Guest Speaker- Cumulus Broadcasting

Hamilton Tech’s evening Electronics Engineering Technologies students hosted Andy Andresen from Cumulus Broadcasting last Monday night. Andy is the Regional Coordinator for Cumulus in Iowa as well as being one of 2 full time engineers in the state and sitting on the development committee for new products.

Cumulus Broadcasting is the 2nd largest broadcast company in America (Clear Channel is number one). They currently operate 24 stations in Iowa, 5 of which are in the Quad Cities. Andy is in charge of those five stations as well as five more in Dubuque. The five local stations include: Rock 104.9, Star 93.5, 97X,  B100, and True Oldies 1170.

Andy’s presentation included a breakdown of how music and DJ banter makes its way from the mic to your radio. In order for you to hear your favorite song on the radio, it must go through processors, compressors, the studio to transmitter link and finally be transmitted through the transmitter. It is this signal that your radio picks up and you hear. He was able to illustrate his points with pictures of the actual radio stations and transmitter stations he works with, offering the students a virtual tour of Dwyer and Michaels’ studio.

After a thorough explanation of how radio works, Andresen then went on to explain the changes in technology that have emerged and how they are affecting his job and the user’s radio listening experience. The first major change was in how information is  transmitted through the station. Where bulky cables with only 24 channels once ran through the building, the same result can be achieved with ethernet cable and a node device connected to a computer.  Antenna lights that once only lasted a year, requiring a treacherous climb up the tower to replace have been usurped by high intensity LEDs that can last up to 8 years. The final technological advance was one that Andy had a personal hand in developing.  Previously, when radio stations did remote broadcasting, there was a lot of equipment that had to be brought and setup– microphones, mixers, cd players, antennas, etc. Cumulus has developed an ipad application that can tap into the station’s computer system and broadcast remotely with nothing more than an ipod, microphone and an internet connection. The end audio result is clearer than the previous system and is super portable and user friendly. Currently the Quad Cities is the only market using the remote broadcast ipad app, but they are looking to expand to other markets.

Thank you Andy and Cumulus Broadcasting for coming in and sharing with our students.