Hear Me Now

Telephone hybrids are a godsend. What they do, to you less technical types, is separate audio. They are especially useful in talk radio formats. When a listener calls a radio station the sound of his voice is sent along  a path from the phone line to the “hybrid” to the “board”. This little black box keeps the phone sound from looping thus causing feedback while at the same time sending clean audio to the caller so a meaningful conversation can ensue between host(s) and caller.

My new station had been experiencing problems. Callers were getting terribly distorted audio from the studio. Two way communication was impossible. This had remained unrepaired for a year. The station had recently flipped to a Progressive Talk/brokered time/Gospel music hybrid (pun) and were past due a fix. That’s where I came in.

My 8 year old son (pictured, left) and I found the station in a strip of offices about 45 minutes from our home. My old radio friend is now the GM.

That first try was my engineer test, apparently. Taking about two hours of tracing wires, trying a spare hybrid (which worked, kind of), then reassigning board inputs. Nothing satisfied me until I noticed on the back of the Telos On-x-Six Telephone Hybrid (now reinstalled), an inconspicuous switch. A mic-line level switch (above) set on “microphone level”. Oops! An entire year and no one had noticed. Could this be the problem? Sad to say, it was. My lesson for next time: check this switch first. What my son would call a duh moment. Next time I will look at my latest engineering challenge: computer audio running Adobe Audition.

Stay tuned