After hearing about Mark Linsays broadcast live from his cafe, it really got me thinking.

Is it really that expensive to do a live broadcast from a random location, say once a week??? I couldn't think of a better way to draw more attention to your station than have a live remote once a week.
Why don't more stations do that more often?? just curious.

Depends on the equipment used, and the station.

These days most stations use either ISDN lines or Telephone lines. So you have the cost of the phone lines, which usually cost about $150 or so to drop.

The radio station then has to pay an engineer to set up the remote, and the Air talent to appear at the remote.

Remotes with Phone lines are done usually with a codec. Check out www.tieline.com or www.comrex.com for more info on Phone line codecs. They allow you to transmit broadcast quality audio over a regular phone line. They are expensive, but they are one time costs.

They got kinds of cool technology to do remotes now and I am not talking about cell phones. There is a system that is real clean that uses broadband studio quality engineering. It is small and has a small mic, easy to put on the air back at the studio. Uplinks like GPS stuff. I cant remember the system name right now...a number of station groups have this thing over here, so I would think that a lot of the Portland Station groups would use this system.

I never used the thing, but saw the PD using it once and listened , it sounded great ! We all still used a cell phone for most of our remotes anyway..LOL..

Most remote broadcasts today have the air talent at a location broadcasting into ISDN lines which run to the station control room where the board operator is pushing the buttons. Starting the music, playing the spots and turning up or down the remote air talents mike pot.

While the mike pot is off, it can be put in "cue" while music is playing or spots are running, so air talent can now talk privately to the board operator about how he or she wants to do the next segment. Maybe he'll talk to the operator about how he's going to talk over the intro of the next song or to give the operator the out cue word he'll use on air next. In more technical setups the board operator can also talk to the air talent as well or you might keep a phone line open at all times.

I remember back in the early 1980's Al's Records & Books were opening a new store in Progress (Tigard/Beaverton) and the Manager of the Store was convinced he had a radio station coming out to do a remote broadcast, setting up turntables, the whole Rootin' Tootin' Show! I told him not to expect that but he wasn't convinced until the day of the remote when the air talent showed up all alone, then asked to use their telephone to phone in a report.

I haven't seen "Mark Lindsay's Rock & Roll Cafe" but I've heard it's a real working radio studio and I know broadcast engineers have been working on it since January 2007. A remote studio like this, is kind of a rare thing in this radio age.

For a few years KSLM used to do the "whole she-bang" from the Oregon State Fair. Turntables and whole works.(Turntables?! Okay, it was more than a few years ago!) I'm not sure, but I think the other Salem stations like KCCS and KYKN(at the time KGAY) and KBZY did as well.

You might be able to do something similar on a limited short term basis by using a broadband connection, and a Shoutcast server. The only problem might be the massive latency of such a setup.

And over here in the " Dry Sh@#ies" we still just use CELL PHONES for most remotes...And pre-record into the digital automations...

Nobody wants to pay for an ISDN line over here, LOL. One ownership here has some kind of a Satellite Uplink system that works real well, sounds good.

Patrick:
Back in 1985-86 era, on KWIP, the sales manager and I did a live 5 hour oldies show from "Schnooks Place" which was a 50's style diner on Portland road with rolling skating carhops and cruise in hot rods, the whole deal.
The owner of the drive in built a little two man studio complete with turntables, cart decks, Eumig (sp?) cassette players, microphones, speakers, well pretty much everything we needed and then erected a pretty good size antenna on the roof for our Marti which was also built into this little studio.
I don't know how much he spent but it was a sweet little studio and we were full blown live! It was a blast, called it the "Friday Night Sock Hop". Lots of fun!

One can still order 15 kHz analog phone lines from Qwest or Verizon, but for stereo just the installation would be $1200.

T-1 is the most desirable, for about $300 a month. Full linear stereo audio, or more audio channels and a fair amount of data with some data reduction.

ISDN is still the way to go using low-delay AAC. 128 kbps stereo from anywhere in the world. No problem playing music. Many stations use ISDN for backup studio-to-transmitter links.

TCP/IP is catching on, but has more delay, and way-fast broadband over the cellular network is available, too.

KBOO has used WiFi to broadcast the Blues Festival!

