Through years of engagement in the broadcast equipment business, we observed that many customers, despite the cost, time, etc, would like to have their first FM radio station or update what they already have in the station, but yet there a considerable number of customers who is not so familiar with how to build a complete radio station for personal/commercial use successfully.

We were always asked, "Do you have a radio station equipment list to be referenced?", well, the answer is "Sure we do". We supply low-cost radio broadcast equipment from transmitters to antenna systems! Of course, there are other similar questions like "What's the price" or "How to build" on the equipment updating and expanding. Here is the list of frequently asked questions that FMUSER often receives from customers:

- Do you provide a complete FM radio station equipment list?

- What equipment do I need to buy to start a radio station?

- What's the cost of a profitable radio station?

- How many types of broadcast equipment are there in an expert radio station?

- What is the equipment found in a radio station?

- Why do I need the list of radio station equipment?

- How to define radio broadcast equipment?

- Do you offer any low-cost radio station equipment for sale?

- What is the complete radio station equipment package?

- How to expand the coverage of my FM radio transmitter?

- Where to find the best radio station equipment manufacturer?

- Where can I buy the best radio station equipment?

- How to choose the best broadcast equipment among different brands?

- Can I buy any broadcast equipment packages at a low cost?

- What is the best price you can offer for the antenna system?

You can easily find the answer if you Google questions like "The best hotel near my house" or "Where is the gym nearest", but for business issues such as "Best radio station equipment" or "Best radio equipment supplier", it would be more difficult to find the answers because it not only involves related brands but also reflects your mastery of radio professional knowledge.

You may be totally puzzled by parts of the content such as the SNR value of a branded series of FM transmitters, or the specific names of cavities of an FM combiner, etc.

So this guide will introduce you in the most concise language about how to build a complete radio station and key points you need to consider, and we will share some extra equipment links to help you build a complete radio broadcast station.

Step #0 Things You Should Know Ahead

Setting up a radio station is not as easy as it seems. You may need to consider what to broadcast on radio programs and how much continual costs you may need to invest. However, if your radio station is operated properly, you may also get considerable long-term income. Therefore, Before your first radio station buildup, you need to focus on the following key points:

Step #1 Preview the Local Policies 

In addition to studying the best buildup types pf a radio station, pay more attention and acquire the policies®ulations of local radio administration (e.g. FCC in the USA) in time can help avoid hefty fines for violations and help you formulate appropriate competition strategies, which is closely related to a lot of subsequent investment, for example, labor costs, radio station license applying cost, water and electricity fees, broadcast content edited cost, or time cost, the effort cost, etc.

Step #2 Choose Your Radio Station

It might be confusing to the radio newbies to the main types of radio broadcasting: AM, FM, TV, and IP. But it is dead easy to see the huge difference in buildup budgets and equipment required for these four types of broadcasting. Therefore, pls attach great importance from the beginning when choosing which type of broadcast station to start with, ask yourself: can it totally meet your needs? How much budget is left? Always remember to consider the radio station type,  it helps with the stable operation of your station for maybe a few decades.

Step #3 Apply for a License

Once you have an overall understanding of the resources you have, why not take some necessary steps then? Applying for a business license from an authoritative radio administration is the most important step in a radio station buildup. What you need to do is to understand the differences in different radio stations and to their licenses belonged, and get all ready before formally applying for a license - obtaining approval for an FM band will stay long and cumbersome.

As mentioned earlier, LPFM and HPFM are two mainstream station types of traditional broadcasting. Choosing either of these two methods, LPFM or HPFM, will inevitably encounter the problem of how to maintain the profit of the radio station.

If you choose LPFM station for radio broadcasting, you cannot send any form of paid advertising to your audience (LPFM is non-profit terrestrial broadcasting). But Low power FM radio station broadcasts a variety of audio programs, including music, news, public affairs, etc.

Although you can't engage in paid advertising, you can engage in underwriting instead, which allows you to accept corporate donations and express your gratitude for these donations during broadcasting. Because the Broadcasting Coverage of LPFM radio is very limited and usually appears in the form of community broadcasting, Therefore, the specific profitability strategy depends on the location of your listeners.

If you choose HPFM radio station, you don't have to worry about broadcasting paid advertising at all, because these profitable commercial operations can accept advertising and have a wider choice in terms of funds and programs. However, it is more difficult to obtain business licenses for HPFM radio stations and it commonly goes with higher applying costs.

Step #4 Schedule Your Radio Affairs

If you have submitted your radio license application to the local radio administration, what else can you do except for waiting for approval?

Let's take over those inner affairs! To FMUSER, a radio station is like a company. As the decision-maker of this "company", you will be facing a lot of trifles such as what to broadcast tomorrow or how to make my station popular.

The following are six practical rules summarized by FMUSER according to the customer feedback of some self-built radio stations:

Step #5 Operate legally and avoid heavy penalties

No one wants to be severely punished by the local radio administration for illegal operation, especially when you have invested tens of thousands of dollars in the cost and countless energy for the radio station, you can't even give up this business directly!

Therefore, always remember to apply for a license, prepare all paper material that needs or will be needed to submit, and fill in the application info according to the actual situation to avoid affecting the healthy operation of the radio station

Step #6 Always remember to invest reasonably

The construction plan of a radio station startup requires a lot of funds (if you always want everything to be top-level), including the purchase cost of professional broadcast equipment, radio studio space rental cost, warehouse rental cost, utility cost, salary cost, etc.

These factors need to be carefully considered, If any of these factors are missing, you may be in great trouble, Therefore, finding your strategic partners stands above all especially in the initial stage of radio station construction.

Of course, you can also choose to rent existing space and equipment (such as a radio tower and studio) for FM broadcasting, it is a great strategy, but not recommended for a newly formed radio station due to the over-high cost. Well, the choice is yours!

Step #7 Integrate resources and build a team

Besides buying broadcast equipment, you also need to place them and of course, find someone to use the equipment.

Do you want to do this alone? This is obviously impossible!

You will be needing a technician for the broadcast equipment maintenance; You also need several radio experts who are responsible for editing radio programs and on-field work for live broadcasting, etc. So go get some radio broadcasting talents to your startup schedule.

Step #8 Exclusive business plan for your radio station 

What else do I need to know except for the station buildup cost and local radio policies? You may also need to decide how to make a real broadcast station.

Is it a small, low cost but low-profit LPFM radio station you're going to build or a large and highly profitable commercial / HPFM radio station or other types of radio stations on planning, these decisions are closely related to your cost, which also makes great influences on your radio program types in the next few years.

Some additional factors should be considered as well, such as:

 - The terrain surrounding your radio station, is it flat or hilly, a flat terrain allows a better broadcast antenna coverage for the broadcasting

- Are you going to build a tropics radio station? If yes, then you need to consider the weather things such as humidity and high temperature. These factors may bring negatives and increase the cost input to your radio station buildup, especially for the cost of choosing the best radio station equipment.

 - How do I gain a better review from my radio programs?

 - etc.

You will meet all kinds of problems during radio station construction. It is unwise to fight alone, you then need some cooperation at this point.

Fortunately, as an expert in professional radio station buildup, FMUSER provides complete radio station turnkey solutions and low cost radio station equipment for radio buyers with every budget.

What's more, online real-time support is also available, from structural planning of your radio station to management of each small step needed to be taken before and after the radio station buildup.

Looking for complete radio stations and studio equipment packages? Contact our RF experts and let us know your needs and budget, and get the latest professional FM radio station setup project from FMUSER Broadcast. 

