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How the CIW station will work:

The station starts with the On Air Studio. Audio will start either with one of the sources: the microphones, (a, b and c), the cd players( d &e), the turntables(f&g), the phone patch (m), the computer (n), or whatever (h). It its good to have a few free spaces on your mixer or patchbay in so that people with their own audio sources (like minidisc players) can plug directly into the mixing board- so buy a mixer with more inputs than you think you need at first.

All of this plugs into the mixing console (o). It comes out all mixed together at the appropriate levels, and goes to several outputs, including the headphones (p), recording deck (q), and the monitor amplifier (r). Some stations use a distribution amplifier for this, but you can also use a regular home stereo amplifier, if you do not have too many places to go or too much distance to cover. The monitor will power the studio speakers† (s) and speakers in other rooms in the building,† it can either have a radio receiver (t) built into the same unit as most home stereos do, or you can plug one into it in order to compare the sound coming out of the mixer to what is actually being heard by the listeners. With all receivers, it is important to remember that they should have a good antenna (v) in order to be able to pick up the station. There is also an Emergency Alert System (EAS) unit, which automatically cuts off the audio from the mixer and replaces it with emergency messages in times of natural disasters. This is in line before the audio processor, after the mixer.

The Production Studio is more or less the same as the on air studio. There are two cables running between the two boards, from the output of the On Air console to the input of the Production console--and also from the output of the Production console to an input of the On Air console. There will also be a switch that can circumvent the On Air console. Bringing audio straight up to the emergency alert system unit and on to the audio processor.

The audio signal goes from there into the audio processor (w). The audio processor’s job is to make sure that the audio is not too loud or too soft before it goes to the transmitter. Then the signal splits- one part goes to feed the webstream for listeners to hear around the world on the internet, and the other goes to feed the FM transmitter which will be heard in the community.

The web signal goes into the soundcard of the encoding computer (x). This computer encodes the audio digitally into 1s and 0s and sends it to the router (y) , which allows several computers to be connected to the same cable internet connection. From the router, it goes into the cable modem (z) to a server (aa) on the internet. This is a company with a really big computer, so that anyone who wants to listen to you over the internet can hear a copy of the stream as it goes out.

On the transmitter side, the signal goes into a very small (milliwatts) fm transmitter.

The audio signal is changed into radio energy, and it goes up the feed line and out the small antenna. It is picked up by a receiving antenna 500 feet away ant the tower site, it is fed into a receiver which transforms it back into audio. That audio is fed into the much larger 250 watt transmitter, where it is again transformed in to radio energy. It goes into up the transmission line, into a lightning arrester (gg), which is hooked by a fat wire to the antenna mast(kk), which is in turn connected by a fat wire to a ground rod (jj). The radio signal continues up the transmission line, past the lightning arrester into the splitter, and from there in to the two antennas. From the antennas the radio signal travels through space and time to the listener’s receiver. Not shown is the uninterruptible power supply which is connected to critical components, like all the computers, the mixing console and the transmitter. Also not shown is the grounding system for the audio components, all of which are the racks and then connected to a good earth ground at the studio and transmitter site.