in the kitchen. Yep, dead air. And then I sat down to eat my sandwich. That’s when I looked out into the backyard and noticed that there was a huge lightning storm going on. I should have known. Lightning often messes with us. It’s not so much that lightning seeks out our 400-foot piece of steel sticking up in the air… it’s more that this 400-foot tower of power is located in one of the oldest parts of Hammond. And that means old infrastructure, which means old wiring and transformers, which means when lighting comes through we sometimes lose power. It’s just how it is. I’ve told NIPSCO about it, but oh well. So I made a strategic decision… leave the sandwich on the kitchen table, where two seconds after I leave, the dog will jump up and eat it. Or take a deep breath and finish the sandwich. I finished the sandwich. And that’s the advice I give to you local radio heads. Stop to eat. You don’t know how many times I’ve rushed out the door at the beginning of a meal only to be stuck fixing stuff at the station for several hours on an empty stomach. Do yourself a favor – take the few minutes to eat and then go deal with your semi-emergency. If it’s a real emergency, then maybe you can bypass the bacon and eggs. But otherwise, eat first, deal second. On the ride down to the station I noticed that there was water everywhere. Tons of it. Must have been a big storm while I napped. I drove directly to the old studio, flipped on the transmitter, and sat there and listened to Ryan Walsh do a little pregame show. And you know what I heard Ryan say from the new studios on the campus of the Purdue Commercialization and Manufacturing Excellence Center? The Munster at Morton game has been cancelled for this evening. It will be played tomorrow at 2pm. Yippee. Truth be told, I really wasn’t into standing on the sidelines in the rain, as much as I like my dad’s alma mater Morton and my own alma mater Munster. I just didn’t have it in me. But I did have it in me to drive seven blocks to the ultra-modern new studios and do a little radio with Ryan about how many houses were without power and how many games were cancelled. It turns out that almost all games but one were cancelled due to the storm, and that was the Lake Station at Whiting game. We just so happened to have the other WJOB crew – Brian Jennings and Rick “the voice” Massoels - out there along the Lake, so we did have a game on the air after all. Next example of Eat first, Deal with it later. On Saturday morning I woke up as usual at 422am without an alarm. It’s just how it is. You wake up that early all week and then on the weekend when you want to sleep in, you wake up at 422 ready to ride your bike somewhere. I laid in bed listening to another wicked lightning and thunder storm. About 6am I walked downstairs to prepare a bowl of cereal. Now I don’t know about you, but when I eat a bowl of cereal I don’t like it to be just one cereal. Corn Flakes alone are boring. But Corn Flakes with a little Cracklin’ Oat Bran is good. Cheerios alone? No. Cheerios with Shredded Wheat ? Yes. So I went all out. I poured some Corn Flakes, Cracklin’ Oat Bran AND Shredded Wheat in a bowl… and streamed some bleached white Oberweis, hormone-free, ice cold milk on it… And then my phone vibrated. It was Debbie Wargo. We have dead air. No kidding. This winds us back to the Radio Rule of Indiscriminate Disruption, and it goes like this – If there’s a storm going on, and you’re wondering if and when you’re gonna go dead air, make some food, set it out on the table, unravel your newspaper, and sit down to eat…. And your phone will vibrate to tell you there’s dead air. I did, in the end, the same thing I did on Friday night, and the same thing I’ll do the next time my phone vibrates during a storm. I ate my bowl of three cereals. And then I got dressed and drove to the old radio transmitter and tower site. Now here’s the kicker. This time it wasn’t as simple as the power went out for a while and all I have to do is flip on the transmitter. It was more complex. The transmitter was on… but a portion of the building – including the main mixing board - were without power. Hmm. I messed with the fuses and nothing. Called the electrician – no answer. Called our broadcast engineer. He answered. Just run some extension cords from the board to where there’s power. So that’s what I did. By one in the afternoon – after monitoring the equipment during a live remote from Blue Top Drive-in – I could leave and go home and wait for the next episode of the Radio Rule of Indiscriminate Disruption. As you may or may not know, my wife Alexis grew up in Gary and East Chicago kinda poor and she didn't speak English when she entered public school. There's also a little single mom with no money mixed in there and some other challenges, so when she was asked to be the grand marshal of the Mexican Independence Day parade in her hometown... it was a pretty big deal to her. Actually, the parade and festival are a big deal to a lot of people, almost all of whom are Mexican. So it was a big mess-up on my part when we arrived at Block Stadium this morning to line up for the parade, and I pulled out my camera to take the first picture (of a guy on a horse) and... nothing. No snap, no click, nothing from my camera. Oops, battery was dead. And I remembered immediately that I had left the spare plugged in on my workbench in the garage. Big mistake. So I did what every self-respecting German-Polish-Dutch guy would do at a Mexican Independence Day parade - I lied. Ah, Alexis, I'll tell you what. I'll drive around to near the end of the parade and park there so we can have a ride when it's done. I'll take photos there. She looked at me kinda weird - OK, I guess. So I turned and hurried to my car and drove furiously home (15 minutes). Picked up the battery out of the garage, and drove even faster down the Borman to Cline Avenue to Columbus Drive (14 minutes). I parked the car at St. Mark's, ran as fast as I could with this ailing back past the police station, and came up on the corner of Columbus Drive and Pulaski just as Alexis was approaching. She sat elevated in the backseat of a convertible. I took a ton of pictures and smiled - I'm so proud of you, honey. Why are you so sweaty and out of breath? It's hot out here. No it's not. That's my wife, the consummate lawyer. Always suspicious. So after a very kind woman handed me some paper towel to wipe my brow, I took a ton of pictures of the end of the parade. You can look at them if you want by clicking on a photo below to get to my smugmug account. After the parade, we went to the festival along Lake Michigan, and that was kinda cool for pictures too, especially the mountain of Modelo beer stacked next to a few measly cases of Lite beer... for, you know, the six or seven jueros at the party. |
I run radio stations and a streaming video network in Hammond, Ind., and write this blog.
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