#1 Studio Transmitter link Equipment

This includes digital STL system (IP STL or STL over IP) consists of live streaming encoders and decoders, parabolic antennas, network switch, and other devices such as generator, audio&video input lines, etc. While microwave STL consists of STL antenna, STL transmitter&STL receiver. The STL system is used to connect your studios with the transmitter site and ensures audio transmission quality.

#2 FM Radio Transmitters

Key equipment to build a basic FM radio station, made to process FM signals and sent to broadcast antennas

#3 FM Broadcast Antenna System

Including the broadcast antennas, antenna feedlines, coaxial cables, cables connectors, and other antenna accessories. The antenna system is as important as the FM transmitters. With more bays of antenna comes with additional antenna gain so as to reach a more effective transmission

#4 FM Combiners for Antenna

Due to the high cost of multiple antennas and limited space of the broadcast tower, an FM combiner could dramatically reduce the cost of the FM transmission system by taking the output power from the power amplifier and put them together into one FM antenna array.

#5 Antenna Waveguide dehydrators

Also known as radio air compressor, it is an important piece of equipment used to provide dry and compressed air to the rigid transmission lines, which is commonly seen in the large radio stations

#6 FM Power Amplifiers

Used to grab the signals from the FM Exciter and expand to the power that is legally applied by you

#7 FM Stereo Generators

Functions by pre-emphasis and low-pass filtering, an FM stereo generator is used for external FM audio processing system, to help reduce the influence of receiver mixing caused by multipath and transfer the complete AES MPX composite baseband to the exciter. To summarize, an FM stereo generator is a converter that can receive signals(audio) and transfer them into FM baseband format.

#8 Composite Stereo Audio Switchers

Switching equipment used to switch stereo audio between FM stereo generators (if with multiple)

#9 FM Exciters

Devices used to grab the audio signals of the FM Stereo Baseband from FM Stereo Generator or Composite Stereo Audio Switcher

#10 Broadcast Antenna Switches

A device used to switch between the broadcast antennas that are applied with other transmitting broadcast equipment such as radio transmitter and receiver.

#11 RF remote control

An easy-handling wireless device used to release RF remote instructions to the broadcast equipment (no need for aiming directly at the equipment), plus,  in case of multiple broadcast antenna systems, it monitors the RF transmitting system and gives out warnings when the system went wrong.

1. Air conditioners

to provide cool air for the equipment and of course the best radio experience for your guests  (especially for studio room and engineering room).

2. UPS

Known as uninterruptible power supply (UPS), this is a kind of electrical backup equipment used to protect hardware equipment in a radio station when an accidental power interruption takes place. To reach that, a UPS provides enough emergency power and can be applied not only for a small place like an office but also for a large suburban area. Common lasting time for a UPS will only be few minutes (based on output power), but it is far enough for the generator technical  maintenance.

3. Electricity Generators

A piece of equipment used to produce electric power transformed from mechanical energy and supply to the radio station

4. Furnitures

To provide free space for different applications, e.g. the desk space for putting studio broadcast equipment like microphone and audio process, the lounge space for radio guests, etc.

5. On air device

includes on air light and on air clock. In an expert radio studio, an on air lamp is a light-warning device that can be mounted on the wall, mainly used to cause attention to people who might break unintentionally into places where you're live broadcasting (and ruin your plans by chance).

And of course, it is also an important device to display your how professional your station is and to remind everyone to be quiet on the live broadcast scene. while the on-air clock is a piece of information reminding device functions by time&date display, count-down timer, advertisement interruption, etc.

6. Studio Acoustic Wedges Foam

A foam panel made from polyurethane/polyether/polyester and cut in the shape of the cuboid, usually used for soundproofing in a radio studio by attenuating airborne sound waves, reducing their amplitude so as to control noises.

1. Audio Content Processing Software

For example, the third-party automation and playout software used for audio processing: podcasts playing, audio signals mixing, audio equalization, and audio compression, etc.)

2. Automatic Broadcast Schedule Software

Most applicable to 24 / 7 live broadcast.

3. Audio Streaming Software

These software will be used when you want to real-time intervene or to live broadcast all programs.

Are you still using the radio? If you live in some developed areas, smart terminal devices such as mobile phones and computers have already become a part of daily life, but in some underdeveloped areas, broadcast devices such as FM radio receivers, are as important as food.

It means WHY to somebody, but quite easy the answer is: in countries and regions with backward infrastructure, living standards are limited, and radio is usually the only way of entertainment. In those underdeveloped countries and regions, using radio still has many advantages, for example, radio works as an information media with the lowest cost, it is also the most applied entertaining way that embraces the most audiences

What's more, radio is one of the best information transmission channels that have high quality and control efficiency in the COVID-19 pandemic prevention. The local town broadcasters or community radio stations are able to broadcast epidemic prevention information with the local language, which helps the local people learn the COVID-19 "How and Why" and add confidence to the listeners through this most localized cultural communication method.

Radio is only a small part of wireless broadcasting, the most important thing is radio station - as the signal transmitting site. COVID-19 is getting worse, community radio broadcasting, township radio broadcasting, and contactless radio broadcasting services such as drive-in churches and drive-in theatres have become one of the safest forms of entertainment in most developed and underdeveloped countries and regions. "We can do more than just praying around."

Common radio broadcast - led by LPFM (small&private) broadcasting, including HPFM broadcasting (large&commercial), AM broadcasting (still in use), TV broadcasting (very expensive)

New radio broadcast - led by digital broadcasting (IP studio), is an emerging streaming media broadcasting on the Internet.

One thing is for sure for radio stations from developed countries and areas: to an expert radio station, with more equipment expenses always make a higher professional level of the station.

Does this work the same for underdeveloped countries and areas? Absolutely NOT. We have many customers from underdeveloped countries and areas. basic radio station equipment such as a low-power FM radio transmitter, several broadcast antennas, antenna accessories, and studio equipment packages, etc. are all that's asked for to their radio broadcast startup. These customers generally come from communities in some small towns, they broadcast radio over towns or neighboring communities that are near their radio station. They gained considerable popularity through local radio broadcasting with radio equipment cost only tens of thousand USD, which is far less than what was written in their radio station startup plan.

So, the professional level of the radio station which is broadcasting to means not-that-much to the local listeners. What means much then? - There are radio programs to be broadcasted and people can listen through the radio receiver means that much.

Some customers from developed countries have higher budgets and go for the best product quality. They favor the complete radio station turnkey solutions with a higher price, and the broadcasting equipment included can be applied in some large radio stations, such as some city radio stations or regional radio stations.

If you have less budget and only need to cover a few miles, the LPFM radio broadcast equipment can well meet your needs; If you have well enough budget and want to increase your coverage to over tens of miles, HPFM radio stations can be a good choice

For FM radio broadcasting, the equipment checklist for a complete FM radio station includes three basic types of broadcast equipment:

#1 Common Backup Equipemnt

Applicances such as the air conditioner, fans, or furnitures such as the desks and chairs

#2 FM Transmission Equipment

Most applied in a radio engineering room for radio broadcasting to the end-users.

#3 FM Radio Studio Equipment

- Most applied in a radio studio as front-end audio processing equipment

- Most applied in a radio studio to input audio signals of radio programs delivered by the host or guests.

If you want to broadcast audio programs with high quality on the radio frequency, then having the best radio broadcast equipment is still necessary.

Don't forget the product performance and buying cost-related info. The most important thing is legal radio broadcasting, which requires operating under rules established by local radio administration, such as radio permission or broadcast band requirement. A basic LPFM radio station may need fewer big brands broadcasting equipment than a commercial FM radio station do (cause with a higher cost), but even so, creating a checklist for complete broadcast equipment still means a lot for either radio station type, which also works for AM and Digital radio broadcasting.

