Strong on LPFM

Don't be too sure about LPFM, Chriss [Viewpoint, January 2001]. We have applied for 105.9 in St George, SC. We do not expect to broadcast to people in cars at all, but we are interested in the more than 2,000 citizens that have crap/crud radio to listen to. Let those that want it have their garbage radio. Our citizens deserve something better than that, and we will give it to them. We already have grant financing available up the wazoo! We will use first-class equipment, most of it better than that used by the 100kW stations. Our sound will be clearer and not compressed to you-know-what. Don't rule us out just yet, Chriss.
Clarence Jones
retired broadcaster
St George, SC

Compared to what I have seen, your situation sounds better than most other LPFM hopefuls. If LPFM is allowed to continue after the planned field tests, I'm sure there will be a few stations that will be successful in their venture. Many will not. You have the advantage of many years of broadcast experience from which to draw. Many LPFM candidates do not.
Chriss Scherer
editor

Perpetuating parasitics

Dear John Battison:

I just read your article on parasitic radiators (RF Engineering, January 2001), and I agree completely with your ideas.

All the directiional arrays I recently designed have used the self-resonant folded unipole as the main radiator and a parasitic element for the second tower. This design has shown great success by the way, and all the systems provide a sensational stability and a superb sound quality.

A good reference for a recent installation is ZYI-205, a 10kW daytimer on 1020kHz in Colatina, Brazil. The radiating system is a directional, two-antenna array, using the same method of a self-resonant folded unipole for antenna one and a parasitic (non-fed) tower for antenna two. The system also operates with a set of elevated radial wires parallel to ground.
Sylvio M. Damiani, P.E.
consulting engineer
São Paulo, Brazil

Helpful discussion

I always look forward the next issue of BE Radio. I especially appreciated the article by Jim Paluzzi on The Costs of Digital (Managing Technology, February 2001). I appreciated the explanation in the article regarding sampling rate (snapshots) and compression (compression is cheating). These were helpful explanations for non-engineers like me. It was a user-friendly explanation of a technical topic and helped me understand how digital works.

Thanks again!
Herb Smith
production manager
KLFC radio
Branson MO