The Mystery Of The Missing Mast

From the mailbag at wkti.com:

I have been to several of your live events and seen your broadcast van. Why is the mast never up when you are broadcasting?

Great question! Our van will be the last one we ever own with a tall mast that can be raised to beam a signal back to the station.

We no longer need to send our signal back to Radio City on a two-way radio. We use a digital phone line called an ISDN line. If you come to our mobile studio's at Summerfest, State Fair, or any of the other big events this summer - you won't see the mast up. We don't even have to bring the van - we can bring one of the other vehicles. Our on-site control board feeds the signal from the microphones right into the ISDN line.

An ISDN line has to be specially ordered and installed at the location. Back at Radio City, we use a special ISDN digital modem to dial the number - just like you would dial your home phone. With a modem at each end, the digital signal goes live and is excellent broadcast quality. ISDN broadcasting can be on the expensive side - but we think the quality is worth it.

You are probably familiar with the work of ISDN even if you have never heard one of our live broadcasts. Most sports teams use the same technology to send the game back to the flagship station when the team is on the road.

Our ISDN set-up allows the people on location at Summerfest, State Fair, etc to communicate with the producer back in the control room. It's pretty cool!