#1 FM Transmission Equipment

- FM Broadcast Transmitters

- FM Antennas System (FM radio antennas with accessories such as cables)

- Studio to Transmitter Link Equipment (STL transmitters, STL receivers, STL antennas)

#2 Audio Processing Equipment

- Microphone Processor

- Audio Processor

- USB Mixer Console

- External USB Soundcard（if you want to do live broadcasting or live recordings）

- FM Tuner

- Talent Panel

- Button Panel (GPIO-General Purpose Input/Output)

#3 Audio Input Equipment

- Microphones

- Headphones

- Headphones distributor

- Boom Arm

- Pop Filter

- Microphones Stand（Mic Arms）

- Broadcast Windscreen

- Active Speakers Monitors

- Monitor Audio

- Near Field Monitors

- Sound Level Meters

- CD player

- Speakers (Cue/Preview Speaker&Studio Monitor Speakers)

#4 Guest Equipment

- Radio Intercommunication Device: also known as radio intercom or radio interphone, it's a communication tool used as a dependent telephone network system in a radio station.

- Live call Equipment: used to make live calls by Phone or GSM, it is also known as Phone Talkback System

- Audio backups: CD Players, DAT Machines, Mini Disk Players, and Turn Tables, etc.

- Audio Inputting Equipment: Microphones, Headphones and Pop Filters, etc.

#5 Rack room equipment

- Computer: used to send precise control instructions and ensure the stable and safe operation of the radio station equipment, often serves in form of rack-mounted server in an FM radio station

- Hard disk drives for the audio storage: a solid-state storage device in radio broadcast stations used for sorting or processing or audio items that are ready for broadcast, tips: always remember to have a mirror backup of your drive. Mirror backup is one of the most convenient and fastest backup methods. When you delete a file from the source, the file will eventually be deleted in the mirror backup and no need to compress any content (because the mirror backup is actually a precise copy of all the content on the computer)

- KVM Extender: A KVM extender is known as KVM Switches, PC Switches, Server Switches, and CPU Switches, while KVM stands for keyboard, video, and mouse. It works in a way of capturing peripheral input signals, then enables users to control 2 or even more computers with only one keyboard and mouse. The KVM extender helps decrease confuses caused by insufficient desk space due to the simultaneous use of multiple keyboards and monitors by the end-user.

- Audio Mix Engine: an audio merging device used to provide comprehensive monitoring of all system-wide commands (communication center for all IP-based peripherals). The most common types have multiple IP, audio, power plugins, and routing and mixing functions.

- Audio Router: an audio receiving and switching device that deliver audio input from specific equipment and turn them into correct audio outputs.

- Audio I/O Node: a method to make a round trip for analog or AES signals transfer to IP packets, which allows you to configure the routing by a web-based interface through multiple inputs and outputs (most nodes do have).

- Studiohub: it usually refers to Studiohub wiring standard for the connection of analog and AES audio over RJ-45 audio connectors or RJ45 to balanced/unbalanced audio cable wiring. PS: The “RJ” in RJ45 is the abbreviation of Registered Jack, which is a standard designation originally found in the early 1970s for telephone interfaces by the USOC (Universal Service Ordering Code) scheme of the Bell System

- Network Patch Bay: a wiring device that uses cables to interconnect the network computers in the local area network and connect to the outside lines including the internet or other wide area networks (WAN). As a device used as a static switchboard, the Network Patch Panel can be used to interconnect and manage fiber optic cables and connect all devices through the Network Patch Panel and Cat6 cables. The patch panel can provide simple and accurate wiring management for the network, and its great flexibility reduces the difficulty of technical fault maintenance: when content needs to be changed or fails that need to be fixed, there is no need to rewiring or to move any equipment, and a technical fix-up can be also be easily reached.

- Audio Cable: an audio connection line used to transfers audio signals (analog/digital) from the audio source to the receiving end such as a speaker. The most commonly used cables are analog RCA cables, which were also called a jack, cinch, and coaxial (originally named based on their construction or connectors instead of types)

- Punch-down Block: a cable termination device,where wires are connected into individual slots, it is common in telecommunications, but it’s also found a lot in older broadcast facilities.)

- Network Switch: an important managing block (optional from hardware-based devices for physical networks management or software for virtual management ) used for the connection of multiple network-based devices such as computers, and some internet of things (IoT) devices such as wireless inventory trackers. A network switch works differently from a network router: it sends data packets between devices instead of sending them to the networks, which enables a communicating freeway for information share between connected devices. Plus, the use of a network switch helps manage traffic either coming into or exiting networking and keeps electrical signals undistorted, etc.

- Network Router: or a default gateway, known as a switching device mainly used for internet access: to send and receive data packets on computer networks by a direct connection to a modem through cable wiring, it is also used for coupling networks or VPN connections. A network router works differently from a Network Switch: it sends data packets to the networks instead of sending them between devices, which helps choose the best route for the "magic travel" of information share (personal &commercial) between global computer networks, and of course, to keep the information safe from IT hacking, threatening, etc.

- On-Air Broadcast Audio Processor: a piece of multi-band audio processing equipment applied with radio broadast transmitter in a radio station, most used to manage the peak modulation of the transmitter by control the clipper (bass clipper and master clipper) and digital MPX Stereo Generator. An FM audio processor is also used for audio input enhancing, for example, customize air sound can make a special signature voice for a commercial radio station.

- RDS Encoder: a device that can transmit FM radio signals, RDS signals (digital information) such as brand information, audio program information, and other information of the station. RDS is abbreviated from the radio data system, which refers to a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) communication standard, this standard created a higher level of signal quality and spectral purity for the FM transmission of an FM radio station, and it also creates a fully digital environment for the radio station operators.

- Telephone Hybrid equipment: A telephone hybrid is mainly used to enable to record or broadcast a conversation between a caller and a presenter or use live callers or reporters for radio broadcasting. A Telephone Hybrid equipment is known as a broadcast telephone hybrid or telephone balance unit or a telephone fork, which provides an interface between a standard telephone line and a mixing console and converts between two-wire and four-wire forms of bidirectional audio paths. The use of Telephone Hybrid equipment realizes an easy turnover between the telephone and mixing console, therefore it is very suitable for use on location, besides, it can also reduce not only the calling cost but also the risk of VoIP telephone and traditional analog phones, and create efficient management even in the peak load time.

- PABE (Private Automatic Branch Exchange): an automatic phone switching system managed by private organizations, which is built to meet the needs of multi-lines for in-house and outside calls. PABE is abbreviated from private automatic branch exchange, it is one of the needed private solutions for a radio station. PABE allows a cost reduction of using public telephone networks because internal calls can be placed for free with only a few public telephone lines. PABE also optimize the internal communication inside a radio station, with few buttons made to be pressed can a simple call to each other from inside.

- FM Off-Air Receiver: an FM radio system that is mostly seen in pro radio stations and regulatory authorities, which is used to monitor the signal during the radio program or to deliver a high-quality audio feed for program distribution throughout the broadcast facility with adjustable analog and AES digital audio outputs. The use of an off-air receiver lowers the cost of separated monitoring of multiple radios, and respectively increases the quality and continuity of the regular monitoring.

- Monitor System: a device functions by FM radio monitoring and measurement, which enables repeated FM multiplex signals to be reproduced and transferred between different devices with a built-in digital filter. A good Modulation Monitor / FM Analyser usually allows GSM Connectivity via the optional external GSM Modem, so as to have easy monitoring of channel status or receive audio signals through your mobile phone at any time and space.

