R

Record Central The NPR facilities where incoming feeds are recorded and most transfers between media are made. The rooms have very limited mixing capability, the concept here is volume.
Radio Center The entity of Bell Atlantic Telephone which installs, maintains and troubleshoots radio program circuits in Washington.

See PL, Private Line.

The manufacturer (now owned by Siemens) of the telephone switch aat the heart of the NPR phone system for more than a decade. Smaller models from the same manufacturer are being installed in the domestic bureaus.

Rood

An encoding process and the equipment necessary to achieve it for the transmission of 5k program audio using two dial-up phone lines.

The manufacturer of a TWO line dial-up phone line processor, while not the only manufacturer, their system proved to be the best available. This is a double ended system using both companding and frequency shifting techniques.

The audio coming into the modulator is first compressed using a 2:1 ration, then split into two bands 50 Hz to 2500 Hz and 2500 Hz to 4950 Hz. The low band information is shifted up 350 Hz while the high band is shifted down 2100 Hz. Each of these signals is fed to a dial-up phone line. At the receive end each phone line is passed through a filter to limit it to 270 Hz through 3 KHz. The low band is then shifted down 350 Hz while the high band is shifted up 2100 Hz. The two signals are then combined and passed through a 1:2 expander. The result is a transmission path with a frequency response of 50 Hz to 4950 Hz.

The system requires alignment using its own test tone. Material can be sent at full speed or half speed using one or two phone lines. Full speed two line yields a result similar to a 5 KHz program circuit which is quite suitable for live feeds. Two line half speed can yield results similar to a 10 KHz program circuit, but is only suitable for recorded material. Single line half speed will provide a quieter recording that Comrex, but requires more time to set up.

The basement contains two encoders in flight cases available for the road and there is one decoder installed in Master Control.

More information is available in Master Control.

Round Robin

A Relic of the land-line network days. A network line that feeds a number of stations than returns to the originating location. Many stations along the network can be switched into the network loop and thus feed other points on the line. As you might expect, this takes some coordination so that all points on the loop receive the correct audio, but no endless loops are created.

RFR

Remote Facilities Request The One-size-fits-all form for requesting an Engineer and equipment for a remote. Can be used for 2-ways, tape synchs, program origination, site surveys, etc. An RFR must be submitted to the Ops Desk for anything that requires an engineer to leave the building.

See OFRs for information about booking facilities at NPR Headquarters.