There's an App For That
While many apps are toys or nifty gadgets, there are some that are practical in radio engineering. Here are some that have been suggested by readers.
Keeping Racks Cool
Equipment cooling in a rack room should is an important consideration in the room design. But the HVAC is not the only item to consider.
Remote Equipment Reset
Michael Bradford needed a better way to reboot the codecs without driving 45 miles.
More on Portable Lighting
Ideas to shed light on your work.
Unusual Parts Source: Outdoors Store
By looking in some unusual places you might find better and less expensive alternatives to tools or parts. One possible source is a camping or outdoor store.
Cell phone remotes
This home-made interface splits the mini jack from the phone into an XLR connector for a mic and a headphone jack.
Plug Before You Crimp
Installing RJ-45 connectors can be a pain, but not if you use connectors that simplify their installation.
Analog testing
Ed Treese shares some notes on his favorite piece of analog test equipment: a pair of headphones.
Taking Pictures
A digital camera can be a valuable tool in your toolbox. Even the camera on a cell phone is better than nothing, but higher resolution cameras can be helpful as well.
Wall-wart Plugs
The Furman PlugLock has metal brackets that are adjustable for various size wall-warts and allows them to be securely clamped in place.
Rack Equipment Protection
Most rack covers block access to the equipment. This station needed to protect the exposed face, but maintain full access. See how a back-of-the-rack device found a new home in the front of the rack.
Satellite Critter Control
Need to keep insects out of the satellite antenna feed horn? A piece of Mylar screen material and a large diameter, stainless-steel hose clamp may be your answer.
Home-brew Dehydrator Upgrade
Coaxial transmission line and antenna pressurization are critically important. Mike Kernen needed to repair his dehydrator system on a budget. He devised a system with greater capacity at half the cost of a new system.
Check the Electrical Power Meter
It's a good idea to compare the power bill information to the actual meter reading once in a while.
PERL Logger
Rob Landry's Perl script records each hour as an MP3 file by capturing the station's Internet stream.
Mine that Light
Working in tight spaces with low light is no fun. Check out this handy device to shed some light on the task.
Weather Protection
Covering a spark gap with a plastic tub saved it from heavy rain.
Online Resources
Check out the Radio magazine Glossary, Rane Pro Audio Reference, Sweetwater Glossary, Stan Coutant's Microphone Site and the James Steele Mic Page.
Cover that wire label
Labeling wires is a common task, and you have likely tried many methods.
Unusual adapters
Having the ability to create an adapter on a moment's notice can save the day. Sometimes something unusual -- albeit potentially dangerous -- can save the day.
Iphone tools
Gary Kline suggested one of his favorite Iphone apps for radio engineers, Islipstick.
Nice PAD
Porting a data stream to an RBDS encoder or HD Radio importer often requires some kind of conversion step. There are commercial products and services to do this, but it can be done in house.
USB audio interfaces
Professional quality audio cards are expensive and many times you have no choice by tto make do with the built-in sound interface from standard PC.
EAS Checkup
One piece of equipment that can be left untouched and unnoticed for some time is the station's EAS encoder/decoder. Don't let it become a quiet problem.
Go wireless
When you must have more than one keyboard and mouse, one way to make things neater is to use a wireless keyboard/mouse combination.