- Server Rack: a metal-made closed space structure used to store, rack broadcast equipment of more than 6 units (optional from 1-8 units). A server rack can be stacked or extended due to its versatility, and the most common types of server rack are 1U, 2U, and 4U (8U is optional but less seen), for a large radio station, a 19″ case serve rack is the most ideal model for the rack equipment. The use of a server rack helps reduce the use of floor space for the radio broadcast equipment, simplify equipment wiring and technical maintenance, consolidate the limited resources among the tiny rack space, for example, to centralize cooling airflow, organize a much expandable inner space, and a better and easier interfaces integrated management, etc. The rack server also ensures a better working environment: to protect the tech guy from being harmed by accidental bumping or touching of high voltage electricity stream of the equipment, cables, etc.

- IP audio codec: an audio device used for audio signals converting (analog to digital), audio encoding, and storing. Audio signals will be sent over both IP networks (wired broadband) and wireless broadband networks (3G, 3.5G, and 4G) by IP audio codecs which use audio compression algorithms. IP audio codecs are most applied in distance distribution and high-quality audio signals transmission, for example, remote IP audio broadcasts and audio distribution for multiple STL links (studio to transmitter links or STL links) or networks/stations/affiliates/studios.

- Broadcast Satellite Receiver: a piece of radio broadcast equipment used to satellite audio program receiving, and audio distributing one-to-many through the network of communication satellite, radio signal, outdoor FM antenna, and broadcasting center. The satellite receiver is commonly seen as one of the most key equipment of audio distribution applications, with types divided into HD receiver, general receiver, digital receiver with recorder, and encrypted channel receiver. The use of the stateliite receivers realizes the versatility of a high-quality audio broadcast.

- DAB+/DRM/HD Radio Encoder: a hardware encoding equipment that is used to transmit the AES or analog audio streaming in the proper transport protocol in the field of DAB+, DRM, and HD radio broadcast transport. A hardware encoder is designed with a smaller and portable box, it works more stably and has a lower buying cost than an open-source software encoder. PS: DAB+ is a new radio broadcast standard of Digital Audio Broadcasting used in many countries and regions, originally defined by the WorldDAB Forum. DAB+ works incompatibly with DAB, which means the DAB receiver cannot receive DAB+ radio broadcasting. In terms of efficiency using for radio spectrum, DAB is better than analog FM broadcasting, DAB can provide more radio services for the same given bandwidth, for it usually uses the spectrum more effectively and is stronger than mobile listening noise and multipath fading than analog FM broadcasting, although FM provides a wider coverage area, the radio signals are weakening as well. Other global terrestrial digital radio standards include HD Radio (Mexico & the U.S.), ISDB TB (Japan), DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), CDR (China), and related DMB. About DMB: it refers to "Digital Radio Mondiale", while Mondiale refers to "global" in Italian and French. DRM is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies used in the frequency band working for analog radio broadcasting such as AM, short wave, and FM.

- Audio Patch Bay: a wiring switching hub used to centralize inputs and outputs of different pieces of audio equipment. An audio patch bay is mostly placed in a rack server in a radio rack room, which allows a better technical maintenance condition and ideal hardware management (no need to move for plugging over and over again ) through audio signals rerouting, most importantly, it lowers the equipment replacement cost: less replugging and unplugging almost avoid equipment interfaces wear&tear, which means a longer product life expectancy. There are three basic types of audio patch bay, which are parallel patch bay, half-normalled patch bay, and normalled patch bay, most audio patch bays consist of panels with rows of interfaces used for audio input and output on it, while two rows on the rear, and two rows on the front. The audio patch bay can be applied with other audio equipment such as an audio processer, audio mixer, etc.

- Silence "Dead Air" Detection Equipment: a device that can detect the dead air situation, controls the sound level of audio input for the radio station, and send a silence warning via email, SNMP, or analog optocoupler outputs. Silence detector is most seen in professional radio stations and TV stations and can be easily be applied with other broadcast equipment. About dead air: dead air refers to an unintended interruption (usually out of sound) or a period of silence in media broadcast with no signal, audio, or video is transmitted mostly because of bad program material or operator error or for technical reasons. Radio dead air may be seen as the worst thing ever to be expected especially for expert radio broadcasting. To the station owner, dead air can bring considerable losses in many aspects, for example, the loss of sponsored advertising revenue and online listeners. Delegation Switcher(to switch between studios and other audio sources, selecting what goes to air)

- Broadcast delay: a tool used by broadcasters in way of delaying the broadcast signals to prevent mistakes or unacceptable content from being broadcast such as sneeze, cough, or a short comment needed from the host, the broadcast delay is also known as profanity delay, it offers enough time (from a half minute to even few more hours) for the broadcasters to censor the audio (and video) profanity or other unqualified content for the broadcast, and remove them at once in case any negative influences. Broadcast delay is mostly seen in radio broadcasting and TV broadcast, like live-sport, etc.

How to maintain those expensive broadcast equipment in an FM radio station? For the radio broadcasting stationmaster, any damage to the equipment means extra maintenance cost needs to be paid. So, in order to keep the sustainable and healthy development and of course to lower your cost, one must have those equipment maintained/checked weekly, quarterly, or annually for a broadcast station.

By listing practical refering information such as basic equipment working principles and standards, this share can provide extensively useful maintenance experience and precautions for the FM radio station maintenance, including the FM transmission system equipment and FM radio studio equipment.

This share is also a great maintenance guide used to prevent any damage to broadcasting equipment caused by equipment aging and improper operation, etc. and provides the measures to be taken before and after the establishment of some broadcasting stations, which can be used as a reference for the stationmaster to make decisions of fault diagnosis in advance.

Do know that due to the different RF transmission equipment at each broadcast site, the maintenance methods may need to be adjusted to actual conditions and this share is for reference only.

This may be a common misunderstanding of many radio station operators:

1. Broadcasting equipment is too expensive to maintain

2. Maintenance is unnecessary for it may cause damage to the equipment.

However, is this really the case? The fact is: the more expensive and sophisticated broadcasting equipment, the more periodic inspection and maintenance should be carried out.

Firstly. regular maintenance can also extend the maximum service life of the equipment in your station, for the buying expense for some broadcasting equipment is quite amazing.

With reasonable maintenance, the radio station does not need to frequently change that expensive broadcasting equipment, which helps the radio station save a huge expense for replacing the same new broadcast equipment.

Next, for some newly established LPFM radio stations, if a longer product service life or higher quality audio signals transmission for the broadcast equipment is wanted, then it will be quite essential to have periodic maintenance of radio station equipment.

Lastly. the most important thing is that, whether it is a new station or an old station, regular maintenance for equipment and transmitting site can help maintenance engineers predict some fatal problems that may affect the broadcast station in advance, and make timely remedial measures to prevent problems before they occur.

This can ensure that, for example, when your radio transmitter suddenly burns out due to negligence of maintenance or the aging of the components, which causes the radio program to stop playing, your radio program listeners may be complaining and then switching to other programs on different radio frequency and evitably leaves with a bad radio experience: this may be more terrible than the lack of start-up funds!

Always pay attention that improper operation, maintenance, and repair may directly lead to the damage of broadcasting equipment and even endanger the life safety of equipment maintenance personnel.

Therefore, for most newly-established radio stations, in addition to periodic inspection and maintenance of broadcasting equipment, necessary maintenance training shall also be provided for personnel to acquire necessary maintenance knowledge and skills, and always asked to correctly use the maintenance tools so that they can carry out the overall continuous maintenance work of the radio station in weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

If you are too busy to read those lengthy manuals or need key maintaining information only, well, can't be bad to take a few minutes to quickly browse the following radio maintenance summary and tips :

Must know items

Read the operating instructions carefully to ensure that you can operate the equipment completely and safely, and store the operating instructions uniformly for future reference.