Then there's always RF by Marti, although not with 15 kHz audio any more.

The mention of Boise radio in another thread reminded me of KIDO in the late '70s doing a full blown live remote from the Idaho St Fair through a POTS line.

Doesn't KMHD broadcast live from Holman's every Friday night?

Hey Dodger,

Not to hijack a thread or anything, but didn't KWIP use cassettes for just about everything, except for spots(and the Dick Clark National Music Survey which was distributed on LPs)? I seem to remember going on a studio tour (around 1983-84) and seeing everything on cassettes. It was also right after Christmas and I also remember Mr. Norberg (he was serious about making that little 5kW small town stick in Dallas sound as big as possible) mentioning that they were transcribing the whole "24 Hours of Christmas" programming onto 120 minute cassette tapes in their production room for somebody.

I also seem to remember that they had the most unique imaging I've ever heard. Every jingle/weather bed/news sounder had some sort of Moog sound to it. At the end of every weather forecast the jocks always gave the temp in Celsius and Fahrenheit. Kinda different.

The Celsius/Fahrenheit thing was common in the '70s after Canada mandated mandated the Celsius scale exclusively.

"The Parade of Hits, K-W-I-P!". Yes, KWIP used cassettes on air. I believe I remember hearing from a former DJ, they had problems with the cassette system with the tapes going into fast forward from time to time and the jock loosing his place on the alternating cassettes on air.

Up here in SeaTown we're using Audition to record and produce our breaks at site on a laptop, then FTP them into the ENCO automation. So it's not live, but the average listener doesn't know (or care) and they sound excellent!

The Parade of Hits is right!
Yes, we used Eumig (I believe that was what they were called, been too long) cassette decks.
Each song was on a numbered index card and you would put in csssette 189 and the song had a cue time, say 5405 and you set that into the deck and it would fast forward right to that song and be cued up. Most of the time it worked, but there were days they didn't and Eric had several back up machines and the parts would come from Germany.
We did use turntables for the sock hop show though, as many of the songs we played were in my personal collection. I have every song that hit the top 100 from 1955-1965 (Joel Whitburn 100 that is).
KWIP was very unusual in many ways in those days. As Craig pointed out I was quickly told its not "Quip", it is K double you I P.

...except for the time checks, "It's eleven-twenty-four, quip summer time."

That was before my time or Eric Norberg's time there.
He was adamant we were not quip! New air talent were indoctrinated into the K double you IP line.
That little station was quite a juggernaut in Salem radio in the late 80's. I left for Hawaii in 1989 and when I came back 10 years later and heard it was spanish I was very disappointed. It was a really good station with good sales and good numbers when I had left. Don't know what happened but I guess that is the nature of the beast.

Well, I heard Eric himself refer to "Quip Spring/Summer time" regularly...so he embraced that aspect on the air. But yes, he would've been a bug on getting the call letters out.

You're right, Dodger, it was a great station to listen to, which I did daily when I lived in Beavercreek. Decent signal day and night... I even remember KWIP as one of a few stations on the air during a fall windstorm that knocked out power to other stations and thousands of residents up and down the valley.

Oddly enough, I never heard the Eumig machines malfunction...lucky I guess.

At KKNU in Eugene the morning show during winter vacation is actually broadcast from Kisseme Fla. where Barrett takes two weeks with his family.
It works just like Craig Adams said above.

During that winter storm (November maybe December 1981, I think) KWIP was still on 1460, and it was the only local station that I could receive during that same storm. They were a daytimer at the time, but due to the emergency, they were allowed to broadcast overnight.

Weren't they also one of the first stations in Oregon with a 1-800 phone number?

As far as the "quip" thing goes, I remember hearing both "Quip" and "K-W-I-P" at various and sundry times. Also when the talent announced the time it could be "quip summer time", "quip Willamette Valley springtime", or whatever holiday or special day was happening like "quip Christmas time", "quip Oregon State Fair time", or my favourite one that was used the day OPB shut off KVDO TV3 in Salem to move it to Bend: "quip goodbye channel 3 day time."

maybe we should just start a new thread about KWIP, and leave this one devoted to its original intent!

...."just start a new thread about KWIP, and leave this one devoted to its original intent!"

