Stereo Tool

Hello all,

For the next situation I ask your opinion. With some ideas I can form a plan Thanks a lot for suggestions!
I ask myself could this be a good way to broadcast our local radio signals in Netherlands to a transmitter.

Situation now:

From broadcast mixer to Stereo Tool without the FM options. This goes to a stream (maybe in small future to a digital encoder) to the cable radio provider. This signal will be put on their DVB-C network for the listeners at home. For analog listeners by cable radio they 'MPX' the signal by a modulator (included a basic RDS name) to put it on FM. This FM cable signal we receive at another point (with unfortunately a bit of noise) in the same building (+- 400 meter far) as where our studio is situated and bring that to our transmitter to put it with a MPX tuner on air.
The main problem is the sound is really low, also because of the rules: no Stokkemask 'clipper' in the end before transmitter, so for now we take no risks.

New situation at transmitter site could be:
Same tuner used as now, but not to use MPX out, but left-right out and to put in Marian Trace Alpha sound card. Stereo Tool with FM options and composite clipper enabled into the transmitter to pump up the signal and be everything according the rules (Stokkemask). A new RDS signal we have to produce ourself in that way.
In that case two times through Stereo Tool (one only basic functions and the other one with full FM options), will this be fine, or do we destroy the sound fully with this?

Will this be a fine solution, I know the best would be a cable directly to the transmitter, but because of location of this building we need to send it above the roof, to put a cable already to the roof will be a problem because of fire rules. You understand I prefer a direct connection from studio to the transmitter with ST installed in there to get best quality out.

So you basically have 2 problems:
- Loudness
- Hiss

Loudness:
Using 2 separate Stereo Tool instances is no problem, I would advice though to not turn on the same filters in both locations. So, for the stream, turn on AGC, noise gate, multiband compressor and normal (non-FM) clipper (not too much!!!) etc. At the transmitter site, use the other things: All FM and composite clipper features.

Hiss:
Is this stereo hiss? It's not a perfect solution, but you could try the stereo hiss filter in Stereo Tool that was made specifically for situations like this! It's in the same panel as Noise Gate (you need to set the GUI mode high enough, it's not displayed in Simple or Basic mode). Turn it on at the transmitter site, and it should remove anti-phase hiss in the L-R signal.

Thanks Hans.

I will try this when we are so far.

Edgar

Is there a solution to take the RDS signal out of a MPX out of a tuner? It could be nice to transform this RDS output into the transmitter or Stereo Tool. This is not possible now, I know. Maybe someone has an idea about this

I know now there is a solution to rebroadcast the RDS signal with RDS Spy and the plugin RDS Rebroadcast. Thanks to a nice reader at the etherpiraten.com forum. The only thing is that this RDS Rebroadcast plugin can only send the information to a Pira32 RDS hardware encoder. I am not a fan of an external RDS encoder especially when it's integrated in Stereo Tool!
Will this be a problem to put the MPX signal of Stereo Tool into the Pira32 encoder and after that to the transmitter?

Or, is there a possibility to put the information of Spy RDS into Stereo tool's RDS?
Nice option to create plugins for RDS Spy: http://rdsspy.com/index.php/category/create-a-plugin/ but I don't have the knowledge to create this.

Thanks!

If you use an external RDS encoder, you cannot use Stereo Tool's composite clipper!

The simplest solution would be to let RDS Spy write the RDS text to a file. I don't know the program, so I don't know if it's possible or if there's a plugin for it. You really have no internet connection to the broadcast pc? Because then you could send the data from the studio to Stereo Tool using either the web interface or via a file (share a directory on the broadcast pc and you can access it remotely).

In case I can't use the composite clipper, I will not use an external RDS encoder. the composite clipper will be too much important! The only possibility will be to get the files out of RDS Spy, because an network connection isn't possible at that location at this moment. I talk about +- 300 meters with a direct straight 'cable' above the roof. Problem is to make a connection to get to the roof, because the owner of the building isn't happy we drill in there (fire regulations). About the files to import in ST, do I need different files for PS, RT and PTY? That are the dynamic ones?

Hans,

Do you have some examples how these files have to look like so ST can import these without any problem?
Could you attach some examples? Thanks

Files can just contain a piece of text:

ps.txt:
THIS IS

rt.txt:
Radio Edgar blablabla

To include these type something like: \F"C:\ps.txt" in the RDS PS field.

For the PTY I don't have anything dynamic... You could use the scheduling mechanism to load a different preset file (will load changes only), in that case it would be something like:

pty.sts:
[FM Transmitter]
RDS PTY=10

I have contact with someone who use Stereo Tool with composite clipper and the Pira32 RDS encoder. He said everything is according the in Netherlands used Stokkemasker rules. Checked by the analyzer you have now also (Pira P175)
Now I don't know any more haha.