In case of any difficulties occurs in overhauling the equipment, please operate properly under the instructions or hand it over to the maintenance engineer, or consult the station equipment manufacturers

If your radio station equipment encounters any of the following situations, please pull out the plug or turn off the main electricity switch in advance and contact maintenance engineer personnel in time.

1. If the device made any different noises, or suddenly stop working, or has uncommon instructional light flashings or else that goes against its normal working condition.

2. If the device is get damaged in either of the circumstances: dropping, damping, burning, exploding, corrosion, rust, or any other force majeure.

3. If the device is dropped or damaged in any way.

4. If the device exhibits significant performance changes

5. If the equipment is exposed to rain or water.

Line Connection

1. Power supply: Before purchasing any electrical appliance (including all types of broadcasting equipment), please identify its voltage, power supply type, and other parameter information related to the "electricity" in advance. When you buy some radio equipment suppliers from other countries, different products need different voltages because different countries use different power transmission systems. This may lead to different types of power supplies and power ports (you can often see some words such as 220V on the backboard of an FM transmitter).

If you can't distinguish in time or don't know how to distinguish after ordering, you'd better contact the equipment supplier for product replacement or return service. You can also carefully read the relevant contents in the product manual to ensure that you take the initiative in after-sales service communication.

2. Power cord protection: the power cord shall be routed so that it will not be trampled or clamped by objects placed on it or leaning against it. Pay special attention to the wires at plugs and convenience sockets and their positions to exit the equipment.

Power lines: the external antenna system shall not be located near overhead power lines or other lights or power circuits, or where it may fall into such power lines or circuits. When installing an external antenna system, take extra care to avoid touching such power lines or circuits, as touching them may cause your death.

Overload: do not overload wall sockets or extension cords as this can cause fire or electric shock.

Outdoor antenna grounding: if an external antenna or cable system is connected to the equipment, ensure that the antenna or cable system is grounded to provide some protection against voltage surges and accumulation of static charges.

Equipment Processing

Cleaning: Always remember that any extra liquids or cleaners such as aerosol do no good for the cleaning of the appliance, but a soft cleaning cloth with a bit damp sounds better!

Accessories: do not use accessories that are not recommended by the equipment manufacturer because they can be dangerous.

Handle the equipment with care. Rough handling, quick stops, excessive force, and moving on uneven surfaces may cause equipment to fall or damage.

Ventilation: Always leave proper air passing space for the radio equipment to avoid overheating, this means DO NOT leave your station equipment in some tiny and blocked areas, and leave those air vents wide open instead of closely placing them in front of some hard surfaces such as a wall or a bed. And also need to know about: do make any adjustment to the equipment only when you're a maintenance engineer, or the equipment might break down easily due to improper operation.

Replacement parts: When replacement parts are required, ensure that the service technician uses the replacement parts specified by the manufacturer or those with the same characteristics as the original parts. The unauthorized replacement may cause fire, electric shock, or other hazards.

Other

Water and moisture: do not use equipment near water: for example, near a bathtub, washbasin, kitchen sink or washing basin; In the damp basement; Or close to the swimming pool or any similar wet or humid place.

Stability: do not place equipment on unstable surfaces. The equipment may fall, cause serious injury to yourself or others, and cause serious damage to the equipment. It is best to install all broadcasting equipment on the rack or bracket recommended by the supplier or sell it with the equipment.

Lightning: to provide additional protection for your equipment during thunderstorms, or when it is left unattended and unused for a long time, unplug it from the wall socket and disconnect any antenna or cable system. This will prevent damage to the equipment caused by lightning and power line surge.

Objects and liquids: do not push any type of objects into the equipment through the opening, as they may come into contact with dangerous voltage points or short-circuit parts, resulting in equipment damage, fire, or electric shock. Plus, take care of your radio equipment, and let no other things be placed on top of the equipment or other non-related materials such as water or other liquids to be applied on the surface of the equipment, they are not pressure-resistance or waterproof.

Safety inspection: after completing any service or repair of the product, ask the service technician to conduct a safety inspection to determine whether the equipment is in normal operation.

Wall or ceiling mounting: equipment can only be installed on walls or ceilings in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations.

Heat: the equipment shall be kept away from heat sources, such as radiators, heat regulators, furnaces, or other heat-generating products (including amplifiers).

General maintenance

1.    Replace the electronic parts of the main / standby broadcasting equipment, such as an electronic tube, etc

2.    Use the spectrum analyzer to check whether the harmonic has proper attenuation, and scan the antenna and transmission line to ensure that it is on the frequency and has sufficient bandwidth to transmit an FM signal

3.    Check whether the electric tank and generator work normally. If fuel is used for power generation, check its oil level and refill the oil tank

4.    Check whether the paint on the internal and external walls of the site fades or falls, and repair it in time

Weekly general maintenance

1.    Record the work log and special data of core broadcast equipment such as broadcast transmitter and STL systems, such as abnormal forward / reflected power of broadcast transmitter or signal strength value of STL system, and make maintenance in time. Don't forget the overload maintenance work, check whether there is any abnormality by resetting any overload

2.    Keep the working environment of the equipment dry and tidy, and ensure that there are no serious factors from the outside, such as water leakage from the roof, electricity leakage from the socket, or wind entering the station due to wall damage. Clean up the room in time to provide a good working environment for maintenance personnel

3.    Ensure the integrity of the monitoring system. Since the equipment value of the radio room is very high, and it is unrealistic to send personnel to stay in the radio room (especially some small radio rooms), it is necessary to check whether the monitoring system is complete, including power supply system, camera, cable arrangement, etc. if there is any damage, it shall be repaired in time

Monthly general maintenance

1.    In addition to completing the maintenance work in weekly units, it is also necessary to add some spare core equipment and complete multimeter logs, for example, connect a spare radio broadcast transmitter with a dummy load, so as to avoid radio dead air.

2.    Check the infrastructure inside the machine room, such as pipeline, oil tank, water tank, smoke alarm, generator, etc., to ensure the normal operation of these infrastructures, and avoid the burst due to excessive internal pressure, which might be resulting in some pipeline leakage, oil leakage of the generator oil tank and other accidents

3.    Check whether the surrounding of the broadcasting station is open enough, especially in the summer when plants grow wildly. In order to obtain a wider coverage of the broadcasting antenna, it is necessary to ensure that the surrounding spaces are open enough. If necessary, cut down those tall vegetations

4.    Check whether the fence of the broadcasting tower and the ground on the tower are firm enough, and lock the entrance of the tower to ensure that no one can easily enter

5.    Calibrate the remote control instrument with the transmitter instrument

Quarterly general maintenance

In addition to the monthly maintenance work, some unnoticed infrastructure needs to be maintained in time, especially for important broadcasting equipment, such as FM exciter and STL system, meanwhile, air filter, tower lamp, and paint inspection, etc. are also maintenance-needed

Yearly Must-have Maintenance

1.    In addition to completing the maintenance task of quarterly work, it is also necessary to check the licenses and authorizations of all radio rooms to ensure that all business licenses have been updated. When the local radio administration checks the room, you will not be fined

2.    Clean the main / standby transmitters, but make sure that one of the transmitters is in working condition. Check whether the generator and related circuits and equipment work normally

3.    Conduct a comprehensive inspection of the antenna system, including transmission system, antenna tower, and corresponding infrastructure

Bonus Part: FCC Self-inspection items

1.    General items: tower lamp and tower paint inspection

2.    Monthly items: safety check for the tower fence, make sure it is secure and locked

3.    Quarterly items: frequency check of all exciters, STL receivers, TSL transmitters, and logs.

4.    Annually items: accuracy check for all licenses and authorizations, to ensure that all licenses are updated and ready-steady for being checked

When you have a very professional knowledge system of broadcasting equipment, you can be either the station master of the broadcasting station or the equipment maintenance personnel.

