A broadcast engineer's podcast on how radio really works — the signal chain, the gear, the industry that built him, and the AM/FM radio he got as a kid that started it all.https://tylerwoodward.me/en-ushttps://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/f6a0ac15-4084-4102-a644-f553c803a1c0/https://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/f6a0ac15-4084-4102-a644-f553c803a1c0/A low power FM station in Valdosta, Georgia has a real interference problem. Instead of accepting the engineering explanation, they decided to accuse broadcast engineers, large radio conglomerates, and apparently the atmosphere itself of running a coordinated campaign against them. I break down…Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:00:00 GMTTechnologyradiobroadcastingbroadcast engineeringFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/45/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/45/Kids are not going to stop talking to each other just because you blocked an app. I get into the story of how a group of teenage girls turned NPR 's podcast comment section on Spotify into a full blown underground group chat, complete with its own routing system, and why they picked the most…Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:00 GMTTechnologySpotifyBig Techpodcastinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/44/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/44/Radio loves patting itself on the back for showing up during hurricanes and tornadoes. I grew up in Florida watching cones of uncertainty aim at my house, so I get why that story feels good. But building your entire pitch around being useful only when everything else breaks is a terrible way to run…Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastingdigital ownershiphttps://tylerwoodward.me/posts/introducing-podstudio/https://tylerwoodward.me/posts/introducing-podstudio/I'm building Podstudio, a free, open-source podcast studio that runs in your browser. The script scrolls as you speak, and it records lossless WAV on your own server.Sat, 26 Sep 2026 01:00:00 GMTTechnologyPodstudiopodcastingopen sourceself-hostedteleprompterhttps://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/206ceac2-7d15-452d-b136-e17376c7e212/https://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/206ceac2-7d15-452d-b136-e17376c7e212/Diesel prices are all over the news right now, but everyone's talking about it like it's just a trucking story. It's not. I'm a broadcast engineer, and I'm here to tell you diesel is the thing keeping radio transmitters and cell sites alive when the power goes out, and right now that backup power…Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastingbroadcast engineeringFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/posts/fcc-cybersecurity-rules-audit-your-airchain/https://tylerwoodward.me/posts/fcc-cybersecurity-rules-audit-your-airchain/The FCC’s new cybersecurity rules take effect September 29. Broadcasters need to look beyond the EAS box and verify passwords, firmware, remote access, and anything that can affect the airchain.Wed, 23 Sep 2026 01:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingFCCEAScybersecuritybroadcast engineeringpasswordsSTLBitwarden1Passwordhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/43/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/43/On November 17th, every radio and TV station in the country is going to interrupt whatever you're doing with that awful screeching tone. I'm breaking down what that nationwide Emergency Alert System test actually is, how a warning message travels from a federal agency all the way to your car radio…Tue, 22 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMTTechnologyradiobroadcastingFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/42/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/42/Radio keeps trying to beat Spotify at being Spotify, and it's losing, because that was never a fight it could win. I lay out why the actual advantage terrestrial radio has always had isn't the music or the transmitter, it's the human relationship, and why chasing efficiency has quietly stripped…Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingradioSpotifyaudiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/41/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/41/There's a box on my basement wall where light turns into internet, and most people paying for "fiber" don't have anything close to it. I break down the term "fiber powered," why Spectrum is selling coax as if it's the real thing, and how the FTTH, FTTN, FTTC alphabet soup exists to hide exactly…Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:00:20 GMTNetworkingfiber internethttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/40/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/40/Everyone repeats the line that the cloud is just someone else's computer, and then keeps handing over their whole life to it anyway. I get into what that actually means once you stop laughing at it: they write the rules, they change them whenever they want, and they can lock you out of your own…Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:00:24 GMTPrivacy & SecurityprivacyBig Techdigital ownershiphttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/39/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/39/That lossless badge on your music app feels like a promise, until you realize it's probably not reaching your ears at all. I break down what lossless, lossy, and high res audio actually mean, why almost every pair of Bluetooth headphones including AirPods can't deliver a true lossless stream no…Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:24 GMTMediaaudiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/38/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/38/Tyler digs into why phones, earbuds, and even video games