Wyoming Public Media has three services; Wyoming Public Radio, Classical Wyoming and Jazz Wyoming.  We have been expanding these services around the state wherever possible.  There are two ways we can distribute these signals–traditional analog FM signals and HD Radio.  Unfortunately it is increasingly difficult to add new analog FM services.  HD Radio allows us to add these services as a second and third digital signal to our existing analog FM signals which are broadcasting in HD Radio.  The equipment needed at a site already broadcasting HD Radio is relatively simple–just another computer to inject the additional signals into the HD Radio data stream.  We received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to add these two additional services on HD Radio to our Sheridan transmitter site.

This is our “Banner Ridge” transmitter just outside of Sheridan.  Absolutely beautiful scenery! 

Another shot of the view from Banner Ridge…No shortage of absolutely gorgeous scenery from the mountaintops in this state!

The tower–our signal is (in part) delivered to this site via the microwave dishes

UW88 parked next to the transmitter shack…

This very nice site includes a workbench for maintenance–you never realize how nice it is to have this until you work at sites without them!

One of the day’s projects was to install a new network switch to accommodate the additional equipment.  The HP ProCurve series is perfect for small to mid-size projects like this.  It offers a lot of features at a reasonable price.

The Jazz Wyoming audio will be delivered via the microwave network to this audio decoder.  Typically it receives a signal via satellite but in this case it is fed via Ethernet over the microwave.

Another view of the newly installed equipment–The black unit between the two silver units is called an “Importer”.  It will inject Classical Wyoming and Jazz Wyoming audio into the existing HD Radio data stream.  This unit is essentially a Windows XP based PC but it is made as reliable as possible by using a solid state hard drive and minimizing the number of fans.  There is also no optical drive for loading software via CD and DVD.

Finished!  Time to move on to the next project…