However, most station masters are not necessarily good at radio equipment maintenance as those RF expert engineers do, and the recruitment expense of an expert radio equipment maintenance engineer is very high, so the overall expense of general broadcasting station equipment maintenance is unimaginable

Additionally, when those broadcasting equipment suppliers who can provide you with professional equipment repair and maintenance services are hundreds of kilometers away from you, or even in some places on the other side of the ocean, you will pay several times the expense of ordinary equipment maintenance: because you have to send that maintenance-needed equipment to the supplier across the ocean

Of course, you can also follow their suggestions: to buy or rent new parts near your radio station to replace the damaged ones, but in any case, you will pay for the maintenance strategy you choose.

For radio station owners in some developing countries, it is unreasonable to send that bulky radio broadcast equipment back to the equipment manufacturer across thousands of miles. The high freight and agency maintenance expenses are overwhelming them.

FMUSER hereby puts forward some necessary equipment maintenance expenses and common methods to reduce these expenses, hoping to help some radio station owners get rid of the problem of high operation and maintenance expenses. Common equipment maintenance expenses include:

1. Expenses for Transportation

Definition

When your radio station equipment needs to be mailed to the equipment supplier, you will bear the expense of this mailing equipment

How to Lower the Transportation Expense?

You can share the high express expenses through reasonable negotiation and communication with the equipment supplier. You can also find a local broadcast equipment maintenance service provider and pay a certain maintenance fee to obtain the corresponding equipment maintenance services.

But this is usually NOT SAFE: you cannot estimate whether the equipment maintenance expenses and maintenance standards provided by third parties meet the standards.

If your radio station equipment still doesn't work as smoothly as it did before even after hundreds of dollars of the maintenance expense, you may need to buy the same equipment from the supplier again, which will be another expense.

2. Expenses for Labor

Definition

Your broadcasting equipment needs professional maintenance, so you need to pay for those who provide you with the maintenance services

Some potential labor expenses includes:

l  The salary of equipment maintenance personnel

l  The maintenance expense of technical personnel of equipment suppliers (one-time or hourly)

l  The expense of equipment express personnel (often paid to express companies at one time)

l  The commuting expense of equipment suppliers (if you are close to your equipment supplier and you prefer to arrange technicians for on-site maintenance, you will need to pay some expenses of the personnel from your equipment suppliers, such as accommodation and transportation expenses)

How to Lower the Labor Expense?

In any case, you can't avoid the expenditure of manual maintenance expenses, unless you want to take over all radio broadcasting work alone, you must then take the manual maintenance expense as an important part of radio station equipment maintenance expenditure

Truth is, even in some radio stations in developed countries and regions, the manual maintenance expense is still an inevitable topic, but through some reasonable radio maintenance planning, you can greatly reduce unnecessary manual maintenance expenses.

For example, by comparing the expense of equipment express delivery and maintenance by equipment suppliers with the expense of hiring equipment maintenance workers, you can easily make an equipment maintenance plan that best meets your budget.

Compared with the maintenance services provided by the third party (such as equipment supplier or local maintenance company), you should get more familiar with the basic maintenance and overhauling work for radio equipment, and constantly learn and practice.

Only in this way can help you establish the awareness of equipment maintenance, reduce maintenance expenses, and makes long-term operation possible for the radio station in a healthy way.

3. Expenses for Equipment Fixing

Definition

Radio station equipment such as high power FM transmitters, in addition to the aluminum alloy shell and some input and output interfaces, there are also many core parts, such as amplifiers, tuners, circuit boards, etc. To repair or replace these core parts will be expensely.

If you are far away from the radio equipment supplier, and by chance, some core parts of your radio equipment just burn out, you may have to repeatedly order those taxes-included parts from the supplier's websites and pay for high freight expenses.

Or you may choose to buy similar parts nearby, and ask your equipment maintenance engineer to do their jobs, but it is very likely that the slight differences between different parts lead to the mismatch between them and the damaged broadcasting equipment, which means your money may have been wasted.

How to Lower the Equipment Replacement Expense?

If you are worried about the quality of the radio equipment you purchased and expect to reduce its maintenance times, you should choose the best radio station equipment supplier before placing any orders.

But you should also realize that even with the radio equipment provided by the top manufacturer, the long-term&high-load operation will inevitably bring problems to some parts of the machine like aging and failure

Therefore, you need to pay extra attention to the periodic radio broadcast equipment maintenance, especially those hard-to-disassemble bulky radio equipment, and record the maintenance process in the work log, so that you may reduce the maintenance expense of the same problem and the replacement expense of core parts.

Plus, if any radio equipment fails and needs emergency repair, in order to prevent the loss of listeners caused by dead air for a long time, you should prepare some equipment parts featured by vulnerable and frequently replaced needed in advance, or contact the equipment supplier and ask them to provide daily equipment maintenance guidance or other online/on-site maintenance services.

4. Expenses for Equipment Maintenance

Definition

Equipment maintenance is very important, and you must invest a lot of energy and expense to do this work well, which can help prolong the service life of your radio equipment.

The importance of planning equipment maintenance expenses goes beyond all those most important steps. When you finally realize the balance of revenue and expenditure of the radio station, please don't be stingy to allocating part of the income as the equipment maintenance budget

If you have certain financial knowledge, you can easily understand that planning equipment maintenance budget is actually a reasonable investment behavior: when a radio station has been in continuous operation for several years, with many problems such as wear and aging of broadcasting equipment, maintenance then is inevitable.

But, always remember that equipment maintenance can only appropriately reduce the degree of machine wear and delay its aging.

You can't let them stay in your radio station forever to serve you and your audience.

Although there are types of radio station equipment that are essential, and the maintenance expense for this kind of equipment is always high, but if you choose to place orders for the new same equipment instead of maintaining the used one, you may pay several times the maintenance expense.

Instead, through reasonable radio maintenance budget management, you can ensure that your radio equipment can run smoothly for a long time.

Even if there are some faults, you can have enough budget to ensure that the equipment maintenance plan can be carried out perfectly

How to Manage the Equipment Maintenance Expenses?

Capital and budget is the eternal topic for every radio station owner, which is also the fundamental basis for the survival of a radio station.

Once the equipment fails, you can either choose to carry out the maintenance work yourself or hand it over to your equipment supplier, but no matter which way, you will bear a lot of equipment maintenance expenses

There are several ideas to help you properly manage your equipment maintenance budget:

- Always remember to create a monthly income&expense list

- Ask yourself that, are those expenses really necessary?

- Know the difference between one-time&ongoing expenses

1. Announcer

The announcers speak for the radio station, they are responsible for radio broadcasting, advertising and service announcements, etc.

2. Chief engineer

The chief technician of the radio station, responsible for technical personnel supervision, equipment maintenance and regulation, on-site control of radio, compliance and legal inspection of radio stations, etc.

