— 21 —
form, which itself then releases at a slower rate.
WB Release
sets the platform level with relation to peak gain reduction.
The platform is the solid or yellow portion of
WB
metering;
fast peak release is seen as the hovering segment or blue
section of the display. A default value of ‘
0
’ is a safe com-
promise between ‘smooth’ (
–10
) and ‘loud’ (
+10
). Your sta-
tion programming and personal preference will dictate a
proper setting for your purposes.
HF Limiting and Clipping
As discussed on Pages 11-12, today’s AM broadcasting em-
ploys complementary pre-emphasis and de-emphasis, re-
quiring an independent high-frequency limiter to avoid
overmodulation. The NOVIA 236 uses both HF limiting and
distortion-cancelled HF clipping to meet this requirement.
NOTE:
The independent high-frequency limiter is active
only when
Pre-Emph
is turned
On
under
Setup/Outputs/Pre-
Emphasis & LPF
.
HF Limit-Clip
covers the range between full limiting (
–10
) to
mostly-clipping (
+10
) with ‘
0
’ as the default compromise.
Full HF limiting can sound somewhat dull. But even with
distortion-reduction techniques, HF clipping can put an
‘edge’ on vocals and other familiar sounds. Be sure to listen
to a representative sample of your programming before set-
tling on an adjustment here.
Positive Peak Modulation
Unlike the symmetrical headroom limitations of FM broad-
casting, digital audio signal handling and the cutting of lac-
quer masters for vinyl records, there is no theoretical limit
to the positive excursion of a modulating waveform in AM
radio. An AM carrier cannot be modulated to a level below
carrier cutoff, of course, but the ‘sky (or the power supply)
is the limit’ in the positive direction.
Speech and music waveforms are asymmetrical by nature.
Broadcasting practices in the U.S. and many other countries
allow the AM carrier to be asymmetrically modulated, up to
+125% in the U.S. and most other locations.
From the Main Menu, navigate to
Processor/Positive Peak Am-
plitude
. Here the level of
Positive Peaks
may be set in 1% in-
crements between 100% and +130%. Please keep in mind
that this technique gives a slight modulation advantage only
— 22 —
for program material that has naturally occurring asym-
metry. The NOVIA 236 does not perform negative peak
clipping, ‘phase-flipping’ or DC-offset shenanigans. Thus it
does not introduce nonlinearity or signal distortion, it mere-
ly passes it.
Dayparting
NOTE:
The daypart scheduler relies on at least an initial
network connection to sync with Internet time, and with the
proper time zone and other options selected. See the notes
on timekeeping on Page 27.
As many as 20 ‘dayparts’ (changes in a station’s program-
ming) may be scheduled by this built-in feature of the
NOVIA 236. Audio processing presets may be called-up for
scheduled deviations in the station’s format during the
broadcast day. A station might depart from jazz music to a
big-band segment, for example, or from music to regularly
scheduled talk programming, or take a 5-minute satellite-
delivered news feed on the hour.
From the
Processor/Day-
part
menu, enter a pro-
cessing
Preset
that you
have selected for the
scheduled programming
segment. You may select one or more
Days
of the week that
the segment will air, and the
Hour
and
Min
(minute) it begins,
AM
or
PM
. In this example, the station airs a religious
roundtable discussion on Sunday at 11:00AM. A second
daypart, to return to the station’s music format, will have
been set for noon.
Once a programmed daypart begins, it will continue indefi-
nitely. This makes it important to set up your ‘normal’ pro-
cessing as a daypart as well, programming the scheduler to
switch back when the other daypart ends.
Processor Bypass
The
Bypass
mode simply removes the entire audio pro-
cessing function from the program signal path.
Test Oscillator
Engaging the
Test Oscillator
disconnects program audio from
the input of the audio processing section and allows you to
