One of the principles of uncertainty is that the further out you go, the less control you have.

Maybe. But if that were still true today, Gary Zocolo couldn’t do this: “Over the weekend, when we were having issues with the STL microwaves, I could sit at home and once the port was cleared, I could reboot the system from my desk at home.”

The CE for Radio One in Cleveland recently moved four stations into a new WheatNet IP audio networked facility on the fourth floor of an office complex in Independence, Ohio. Here, virtually everything is available anywhere there’s a secure IP connection, from the five on-air studios to the virtual interfaces that tap into the WheatNet to control signal flow to four transmitters and a translator. Even a 23-inch monitor programmed using a Raspberry Pi by Zocolo’s son, Aadam Zocolo, who is a software engineer in Chicago, flashes ON AIR or the appropriate station branding depending on AoIP logic and control.

For Zocolo, who came up in the industry when CEs built complex homebrew remote systems out of whatever software was on the shelf at the time, control isn’t just an inside job anymore. “Now there are so many options to be really out there and in control,” he said.

Native AoIP control certainly offers a cleaner path to the cloud than the old VistaMax system previously in use by Radio One Cleveland, which broadcasts Praise 94.5 & AM 1300 WJMO, News Talk 1490, Hip Hop Z107.9 and highly-rated 93.1 WZAK. Zocolo said that the Cleveland cluster is slowly, most certainly migrating to cloud as security improves and time goes on, even as they’re expanding their local presence. “We’re committed to keeping a local operation going. We have a very active street team in Cleveland and we have significant community outreach.” In the future, not every program or source will originate at the studio and be STL’d over to the transmitter, though. It might just as easily originate or terminate in the cloud when the time comes, he added.

CONTROL FROM INSIDE OUT

Control starts inside Radio One Cleveland’s new studios, which were once occupied by iHeartMedia stations and came fully soundproofed with double-pane windows looking out over Cleveland.

If not physically part of the Cleveland community, talent is certainly part of the larger community technically. “Every one of the LXE consoles in the four on-air studios has a virtual controller. We can control it from home, and we have,” said Zocolo.  The same is true of the L-16 console surface that sits in the air studio that controls the automated praise station and its translator, plus the talk suite that includes a control room and talk studio with TS-4 talent stations for seven guest positions. “Those TS talent stations were very easy to install,” commented Zocolo, adding, “I actually had a couple of spares left over and I am going to install one in my office to open up ‘visibility’ so I can listen to any source on the network.” Extending all that foundational infrastructure further is a custom virtual interface that taps into the WheatNet IP audio network, courtesy of fellow Radio One CE Don Stevenson, Dallas. Part of the Radio One “core of engineers” Stevenson has had experience scripting WheatNet ScreenBuilder for the group’s network Reach and his own stations in Dallas (read Studios That Dare to Be Different). For the Cleveland facility, he scripted a ScreenBuilder interface that monitors every signal from console out to the transmitter(s).

The studios are consolidated at one end of the building divided by a hallway. The facility came with a large TOC and layers of wiring that had built up over the last 22 years, which Zocolo and fellow Radio One engineers ripped out and replaced with little more than a string of CAT 6 between studios. “We bought the switches from Wheatstone and followed the Wheatstone [IP address] numbering scheme and it was probably the easiest installation I’ve ever done,” he said. Late last year, Zocolo and his fellow Radio One Engineers Visited the Wheat Factory for training.

Zocolo said that building out the new studios in five weeks would not have been possible without key technology partners and the extreme tech skills of his Radio One engineering colleagues and his Assistant Chief Engineer, Stephanie Weil.

Radio One is the largest urban radio network in the U.S. and is now operating in 16 markets, many run on Wheatstone.

Above: The Radio One “core of engineers” from left to right, front row: Travis Martin, CE, Philadelphia; Vic Jester, CE, Atlanta; Stephanie Weil, Assistant CE, Cleveland; and Gary Zocolo, CE, Cleveland. Second row: Shane Tovin, studio engineer: John Takach, Radio One Corporate VP of Engineering; Mark Borchert, a MaxxKonnect technician; Bill Wheatly, Radio One Corp IT; Paul Mark, Radio One Corp IT; and John Soller, retiring Corporate VP of Engineering. Not present for the photo are Mike DePolo and Josh Jones, also part of the Radio One core of engineers.

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