3. Maintenance Engineer

Similar to the responsibilities of chief engineer, it is specially responsible for equipment maintenance or overhaul of broadcasting equipment after receiving complaints from listeners

4. Music Director

Responsible for handling the radio music library, formulating the radio marketing activity plan, public relations, etc

5. News director

Responsible for maintaining the news sources and program production of radio broadcasting, guiding and supervising the personnel of the news department, etc

6. On-air personalities

Responsible for telling the actual broadcast story. He is the spokesman of the radio station, which is different from the announcer

7. Production director

Responsible for the output of radio programs and some logistics, and supervising the fluency of the process of radio program output

8. Program director

Responsible for the regulation and supervision of the final content of radio programs

9. Promotions Director

Responsible for the external image publicity of the radio station and the formulation of promotional activities

10. Station Manager

Responsible for all daily affairs of the radio station, such as personnel recruitment and training, making radio program broadcasting schedule, managing radio station finance, etc

If you have enough budget for recruitment, you can easily have a group of skilled radio personnel who can be responsible for the daily use and management of your radio station and help you share the complicated radio maintenance work.

You can also take a chance to recruit a certain number of interns or and community radio volunteers respectively. Although this may increase your personnel management burden, it is also a good way to ensure the safe operation of radio equipment, especially when some equipment maintenance personnel are absent from work.

Radio station staff is an important factor to ensure the normal operation of the radio station.

Therefore, please provide your subordinates with a high-quality radio working environment and ensure and maintain the construction of infrastructure, which can not only improve the efficiency of radio station staff but also attract more radio station guests and enhance their goodwill for your radio station!

Many customers will ask FMUSER "What to consider before building a professional radio broadcast station?" The answer is actually very simple, listed as follows:

1. Stable Living Supply

Stable water and electricity supply makes high-quality radio program broadcasting possible. Don't forget to provide the necessary living conditions for the continuous operation of the radio station!

2. Rooms with Different Functions

- Smoking room

- Recording room

- Lounge

- Bathroom

- etc.

Even children's toy area can be designed according to your budget!

3. Daily Necessities

- Water dispensers

- Paper towels

- Teapots

- Coffee machines

- etc.

Even washing machines can also be listed, let's make everyone feel at home!

4. Necessary Furnitures

- Sofas

- Chairs

- Tables

- etc.

Always remember to provide your guests and collegues with extra ares for rest and work!

5. Electrical Appliances

- Air conditioners

- Refrigerators

- Microwave ovens

- etc. 

You only need to meet the daily needs of the radio studio staff, that's all!

6. Studio Lightings

- Table lamp

- Chandelier

- Spotlight

-etc.

Without these, the line of sight of everyone in the studio may be affected!

7. Studio Decoration

- Design style

- Radio layout.

- etc.

Let's make a good first impression on radio guests!

8. Safety Design

- Moisture-proof

- Fire prevention

- Ventilation

- etc.

You will never want your efforts to be wasted!

9. Special Supplies

- Medical masks

- Sterilized alcohol

- Thermometer

Take the radio studio as your second home!

10. Sanitary Conditions

Under the global epidemic of covid-19, it is necessary to pay much attention to personal prevention and control, especially in some confined spaces such as a radio studio.

Therefore, to ensure the sanitary conditions of radio stations, two steps need to be done: Basic sanitary and Epidemic Prevention&Control

Personal Hygiene

- Disinfection

- Marking and unified storage of personal belongings

- Keeping hands clean when handling equipment

- Keeping a clean and tidy dressing

- No spitting

- No littering

- etc.

Studio Hygiene

Always remember to periodically clean the radio studio, including:

- House pest removal

- Dust collection

- Garbage cleaning

- Desktop cleaning

- Carpet cleaning

- Furniture polishing

- etc.

COVID-19 Prevention&Control

- Temperature detection for guests

- Masks always on and not taking off if unnecessary

- Always remember to use alcohol to disinfect used broadcasting equipment by guests

- Preparing disposable daily necessities for guests,

- etc.

A clean and tidy studio always makes people feel happy!

Broadcasting equipment maintenance is different from ordinary product maintenance. Broadcasting equipment is more precise and usually has a higher maintenance expense. Therefore, before conducting any equipment maintenance in the radio studio, you should first consider two key factors: maintenance personnel and maintenance budget

In short, manpower and resources are indispensable factors to be considered in radio station equipment maintenance. They are closely related to each other. Adequate equipment maintenance funds and recruitment budgets can often recruit better equipment maintenance personnel, while other resources, such as detailed equipment maintenance plans, can amplify the role of manpower and funds and help guide the whole process of broadcast equipment maintenance.

It is worth noting that no matter how we pay efforts on detailing our equipment maintenance plans, there will always be unexpected changes that may occur during the actual maintenance.

1. Prepare Product Manuals Copies

To avoid any important maintenance information missing, each kind of radio studio equipment shall have a few copies of main and spare product instructions.

2. Find Leadership

A special person shall be named and be responsible for safety training for radio staff and unified equipment management

3. Write Radio Equipment Guideline

Writing product manuals or acquire manuals from equipment suppliers for some frequently used broadcasting equipment, or to attach some equipment FAQs that may appear, and post precautions when using the equipment in some conspicuous places to avoid any accidental damage to the radio equipment.

4. Conduct Internal Training

periodically conduct internal training for broadcast studio personnel, explain the use methods and precautions of various studio equipment, and regularly spot-check the training effect

5. Locate the Best Equipment Setting Places

You will never know why that broadcasting equipment will be damaged for some reasons, which may be an inadvertent man-made collision or deliberate breaking or twisting of the equipment.

Therefore, in addition to internal training and avoiding the use of force on broadcasting equipment, you can also prepare a special place for radio equipment and protect it, for example, find a place where adults can reach the equipment but children can't, or paste some warning stickers for the use of the equipment, so as to reduce the excessive contact between the studio equipment and the third party in the non-working state

6. Maintenance Fault Reporting

Maintenance personnel shall be arranged to report technical problems in time when the equipment in the broadcasting studio go wrong and don't forget the equipment maintenance is technician-only

"One shall mind his own business"

7. Build Your Radio Team

Even if you can claim that you are a radio station director, RF technician, and equipment maintenance engineer at the same time, but the truth is you have only 24 hours a day, it may take you several hours for the equipment that needs regular maintenance, and that's only a part of radio station daily works, you may also need to take some time recording the equipment feedback: you are likely to miss some key information in this process

So why not try to allocate these tasks to specific personnel? I mean, if you have a radio team... You can coordinate their work, ask them to make a detailed work report, and put forward some suggestions, which may be where you can give full play to your greatest advantage

8. List Your Monthly Expenses and Savings

Equipment maintenance and overhaul should be the top priority of radio work. Even if you think there are still many other factors more important than this, you will pay a painful price if any radio equipment stops working during the streaming of radio programs due to lack of maintenance.

This reminds you to list your radio station's monthly expenses and savings, so as to allocate the budget for maintenance and purchase in a timely and reasonable manner.

Especially for some radio stations that are sensitive to expense and budget, it is very wise to save part of the radio station's monthly income for equipment maintenance, overhaul and purchase, even if you may not use the money temporarily, but you can't guarantee that you won't have to replace any radio equipment or carry out any maintenance and overhaul on the radio equipment in the future.

In addition, setting aside a part of your savings as the equipment maintenance budget every month can give you peace of mind.

Is it a Necessary expense or an Unnecessary expense?

There will always be some unimportant expenses in your quarterly financial statements of the station, but any expenses are necessary and reasonable for radio station equipment maintenance.

If you find that some unnecessary expenses are greater than the necessary expenses, you should be alert whether your income is used in some unimportant places, and make timely adjustments according to the actual situation

Is it an One-time expense or an Ongoing expense?

