Innkeeper PBX has a Simple Spirit

Radio World User Report, August 1, 2003
By Conrad Agte, Vector Broadcast

Spokane, Wash. The Innkeeper PBX from JK Audio is one of those products that fills such a void you wonder why it took so long for somebody to figure it out.

With a simple connection to the handset cord at your master control extension phone, you can now insert a true digital hybrid to provide deep nulling of your send audio leaving remarkably clean caller audio to put on the air.

In the last couple of decades multi-line telephone systems have gotten further away from the ability to provide plain old analog audio for connection to the console. Most radio stations have abandoned any hope of utilizing their main phone system for live or recorded call-in segments.

The newer phone systems have digitized even the audio stream, rendering any attempt at interfacing to the phone itself futile. The typical answers to dealing with current phone systems are:

1. Install discrete contest lines with dedicated telephone hybrids, which can get expensive and precludes any connection to the station’s PBX business lines for on-air use
2. Install a separate multi-line “broadcast” phone system
3. Utilize the analog “fax” outputs provided by the phone system, which usually requires several steps in identifying and transferring calls intended for on-air use. The Innkeeper PBX solves all that.

One of the stations I engineer as an independent contractor is Spirit 101.9 KTSL (FM), a Contemporary Christian Music station in Spokane with respectable ratings and a solid 12-year history in the community.

The station’s very successful live morning and afternoon drive shows are replete with contests and live call-ins. Although their analog telephone hybrid had been getting the job done switching between one outside line and a custom interface to an extension on the multi-line phone system, it became clear that caller audio was not up to contemporary standards.

We started evaluating the newest digital hybrids to improve call-in quality. Then this summer the other shoe dropped; station management decided it was time for a new phone system, and when the installers packed up their tools and slithered away, we were down to one contest line and a roundabout connection to the office PBX system using a “fax extension” and a seven-step process to get a call into the hybrid for on-air use.

Needless to say, this was six steps more than any jock was willing to endure, so we were desperate for a better solution. A quick check with Shannon at BSW uncovered the announcement of the Innkeeper PBX as a new product, and we were ready to try. Unfortunately the product was still in the pre-production phase, so I made a call to JK to see how soon one might be available. After some authentic whining and begging, the nice folks at JK Audio agreed to send one of the very first beta units for us to try out.

We plugged it into the system the day it arrived, and the jocks have had nothing but raving praise for its simplicity and performance.

As a contract engineer with several stations to give attention to, I’m always impressed when a “simple” installation actually turns out to be simple. In this case, just unplug the handset coily cord from your multi-line phone and plug it into the Innkeeper, connect the Innkeeper to the phone using the supplied cable, hook up the XLR out for caller audio and the XLR in for your console’s send audio and you are on the air!

A pair of front panel pushbuttons switch you between Handset mode and Broadcast (caller-on-the-air) mode. Broadcast mode mutes the handset microphone.

At the price of this unit, it almost seems pretentious to have bonus features, but there are some: the send audio can be switched from line to mic level for a simple one microphone feed; there is also a second send input with its own level control and a 3.5mm mini phone jack; plug in an mp3 player, tape deck, or sound card for newsroom operations. Even one-person sports remotes become one-box simple with a digital hybrid at remote end to boot.

There is a three position switch on the back of the Innkeeper PBX to accommodate various handset microphone types: Electret, Carbon, and Dynamic. The FAQs on JK Audio’s web site at www.jkaudio.com/innkeeper-pbx.htm reveal a disclaimer that due to the proprietary nature of telephones, there may be a rare case of a handset with non-standard wiring that will not work with the Innkeeper PBX, but on the new Comdial DX-80 system at Spirit 101.9 it works just great.
LED indicators meter actual caller level (level control affects the XLR output level but not the metering) and the adjustable send level. Throw in a headphone jack with level control and about the only feature “missing” is the ability to remotely activate the Handset/Broadcast switch from the console.

During our initial testing I turned up the caller level into the console and listened to the send audio nulling with normal speech being sent down the phone line and a silent connection on the other end. The nulling was very impressive considering the handset connection on a digital phone system – send audio was definitely suppressed enough to cause very little distortion to the announcer’s voice in real life caller interaction.

JK Audio is on the right track with the initial release of this hybrid’s DSP. In the words of PD and morning personality Dave Masters, “The Innkeeper PBX makes putting calls on the air a snap. It’s a keeper.”

Conrad Agte operates Vector Broadcast, providing contract engineering services to broadcasters around the Inland Northwest.