"No, there isn't enough live broadcasting left to support a whole thread", he said tongue in cheek and only partly in jest.

You're right, Q...

So I'll say "bravo" to KKNU for their remote!

Since consolidation, I have heard significantly fewer remote broadcasts. Seem to be more common at the small stations away from major cities...with the exception of an occasional remote by a Saturday morning home improvement talk show on KTAR and KNST...which just happen to be sponsor-connected, of course!

How about up there...Sounds like fewer remote broadcasts...What venues do they most often originate from?

During the windstorm of 1981 when KWIP broadcast all night, so did Eric Norberg. Their on the spot reporter who was driving around at 3am in harms way with the latest conditions & damage was Scott Tom.

the cluster i work for had 249 paid remotes last year.

Not counting live games.

Not counting sticker stops.

1993 i had to do a live form a park, phone company didn't install a line requested for organizers, so i did it from the only pay phone around with about 10 people waiting on line.

When I came on board at KWIP it was fall of 1985 and "quip" was gone. No mention of it was allowed, so perhaps you heard it before then. We had to emphasize the "double you, I P", with a small "k". Even when callers came on, when recording them we were to instruct them to say it correctly.
Eric pulled several of those all nighters. He many times spent the night on a cot in the transmitter room.
Had a full bath back there too.

car dealers

I remember doing the live Oregon State fair broadcasts onn KROW in the early 70's, Dave Melovitich our GM got a travel trailer, but we played the records and did the show out in front of the trailer, I started a record and the arm bounced off, I fired off the second turn table, and the same thing happened, the sun was melting the wax..even under the awning no protection.
the following year we moved to what now is the information booth...ahhh the state fair..

I'm thinking KWIP was Eric's puppy from the beginning. Shortly after they transferred from KROW, they received emergency authority to broadcast at night because it was the only station in Polk County. When that storm hit, they were on the story before anyone else and the nondirectional 5kw on 1460 shot right up here, at least to Milwaukie! I heard they won a news award for the coverage.

I held down the Saturday evening shift for a period of time at KW-IP (there's supposed to be a slight pause between the W and IP, I was told). Never had a cassette deck launch into fast forward on me, but did have a machine munch up the tape one night. Phones were usually quite busy late into the evening.

> One can still order 15 kHz analog phone lines from
> Qwest or Verizon, but for stereo just the
> installation would be $1200.

Are these just "dry pair" lines, or do they include equalization circuits?

Heard a live remote on KBZY today from Salem Harley-Davidson.

Did not sound like a cell phone.
Anyone know if it was truely live?

chester, I have a feeling we might know each other.
That was the way I was trying to explain the calls, but you did a much better job of typing what I was trying to say!
kay double you.....i p

This is a great thread!

Few remotes over the years would be possible without Marti equipment. You might all be pleased to know that George Marti is alive and still working on radio gear:

"George Marti was born in 1920 by the age of 17 he had his FCC 1st Class license. During WWII he served as a Marine in the Pacific installing and maintaining communications. In 1947 he started KCLE Radio in Cleburne Texas, building his broadcast transmitter and Audio console at his parents home. Next he invented the RPU transmitter to replace phone lines for remotes. In 1960 he founded Marti Electronics. Today he is active in radio & business. Some mornings he even answers the phone for SRS Electronics."

http://www.rpu-stl.com/srs_electronics.htm

He is also a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame:

"George graduated from Central High School in Fort Worth, Texas when he was 16 years old. He attended a technical school for about 9 months and received his Radio Telephone First Class Operator’s license and Amateur Radio W5GLJ Licenses prior to his 17th birthday.

He started working part time for KTAT in Fort Worth and then, when the two stations merged, he was employed full time at radio station KTAT and KFJZ. By 1938, he was employed by KFJZ/Tarrant Broadcasting Company, which was owned by Mr. Elliott Roosevelt and was later sold to Mr. Sid Richardson.

George entered the Marine Corps in 1942 and went through basic training in San Diego, California; then on to The First Radar School at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. After nearly 4 years in the Marines, he returned to KFJZ where he was employed until the Summer of 1946.

