Moss Media - The RSL and Community radio pages.

On these pages you will find a range of information and advice which we think and hope will be helpful to anyone considering setting up any form of smaller scale broadcast operation for the first time. Information here applies very broadly to setting up and operating RSL, Community, School and University stations, though each naturally has its own specific points of difference from the rest. As a result, what follows can only be quite generalised advice, and should be treated as a starting point, to be read before obtaining (or in conjunction with) the paperwork and forms supplied by OFCOM to make an application for the type of licence you are considering.

At any stage in the process of reading what follows or applying for a licence, you're welcome to call Moss Media for further explanation or advice, and we don't mind a bit if the questions are quite basic. Whilst we don't specifically rent RSL equipment packages, we know people who do: we offer RSL advice and RSL Broadcast services in general - and its the same for Community Radio. We can come up with a station design, specify your ideal package for the job in hand, find the best prices, and get it together for purchase - with all necessary cabling. Alternatively we can supply specific items of equipment, or we'll get a transmission or studio package working if you don't have the expertise, and can negotiate on your behalf if things aren't working as they should.

We can help wherever you get stuck: in filling out your licence application form, pointing you in the right direction for equipment rental, deciding on the best location for studios and aerials, sorting a news feed, or offering a few tips on choosing programming elements, music and broadcast structures (often called 'clocks') to suit what you have in mind. And, since there are people here who've done this before - we can also offer help and training in presenting programmes that won't sound quite as nervous as you feel whilst doing them!

AM considerations
In most circumstances during daylight, AM goes further than FM. However, the quality's nothing like as good. AM's fine for mainly speech RSLs, sporting events, the transmission of lots of information, programming that doesn't rely heavily on modern music... Think about who will be listening, for how long, and on what sort of radio. If you're planning to broadcast well into the night, be warned, incoming interference on AM channels can very severely restrict an RSL area measured in miles in the daylight. In general, on AM, licence costs will be lower, transmitter rental higher than for FM.

FM considerations
FM often doesn't go as far as AM, but the audible quality's much better. Night-time won't affect it much. Use FM if you plan lots of music based programmes, trial broadcasts for a 'real' licence, festival type broadcasts and so on. Again think about who's likely to be listening, on what sort of receiver, at what time of day and for how long. For FM, ask yourself realistically what sort of an area you really want or need to cover. Never expect miracles in terms of range, FM is funny stuff. If in doubt, always choose FM unless there are really convincing reasons (nearly all speech, specialist event, specialist audience, short duration listening, predominantly information led, little night-time coverage needed) why AM can be trusted...

How much Power?
Simply, as much as you can afford. On FM, remember that one watt is not a lot. If all you want is to broadcast in the immediate vicinity of a county show or a music festival covering a few fields, one FM watt could be enough. If your ambitions are much higher, theres no real alternative but to find the money and go for the maximum power you're allowed. Though its certainly not a lot in absolute terms a 25 watt RSL with a professional signal processor driving it and the right aerial location can usually more or less cover a medium sized town - so long as you select the transmission site with care. A lot of people don't! On AM even low power signals seem to go for miles in daytime - select the power level you can afford and anticipate rather better range than expected.

Where should the transmitter/studio be located?
FM: On the highest point for miles around is the short answer - but unfortunately many hilltops don't have an electricity supply or any sort of building into which you can fit your temporary studio. If you want to keep costs down and things as simple as possible (the two golden rules for RSL's), your transmitter and studio should be co-located, and as close together as possible, ideally in the same building. You need a tallish but secure building with a flat roof as near to 20 metres above ground level as possible, with somewhere to securely attach an aerial (looking similar to a typical FM receiving aerial) built on top of the highest point you can find in the area you wish to cover, with a room for the studio thats not in an international airport flight path or near a high speed railway line, motorway or main road, including a reliable mains power supply - and all on the floor immediately below the roof. Also, ensure theres easy (preferably free) parking. Not a lot to ask is it?

AM: For the average AM RSL operation aerial location is not so tricky. It needs to be away from possible public contact, and though it'll help, it doesn't have to follow the criteria shown above for FM quite so closely. In favourable conditions you might get several miles daytime range with typical AM RSL power levels - simply by siting the aerial wherever theres room to put it adjacent to your studio. No need to be on top of a hill, but it will help. A good earth connection to the transmitter/aerial equipment will also help enormously. Studio location as above, and still, very preferably, on the same site, co-located. Take advice from the equipment supplier.

AM or FM: Make absolutely sure that the studio, aerial and transmitter are as vandal and theft proof as humanly possible, particularly if you're not proposing a 24 hour service staffed around the clock. Don't hesitate to take advice on security - it really is a big issue. Take every precaution possible to secure access to your studio and transmission equipment whenever no-one's around. Remember that if equipment is hired, its entirely your responsibility whilst its on rental, so arrange full-value replacement insurance. You will be liable for the full cost of anything that goes missing, and some of this equipment costs thousands. Many equipment rental suppliers nowadays insist on insurance, but even if your supplier doesn't, arrange insurance anyway. Even full time stations have been known to have transmitting equipment stolen. Remember the motto: if its not securely nailed down, it could walk!