Every staff in a radio station, from the station manager, RF engineer to the radio host, does hope that the investment of all radio equipment is a one-time expense, which is reasonable.

If most of the equipment needs to be replaced frequently, it will undoubtedly add a huge expense to the station owner. For the station engineer, This means additional equipment installation and testing workload.

For the radio host, this means that he needs to spend more time learning how to use the equipment.

A one-time expense investment, such as some audio input equipment and furniture, may be used in your radio station for many years if properly maintained; Some equipment parts may need to be replaced frequently in order to maintain their good working condition

Other radio maintenance expenses, such as daily necessities fare, utilities, etc. These are continuous expenses.

If your budget is insufficient, you will need to reduce some one-time expenses and transfer this part of the budget as the expenses of equipment maintenance in case of need

9. Find an Expert Supplier

If you have an expert radio station equipment supplier, CONGRATULATIONS! You can often acquire a relatively complete radio turnkey solution, which means that in addition to the basic radio station equipment, some special services, such as equipment installation, equipment maintenance, and after-sales service, will also be provided.

However, whether your equipment supplier provides these services or not depends on your demand and budget. Radio stations in developing countries and regions often need turnkey services, from complete radio station equipment lists to installation and maintenance. The reason is mainly because of the lack of broadcasting expertise and insufficient budget.

Some station managers will install and maintain every station equipment themselves. However, it may arise some unnecessary damage to the equipment due to improper operation, which may increase the equipment maintenance expense.

Therefore, when looking for reliable equipment suppliers at the early stage of the radio station construction plan, in addition to learning equipment maintenance expertise, you also need to communicate the further maintenance services with the equipment suppliers, especially those with cooperation intention.

Only in this way, when your radio station lacks equipment maintenance experience or is helpless in the face of equipment problems that are difficult to fix up, you can contact the radio station equipment supplier for help.

The following are some radio station equipment maintenance requirements frequently asked by some of our customers when they are seeking long-term cooperation:

l  Provide a complete equipment maintenance plan for the next few years after the successful establishment of the station

l  Provide free broadcast equipment maintenance manual and instructions

l  When some broadcasting equipment needs mail maintenance, they shall jointly bear the express expense

l  Provide reasonable online equipment maintenance support, including telephone and network

l  Provide on-site maintenance guidance for equipment maintenance personnel

l  Within the warranty time limit, parts or equipment can be replaced in case of machine damage caused by some non-human factors

etc...

Note: when you discuss these maintenance services with the equipment supplier, please implement them in the contract or text, and record what your equipment supplier promised you

FMUSER is a professional radio equipment manufacturer from China. They provide high-quality solutions for radio equipment buyers with different budgets, including complete radio station equipment packages, complete radio transmitting systems, and considerate technical support.

At the same time, FMUSER is also a reliable radio station expert manager, we can help all types of radio stations to carry out daily operation and maintenance management. Starting from your budget, we can also help you formulate the best business plan for your exclusive radio station setup.

Let's discuss a bright future of radio broadcasting with FMUSER!

The files of the radio studio equipment are almost as important as the equipment itself, plus, there is a variety of broadcast equipment in the studio, and their respective working standards are different, so the corresponding maintenance methods are also different.

You may not have the same complete product knowledge system as your radio equipment supplier, and some detailed information is kept as a business secret and goes unlisted online.

Therefore, it is almost impossible for you to obtain the same printed info on the manuals by Googling in a short time, especially for some important manuals.Moreover, these materials are parts of your paid goods. Please keep in mind the importance of these materials.

If you lose them, you may not be able to obtain the same manual from the equipment supplier for free again. Therefore, remember to file up these "free products"

1. Organize the Important Equipment Files

The product manual may be one of the most important pieces of radio studio files. It contains all the important information of the corresponding product from the name, model, parameters, maintenance, etc.

Some professional radio equipment suppliers will provide complete radio studio turnkey solutions. They will not only design the studio equipment package that best meets your budget for your radio but also provide on-site installation and commissioning of the equipment (if conditions permit) and leave wiring diagrams of each studio equipment.

When conducting weekly or monthly equipment maintenance, especially in the maintenance of radio equipment wiring, the wiring diagram can accurately help us locate the fault.

In addition, you can also take photos or videos of the equipment installation and commissioning site and record the whole process. When your Engineer has no equipment maintenance clues, these photos and videos can make him flash.

2. Create a Unique Recording Log

If you were the radio station manager, you are obliged for the stable operation of the radio studio and transmitting system, which means that you need to record the overall radio broadcast process from the start to the end, including broadcast project details, equipment that is used, etc., which contains all your experiences and observations.Therefore, this recording log should be unique.

The RF and maintenance engineers are responsible for respectively for broadcast field control and equipment maintenance. But not all radio station managers are RF engineers.

For radio station engineers, a personal record log is also required, but the recorded content may be more inclined to equipment maintenance and solutions.

3. Homebrew Equipment Manual

This is more like an equipment tutorial. Maintenance personnel can record some key information, and edit and organize it into a product usage tutorial, such as default parameter settings recording of the equipment before power on, or record how to correctly and safely turn on/off the equipment, or to record equipment system backup process, or recording types of equipment that was already applied, etc.

The overall equipment working recording provides a more efficient way for maintenance work.

It is also a good handbook, which enables a lower training expense and helps you greatly reduce the operation and maintenance expense of the radio station, for the radio newbies, they can understand more about how a radio station works.

4. Unified Storage for the Filing

Of course, the most important thing is to find a place where these important data can be stored uniformly and safely, whether it is the product manual, equipment wiring diagram, or pictures and videos of the installation site, etc.

FMUSER highly recommends that to collect all the needed files of each radio studio equipment in time and gather up them in an easy to access, dry and normal temperature place, don't forget to take moisture-proof packaging measures.

When equipment maintenance needs to be conducted in time, the maintenance team can respond quickly and obtain the relevant equipment maintenance materials at the first time

In any case, the station manager should be responsible for all affairs of the station, but the station manager alone cannot achieve large-scale personnel and equipment management.

Therefore, it is necessary to formulate a detailed station maintenance management plan and implement it periodically

1. Management for Radio Station Equipment

Audio equipment, furniture, electrical appliances, and even door locks. Regardless of the type of equipment, you should count all radio station equipment and studio equipment you have purchased, classify the names of this equipment, and input them into your computer database for storage

At the same time, you should also name the person in charge of each department. When there are some special problems on the broadcasting site, such as the program suspension caused by machine failure, each department can respond quickly.

The equipment maintenance personnel will be responsible for the machine maintenance and maintenance log recording, and the public relations work responsible for explaining the reasons for the suspension to the audience will be handed over to the host.

The person in charge of the on-site command will be handed over to the main person in charge, etc... everything seems to be in order, right? The premise is that you have made arrangements for this broadcasting equipment and the corresponding person in charge!

2. Management for Every Radio Personnel

The radio host, RF engineer, on-site personnel, lighting guy, and even radio guests, all these roles are shouldering different tasks. The lack of any of them will lead to the loss of due fluency of your radio program broadcasting.

If you were a radio station manager, you should be familiar with the radio program process in advance.

And monitor every part of the whole process from program production to broadcasting, and respond in time when some staff leave suddenly or ask for leave, so as to improve the overall work efficiency of the radio and ensure the normal broadcasting of radio programs

3. Management for Radio Broadcasting

The production process of radio programs, the maintenance process of radio equipment, the personnel transfer process, etc... you should establish special documents to record the repeated work process of each radio station.

When you are ready to recruit new radio staff, you can train them through these records to ensure a better operation for the radio station