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The potential sale of Shively Labs, one of the country’s only major manufacturers of high-power FM broadcast antennas, is causing concern among public radio engineers who depend on the company for challenging projects.
“The partnership model is key to everything we do,” says Erik Langner, CEO of the Information Equity Initiative.
The station in Fort Myers, Fla., turned its TV studios over to a local Fox affiliate and relied on an auxiliary radio transmitter to stay on the air.
The floods submerged the studio of community radio station WMMT and damaged its decades of media archives.
Stations are continuing to reinforce their datacasting efforts as the initial urgency of the pandemic has given way to longer-term planning.
Disruption and dislocation allowed some public media stations to plan — and even finish — upgrades to their headquarters.
“There are no roads to here, so the only way you get in is by airplane or ship, or if you have a snow machine,” says Pierre Lonewolf, chief engineer of KOTZ in Kotzebue, Alaska.
At the NAB Show, broadcast tech companies rolled out FM boosters that enable “zonecasting” and previewed the next-generation capabilities they’re developing for HD Radio.
The hybrid conference aims to draw new staffers to public radio with scholarships for more than a dozen engineers.