He finished building KCLE, which he put on the air in April of 1947. In the summer of 1949 he put KCLE-FM on the air. In 1953, he added a 3rd station, KKJO in St. Joseph, Missouri, to his small group, which he kept until 1968. When he sold KCLE/KCLE-FM in 1960, he began his second career.

That career was manufacturing the Remote Pickup. He later added a Studio Transmitter Link. Marti owned and operated Marti Electronics until 1994, during which time he also either had an interest in or financed radio stations numbering up to 12 stations at one time. When Marti Electronics was sold; he had equipment in operation in more than 80% of the radio stations worldwide."

http://www.texasradiohalloffame.com/marti.html

THE Elliott Roosevelt?

Yes, Franklin and Eleanor's fourth kid, Elliott Roosevelt, had a radio network in Texas.

Elliott's Network

Monday, Aug. 29, 1938

"From poverty's pinch I'm further immune,

For now I've a son with Chicago's Tribune.

When George M. Cohan resumes his Presidential role in I'd Rather Be Right, some such couplet could be added to the lyrics about "one boy with du Pont, and another one with Hearst." For last week Son-With-Hearst Elliott Roosevelt made a deal to affiliate his newly formed Texas State Network of radio stations with the Mutual Broadcasting System, whose stock is 50%-owned by the anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune's Station WGN. Bamberger's Station WOR (Newark) owns the other half.

Son Roosevelt's Texas radio career began in 1935. When Hearst Radio, Inc. acquired Station KTSA (San Antonio), it also acquired the vice president in charge of sales, Elliott Roosevelt. Early this year his present wife, the onetime Ruth Googins, bought Station KFJZ (Fort Worth). Elliott has declared emphatically that Mr. & Mrs. Roosevelt's station-buying activities were financed by their own money, are completely independent of his Hearst Radio job.

The 23 Texas stations which Broadcaster Roosevelt has now gathered into his network include his wife's KFJZ, Hearst Radio's KNOW (Austin), WACO (Waco). MBS emphasized the business aspects of the affiliation, explained that the Chicago Tribune's anti-New Deal opinions were irrelevant in matters of network operations."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,789169,00.html

Remotes are productions. They need to be planned to sound like they are spontaneous. And that takes effort on the part of the client, the sales person and the air talent. The sales person must extract the information from the client to understand his or her expectations, and then clearly inform the talent about what is expected at the remote. The talent needs to prep. for the remote by reading and discussing the information from the client with the sales person,instead of just showing up at the last minute, gear in hand, with hopes of "winging it", for 3 hours and making a quick exit with the talent fee. Interviews need prep. Review all interview questions with your subject ahead of time. Then when you do the interview on-air, the client (or client's rep) sounds really smart. Instead of really, really dumb. Make sure offers are good enough to motivate listeners into the remote. And if you are giving away prizes, please give away things that are not so "cheezy". Old cd singles just don't cut it outside of the county fair. Remotes are about traffic. Telling a client that "you owned the air for 3 hours...and the follow-up will be tremendous long after were gone"... is a load of bullcrap that we usually spread after an unsuccessful remote. Believe me, if the client is putting out the big bucks for a remote, that client is expecting traffic now and later. Make a real production out of your remotes by preparing and they will be successful.

Alfredo_t: 0 dBm in, 0 dBm out, flat from at least 50 Hz to 15 kHz. Extra for "stereo conditioning."

Tracer tones during a weekday midday broadcast, first in one channel, and then in the other: priceless!

I think Entercom is down to two such circuits, to and from Metro Traffic.

Littlesongs: We just had a Marti transmitter repaired by SRS Electronics. They included a calculator and laser pointer with the packaging.

KEX uses a 15 kHz EQ'd loop for audio from the ODOT Traffic Center. Cue audio is sent back on a Marti. The real advantage in using EQ'd loops and Marti's is that it is all real-time. As soon as you introduce a codec the board-op needs to understand mix-minus.

If you listen to KEX afternoon drive today you'll hear just about every type of remote device available. Mark and Dave are at the Vancouver Wine and Jazz Festival on an ISDN(AAC) (with wireless IP audio backup), traffic from ODOT on EQ'd loop, traffic from a car on Marti, and weather on ISDN(G.722).

i always thought that kex traffic was live.