(320) 679-6225
or text KCIZ and your
message to 41411
studio@morarocks.com

The little station that (sometimes) could.

KCIZ is much different than most stations - not just in our programming and presentation, but also in our gear and engineering. We may be small, but we still manage to pull off some pretty cool stuff.

Pictures are pending; until then, contact Keith (our engineer) who's generally happy to describe any details of our broadcast facilities you may happen to be curious about, provided you ask nicely.

Our studios. Most of KCIZ's programming originates from our studios at Mora High School.

The Downstairs Studio is our air studio; it's located in the Career Center on Floor 2. It's equipped with a nifty new Compaq D510 computer, two CD players, one Technics turntable (from KFAI, of all places) and a Gentner AP400 telephone hybrid. Two Electro-Voice 635A microphones are installed in the studio - one for the jock, and one for chatting with guests. Everything flows through a BE 8S250 console before going through our processing gear and, eventually, out to the transmitters. A pair of Pioneer passive monitors and a Technics integrated reciever complete the spread.

The Upstairs Studio is our production studio; it's located behind the library on Floor 3. Inside is a large, oval-shaped table with five EV 635A's all around (great for groups and interviews), the usual CD players and turntable, a Studer analog hybrid, and a BE 5M250 console. A computer identical to the one downstairs is also available, allowing students to choose between doing production work or running the front-end to our playout system (if the Downstairs studio is not available). Two "Baby Advent" montors and a Technics reciever (same as the one downstairs) round out the operation.

Master Control is located outside the air studio. A window allows people to see into said studio from there, and vice versa. Operators can use the EV 635a mic for quick voiceovers and/or the Compaq Prolinea 500 computer to interject various types of noise (or control our playout/automation software, if the studios are not available). A small rack holds various pieces of equipment that the talent wouldn't normally operate, such as the Eventide BD950 profanity delay, Marti SMARTI codec, and various monitor/control panels. There is also a remote controller for the Gentner AP800 (see below), which is used to select which - if any - studio is on the air.

During the summer, we broadcast from the Downtown Studio at Warehouse 214. It's a minimalist operation, consisting of nothing more than a mixer, a computer (same as above), two 635A's, a hybrid, and a codec. The codec pulls double-duty; not only does it carry audio back to the High School, but it also provides a bi-directional data connection over which the frontend to our playout system can be run.

The software. SuSE Linux is our operating system of choice in the studios and on our servers; office machines and portables run Mac OS X.

We use Rivendell as our playout/automation solution. It's really quite slick, and - best of all - it's free!

Audacity is our audio editor on both Linux and Mac OS machines.

Everything else (news/weather retrieval, logging, etc) is handled by custom-made scripts.

In the racks. Sound leaving the studios goes through several pieces of equipment before reaching the air.

The first stop is a Gentner AP800, which we use as a remote-controlled switcher to determine which studio gets to be on the air. After that, a TFT model 760 EBS unit (modified for EAS service) sits in the chain, ever ready to silence our outgoing audio to relay Important Messages.

After that comes the first of two highly overworked IBM x330 bladeservers. This one runs Omnia's A/X software processor, and also encodes audio for our streaming server and digital STL using Edcast.

From there, the processed audio branches out in several directions. It goes into our AM airchain, which does some additional processing (namely NRSC limiting via a CRL SPF-300) and feeds it into the AM transmitter. It also goes into a device which carries it to the cable headend, where it is paired up with our video feed (whole 'nother story) and sent out to cable TV subscribers. And it goes into a distribution amplifier, which sends it to our studios, overhead speakers, logger, and other places where we wish to monitor the station.

Our audio rack also includes a second IBM x330 server with 1TB of redundant storage, which we use for storing audio and serving up our databases. Several other neat (mostly old) pieces of auxillary equipment can be spotted among our racks of gear, too.

Sound from the outside. As mentioned before, all our studios are equipped with hybrid telephone patches, allowing us to put incoming and outgoing calls on the air or tape. We also employ a Icecast server for use in facilitating far-away remote broadcasts with higher fidelity audio, and several SMARTI digital codecs for last-minute remotes.

Transmission. KCIZ has three methods of getting out: via the Internet, cable, and plain old analog AM.

For Internet listeners, an Icecast server is available. This server is located in the basement of NCIS, and relays KCIZ to listeners across the world. It uses AACplus encoding to deliver the highest-possible audio quality without wasting bandwidth.

For cable TV subscribers, we broadcast KCIZ's audio on USCable channel 16 (digital 1016). This means that, at long last, you can watch our Video Bulletin Board scroll by while listening to The Rock of Mora!

For AM listeners, we broadcast on AM at 1650kHz during daylight hours. Our transmitter (a Hamilton Rangemaster) puts out about 0.1 watts, nondirectional - just enough to cover all of the Mora proper, as well as the western outskirts.

Our main transmitter is located on the roof of Mora High School; our auxillary transmitter is high atop the Cornerstone Connection building on Union Street. The studio-transmitter links are made possible by the KanabecTSC WiFi network, which also provides open access to the KCIZ stream mentioned above.

Shameless plugs . All our technical and engineering work (and much of the equipment) has been provided by Kanabec Systems. In addition, KBEK-FM has also sent equipment our way (thanks guys!). And last (but certainly not least!), the bandwidth and co-location services used to stream KCIZ are provided by North Country Internet.