Last Updated on March 15, 2021 by tkp
If you hear drop outs or garbled sound output when listening on 89.5 or 94.1 FM, those sounds may result from a failure of the transmission of the signal from the studio at 1661 Hwy 99N to the transmitter on Table Mountain. This signal is transmitted via a microwave link – the power of this link is very low, on the order of a few hundred milliwatts maximum. One end of the link is on the roof of the studio and the other is at Table Mt. This link is affected by any number of environmental factors: primarily rain, snow and wind. Rain and snow absorb the microwave signal and decrease its transmission, while wind causes vibrations to occur in the microwave dishes, decreasing their stability.
One very important thing to understand is that the signal is transmitted between these two points digitally, rather than in an analog sense. Digital signals consist of “1”s and “0”s – only two states need to be defined. Analog signals are described by a continuous range of values. Because we only need to distinguish two states for a digital signal, the signal can be in pretty bad shape, but still provide good fidelity as long as the digital information can be discerned. However, once the signal fidelity drops below a certain level, “1”s will start to look like “0”s (and vice versa), and the audio signal becomes garbled or drops out entirely.
This should be contrasted to what happens when the signal enters the transmitter and is transmitted over the air at 89.5 FM. Here the signal is analog, and is subject to all sorts of ‘interference’ – static and the like. The transmitted signal can sound “bad” without dropping out altogether.
The translator merely takes the on-the-air signal at 89.5 as transmitted and re-transmits it at 94.1, and is a completely analog device.