Consider insurance cover on a wider range of issues than the possibility of having rented equipment stolen. Public liability insurance is pretty vital, especially if the public will visit or be in the vicinity of your studio at any time. Consider how you will cope if the transmitting aerial was to fall and damage a parked car - or worse, cause personal injury to someone completely uninvolved in the station. What would happen if a volunteer was to trip over a trailing cable, and fall, sustaining a broken arm? If you plan a lot of speech or phone-in broadcasting there may be on-air insurance implications too. If in doubt about what insurances are needed, seek specialist advice before turning the transmitter on.

What if I have to put the transmitter somewhere separate from the studio?
Try very hard not to. Once you get outside the same building (or site) you're into a world of either leased lines (expensive, with long contractual periods) or radio links (also expensive, prone to problems, and, more often than not, a pain that RSL's can do without) or IP links using broadband internet connections (which can be a workable alternative - but one that comes with its own unique range of risks and problems) Most RSL's that can't operate studio and transmitter on the same site tend to rent a radio link transmitter and receiver - which involves an additional licence, for which you will have to pay - together with its appropriate aerials and feeder cables. The signal from the studio is then sent to the link transmitter, and broadcast on a locally unique frequency to the link receiver, which in turn is fed into the FM or AM RSL transmitter. Don't be over-ambitious: such links can be fraught with problems if there is no direct 'line of sight' between transmitter and receiver. They involve additional, often fiddly installation time, and have limited range, often being subject to a plethora of hisses, pops and crackles (and sometimes interference) which are added to your intended signal before the result is then broadcast.

IP-style links can work well, and there are some fine pieces of professional level kit around to make such links a reality, but getting broadcast quality stereo audio over an IP link is not always quite as easy as it sounds. A pre-requisite is a broadband internet connection of adequate capacity (with attendant service costs) at both the studio and the chosen transmitter location. In our experience such connections are not normally found in rooftop locations, and its not likely to be economic to get broadband installed in such out of the way spots for a week or a month - just for one RSL. The vagaries of the public internet system need consideration too. Unless you pay professional broadband rates, will the service be reliable enough for a professional radio station? And, if broadband does go down at either end of your link, how long will it take to be restored? The 'blocking,' audible delays and compression introduced by IP connections using some data formats can be considerable - how much will that matter to you?

Explore all the possible alternatives carefully and think very hard before going down the route of using a transmitter remote from your studio location. Inevitably, everything sounds good on paper, but in the real world things can be very different. Don't hesitate to take (and act on) specialist advice from suppliers of the equipment that will be provided - whatever sort of link you choose.

Why do I need processing? its very expensive...
It is, but the station will sound a whole lot better if its there - always assuming its properly set up. Ask the supplier to set it up for you. It's an insurance policy against the waywardness of people who've not worked in broadcasting before and don't yet understand the finer points of things like level control, meters, faders, distortion and overmodulation. A good processor, properly set up, can make your station sound just as good as those permanent stations along the dial, despite having the oddest selection of people feeding it the most bizarre collection of signals. If you want to sound professional, get a transmitter processor... The next best thing is a "compressor limiter," which is a lot cheaper and certainly can help - again if its properly set up. If you're using a separate link between studio and transmitter, to avoid distortion or other problems on the link, you might want to include a limiter/compressor in circuit before the link transmitter. AM or FM we wouldn't recommend running your RSL without either a processor or at least a compressor limiter in circuit before your studio output reaches the transmitter....

Studio equipment
Everything you need can be rented - at a price. A lot of domestic equipment will do RSL jobs as long as you're not expecting a £79.99 CD player to provide faultless 24 hour service for an entire month when it is subject to over-enthusiastic would-be disc jokeys hitting its buttons and disc tray repeatedly with great force. And they will... We suggest renting or buying a professional standard mixing desk, a good microphone, a computer playback system and two professional CD players at the very least - together with some studio output logging equipment - which is very important, even if many operators don't seem to regard it as such.

Logging your station's output - a vital and very necessary evil
Always remember you are required to record all your station's live output, and retain those recordings for a minimum of 6 weeks after transmissions cease. If you are "live" 24 hours a day, this means you will need to record a maximum of 672 hours of material. OFCOM takes very seriously a failure to log station output - not matter what sort or size of station is involved.

If you can still find them - and a supply of tapes to suit them - low speed video recorders remain one solution for the short-term RSL task of recording output for up to 28 days. Many bigger stations have relied on this method for years at a time - so its perfectly possible and perfectly acceptable. The downsides are (1) it involves someone remembering to change tapes at intervals, (2) machines and tapes are prone to failure, and (3) If they don't come as part of an equipment rental package, you will have to find the machines and tapes to use - definitely no longer as easy as it once was. Video recorders and tapes are fast disappearing as digital TV and digital recorders take over... Using this method, live transmissions 24 hours a day would require 3 video recorders running 8 hours each to avoid breaks. At low speed each can record that average maximum of 8 hours material on an E240 tape, requiring a minimum supply of 84 such tapes for the purpose. They usually run a little longer than 4 hrs so a minute or two overrun can be programmed in. We would recommend you obtain more tapes than this, since tapes and video recorders do fail from time to time, and you are after all placing quite a demand on a domestic video recorder by asking it to record 8 hours one day and 16 hours the next, non-stop for 28 days. Not even the most ardent couch potato is that keen!.

