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Hi,
Looking to install Breakaway on a translator that will be rebroadcasting an AM station in the US. The format of the AM is currently talk format.I was looking for the absolute best, flattest and most reliable sound card — period. With the reasonable price of Breakaway I can afford spend more on the sound card. I have a M-Audio Audiophile 192 I was going to modify, but I wanted to be sure this was the way to go.
With the format being talk, the translator will be run in mono. I’ve seen other mono FM talk stations run RDS with a stereo pilot. (some radio’s won’t display RDS without a pilot to reference to) Has anyone successfully run this kind of setup with Breakaway and Airomate? Would you mind sharing the settings?
While on the topic of recommendations, is Ariomate still the best RDS encoder? It looks like it has not been updated in a few years. Then again, RDS is not a constant changing standard and wouldn’t need regular updating once bugs are out of the program.
Thanks!
Trey Cooper
Greenville, SC, USAMarian Trace Alpha, if you’re going to be translating to AM. Otherwise that or an ESI Juli@ for FM which is a tad easier/cheaper to get.
Best soundcard, Period, Marian Trace Alpha for AM and FM, a very reasonable price for what it does and no other card is 100% tilt free for Breakaway. They can however be tricky to source but this has been discussed and partially resolved in other threads on this board.
Airomate is by far the best RDS coder for this application and the RDS input of BBP is tailored for use with this product. As you rightly say, the RDS standard is static and the software is basically perfect so no updates in a long time, working well on setups all over the world.
AFAIK, the RDS standard is that it can be run on mono transmissions without the need for a 19Khz pilot to sync to, the need for sync between 19/38/57khz is just to keep everything in phase but if no 19/38khz, no issue. Some radios may not follow the spec properly but there are stations around which transmit mono with RDS.
Running a 19khz tone but with mono audio would still put a radio into wideband mode (with the decoder inline) and more susceptable to noise as any noise in the stereo subcarrier spectrum would be interpreted as a difference signal and noise would be added to the sum information. In my own opinion, to maximise the listenable range (whilst maybe sacrificing a small minority with out of spec car radios) it would be far better to run in full mono.Hope this helps,
Yorkie.
Absolutely. The majorly reduced noise of mono wins every time vs *maybe* a few radios not displaying RDS.
Also, if the pilot is there, the radio will operate in stereo mode, no matter if there’s a LSB/USB L-R signal or not. For instance, playing mono content on an FM-Stereo broadcast, such as voice. 😉 The radio will start to mix to mono as the signal to noise ratio of the pilot itself starts to drop towards noise.
Thanks for the input. I’ll be ordering the Marian Trace next week. To get it on the air, I did the modded M-Audio. RDS works fine in my car 😀
Running the signal in mono has caused of the the locals to complain that its illegal. (and its not even running at full power yet)
I was incorrect in my statement about Airomate not getting updated. There have been a few updates and the website just didn’t get updated. My apologies to their staff.
trey
[quote author=”tcooper”]Running the signal in mono has caused of the the locals to complain that its illegal.[/quote]
Their explanation being…. ?? Jealousy? 😆Hello guy z
I also modded the m-audio like the tutorial but i put the same capacitors(i mean the same mF) but not at 16V but 24V i couldn’t find 16V this time i did…First question is does the 24V capacitors affects the performance of the card?? It’s been working now 24/7 for over 2 weeks with no prob.
2nd question is even if we modded the m-audio do i need to tilt??If it helps you the broadcasting chain is studio console–>pc with bbp asio–>Analog radio link Tx–>Analog radio link Rx–>PLL/Exciter–>Transmiter
Using a higher voltage capacitor is completely safe and does not affect performance. Using a lower one could cause spontaneous combustion. You’re good. 🙂
//Leif
You’ll have to check that with a scope.. Anything else would be just guessing. You could use the BBP calibration tool as well, check the tutorial in the documentation on the site.
///Leif
Yes 🙂. Scopes are great. It takes a lot of guesswork out of it, and you can buy one second hand for less than BBP. Everyone should have one 🙂.
///Leif
That is if I get Marian Trace Alpha need not Tilt?? That places it and it works request / reservation directly;;;
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