are suddenly going backward, dumb phones, wired earbuds, and vinyl are all trending up while smartphones and streaming keep getting more bloated and expensive. He walks through the polling data on Gen Z and millennials wanting simpler tech…Tue, 18 Aug 2026 10:00:20 GMTMediaBig Techdigital ownershiphttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/37/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/37/Ever notice your chip bag feels lighter but somehow still costs the same? Tyler's had it with companies calling that inflation when it's really just shrinking the product, keeping the price, and quietly banking record profits. This episode walks through real examples from Doritos to Gatorade to…Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:00:21 GMTBusinessshrinkflationhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/36/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/36/Tyler takes a trip down memory lane through video rental stores, sparked by a random Nova Scotia reunion and his kid watching a video store simulator game on YouTube. He walks through the whole Friday night rental ritual, the smell, the ps2 sleepovers, the late fee arguments, and then breaks down…Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:00:19 GMTMediaBig TechBlockbusterpodcastinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/35/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/35/Tyler breaks down why running a small internet radio station went from a fun hobbyist project in 2009 to a legal and financial minefield today. He walks through what changed after the small webcaster provisions expired, why licensing now means dealing with multiple performance rights groups plus…Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:00:22 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiodigital ownershipinternet radiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/34/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/34/Tyler digs into the one MySpace bug that accidentally taught a whole generation how to code: that infamous About Me box that let you paste raw HTML and CSS to completely override your profile. He walks through how millions of teenagers turned copy-pasted glitter code and stolen snippets into a real…Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:00:15 GMTTechnologyMySpaceweb designhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/33/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/33/Tyler hits pause on the usual format to explain why he's blowing up the show again. He walks through the moment he realized his supposedly personal podcast had quietly turned into a second shift of his day job, and what that means for where the Tyler Woodward Project goes from here.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:00:28 GMTPersonalcareerpodcastinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/32/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/32/The STL, or studio to transmitter link, is the unglamorous connection that keeps a radio station on the air, and when it fails everything goes dead silent even if every other piece of gear is working perfectly. This episode covers why most stations never built backup STL systems, how broadcast…Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:45:47 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastingfiber internetbroadcast infrastructurecellularSTLhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/31/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/31/Plex just tripled its lifetime pass price and put remote streaming of your own files behind a paywall, so this episode digs into what it actually takes to switch to something like Jellyfin instead. Tyler walks through the real headaches of self-hosting, from CG-NAT and Tailscale to Synology's drive…Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMTMediadigital ownershipself-hostingPlexJellyfinhttps://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/938bc52f-5f6d-403d-892d-06c81ce9e7af/https://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/938bc52f-5f6d-403d-892d-06c81ce9e7af/iHeartMedia just laid off hundreds of on air staff this week, wiping out local radio in markets like Springfield, Erie, and Spokane. Tyler traces how the 1996 Telecommunications Act opened the door for private equity to buy up stations, load them with debt, and strip out the people who actually…Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:13:58 GMTBusinessradiodigital ownershipiHeartMediaprivate equityhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/30/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/30/HD radio hijacking happens when a distant station's digital signal takes over a local frequency the moment that local station's own HD signal goes dark. Tyler breaks down how this happened to him on his commute, why small and low power FM stations have zero regulatory protection against it, and how…Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingradiobroadcastingHD RadioFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/29/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/29/HD radio was pitched as the FM upgrade that would save terrestrial radio from satellite and streaming, but two decades later most listeners have never heard of it. Broadcast engineer Tyler Woodward traces the FCC's 2002 approval, iBiquity's royalty driven business model, and how media consolidation…Tue, 16 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastingbroadcast infrastructureHD Radiomedia consolidationbroadcast engineeringFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/28/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/28/Spotify decides what counts as a stream and there is no outside auditor checking the number that decides how artists get paid, unlike broadcast radio which uses Nielsen ratings and portable people meters. This