Today there are other alternative methods of recording output, and certainly if you are intent on running a Community or any other full time station you need to consider them. With vast amounts of computer hard disk storage now cheap and readily available, it is quite possible to record audio files on computer as programme logging at reasonable quality. If you don't know a whizz kid who can make this happen on a spare computer, software ranging from cheap to expensive is available designed for the purpose, the best of which allows searches after the recording to access material at the right point in time on demand - and at high quality. Try an internet search for "audio logging" and see what that uncovers. If you decide to use this method, remember a dedicated computer is really the only option, as it will be tied up permanently if you have a long term licence - or for 6 weeks afterwards if its an RSL - with a lot of audio on its hard drive.

Another alternative is to use one or more of the stand-alone digital hard disk recorders around nowadays which are intended for quality recording of off-air digital TV - and alternative AV inputs. Your RSL could be an AV input. Like videotape machines these come with programmable timers, so you need record only your "on-air" periods, and they are not overly expensive, especially compared to tape based VCR machines doing the same job... They also routinely come with hard drives sufficient to record many hundreds of hours of video. If you're only "on air" for part of the day, running at the longest recording rate for video, its nowadays feasible for just one machine to contain an entire 28 days RSL audio output at perfectly reasonable quality.

Give some thought to required reliability levels - though maybe not quite to the same degree as a VCR, its asking quite a lot of a domestic digital recorder and hard drive to run continuously for that time without faults developing. A recognised brand name might cost more, but it could bring a better chance of reliable operation - or a spare machine might make a useful insurance policy. Finally, be sure that you have some cast iron way of indexing and locating the day and time to which the recorded files relate. If using a VCR or digital recorder you could point a cheap CCTV camera at the studio clock and record that on the video channel as a start... if you had a radio alarm clock with audio out and date built into the display as well that might even solve the problem in one go!

Copyright...
You'll have to pay fees for the use of and broadcasting of copyright music, which means most, but not quite all, of the music on sale in the shops or appearing in the charts in the last 50 years and found on CD or vinyl (or as an MP3 file if you must!) There are licensing requirements involved in storing music on a playout computer, and for editing music material for broadcast. Make enquiries with the copyright authorities if you're in doubt.

Some speech material may also be under copyright - check before its broadcast if you're thinking of broadcasting book readings, plays or anything similar... There are also various (not well known) copyright issues associated with material found on advertisements which already exist, and have been played on other stations. Don't assume because a client has already got an ad which has been used before that you can simply play it as often as you like. Check the status of its copyright before you play it... Don't try and avoid copyright issues, you could get found out... make sure your budget will run to paying the appropriate copyright fees, and make sure also you fill out the forms correctly. If in doubt - ask!

Useful contacts and general information

Please note: Information provided is believed correct, but Moss Media accepts no responsibility for the contents of external websites, or the accuracy or timeliness of any information provided by others/third parties. If in doubt, seek appropriate professional advice.

Insurance
The matter of adequate insurance cannot be stressed too highly whether you intend to operate an RSL or Community radio station. The type of insurance needed by permanent and temporary broadcasters is quite specialised and can be wide ranging. J.L Morris insurance brokers of Dorset have advised Moss Media that they may be able to provide insurances of the type required. Tel 01202 642840. Website: www.jlmorris.co.uk
Note: This is not the only company arranging such insurance, and you may wish to seek competitive quotations.

Copyright licensing
Copyright is in general a very complex matter. Infringement can be costly. For use of music on RSL and Community radio stations, it is essential that you make contact with the following organisations before commencing broadcasting.

PRS (The Performing Right Society.) www.prsformusic.com
PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd.) www.ppluk.com
MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society Ltd.) arrangements are dealt with via PRS.

All the above organisations have helpful information available on their websites, and can offer specific guidance if needed. You will be required to pay fees for licences to broadcast music.

Note that in some cases a licence may also be required to broadcast copyrighted spoken word material. More information may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency at www.cla.co.uk. Other interested parties may be The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (Tel: 0207 255 2034) and the Publishers' Licensing Society (Tel: 0207 829 8486)

Various books have been published on copyright matters. Many will be available from your local library. Amongst the titles which may be of interest in an RSL or Community Radio context are:

The Copyright Designs and Patent Act - pub: HMSO.
The law of Copyright and Rights in Performances (Dennis De Freiras, pub: British Copyright Council)
A practical introduction to Copyright (Gavin McFarlane)
Understanding Copyright - A practical Guide (Eric Thorn, Pub: Good Books, Charmouth)

Further helpful information on music copyright issues in general is available from PRS and PPL.