episode breaks down how a 30 second play counts as a full stream, how one guy ran a years…Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:00:00 GMTMediaradiobroadcastingSpotifystreaming royaltieshttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/27/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/27/For over 40 years, a radio signal in the UK has been quietly switching household heating systems on and off. It's called the Radio Teleswitch Service, and it's one of the best examples of hidden data riding on broadcast signals that most people have never heard of. I explain how RTS works, how the…Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/26/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/26/The entire podcast industry runs on one tiny XML tag that nobody owns. The enclosure tag is why podcasting stayed open when everything else got platformed, and it's also why measuring an audience is so much messier than anyone admits. I cover where RSS and the enclosure tag came from, how Spotify…Mon, 25 May 2026 05:00:00 GMTMediaSpotifypodcastingRSShttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/25/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/25/There's a tiny data protocol still riding inside FM signals after all these years, and it's the reason your car's dashboard knows what song is playing. RDS and its US cousin RBDS are quietly holding up more than most people realize. I cover where the standard came from, how it actually works at the…Mon, 18 May 2026 05:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingradioRDSFM radiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/substack-post-196375100/https://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/substack-post-196375100/Cable news channels have the staff, the brand recognition, and news gathering operations most radio stations can only dream of. Instead of building real audio products, they route the 24/7 TV feed to a streaming platform and call it done. CNN on TuneIn, Fox on SiriusXM, MSNBC's linear feed. You can…Fri, 15 May 2026 14:29:37 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradioaudiopodcastingcable newshttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/24/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/24/The fight over AM radio isn't really about whether you listen to it. It's about what happens when the land under a tower is worth more than the station on it. Licenses keep declining, copper theft keeps getting worse, and the push to pull AM from new cars is only part of the story. I get into the…Mon, 11 May 2026 05:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcast infrastructureAM radiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/substack-post-196786404/https://tylerwoodward.me/bonus/substack-post-196786404/Ted Turner died on May 6, 2026, at 87. Most tributes will focus on CNN and the billion dollars to the UN. But the moment that mattered most for broadcast history happened on December 17, 1976, when Turner beamed a struggling UHF station up to RCA's Satcom 1 and invented the superstation. WTCG was a…Thu, 07 May 2026 20:20:29 GMTMediabroadcastingFCCtelevision historycable newssatellite televisionhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/23/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/23/Most of America's radio stations no longer have a chief engineer, and nobody notices until a tower goes dark or the FCC fines start piling up. One station sat silent for six months because no one knew the transmitter had failed. That's not an accident. That's what happens when the people who keep…Mon, 04 May 2026 05:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiobroadcastingbroadcast engineeringFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/22/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/22/The FCC's public file used to be a dusty binder in your lobby. Since 2018 it's a searchable, timestamped online record anyone can dig through, and the political file alone has produced some of radio's biggest enforcement fines, running into six figures. I go through where most violations actually…Mon, 27 Apr 2026 05:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingradioFCChttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/21/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/21/Moving a file three feet shouldn't require a round trip to a distant server. LocalSend is a free, open source app that moves files, folders, and text directly over your own network with end-to-end TLS and no accounts, ads, or tracking. If you live with a mix of Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and…Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:00:00 GMTTechnologyfile sharingLinuxWi-Fihttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/20/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/20/You walk into a big box store with full bars and walk out to a flood of missed notifications. It's not your phone and it's not your carrier. It's physics and congestion colliding. Buildings act like leaky shields, and crowds create digital traffic jams. I break down both forces. The structure…Mon, 13 Apr 2026 05:00:00 GMTNetworkingradiocellularWi-Fihttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/19/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/19/Your phone call might have traveled 22,000 miles through space with zero protection, and someone with an $800 satellite dish could have heard every word. A new study from UC San Diego and the University of Maryland intercepted real, unencrypted satellite backhaul: voice calls, text messages, login…Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMTPrivacy & Securitysatellite communicationsDNShttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/18/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/18/Local stations are going dark across the country, and blaming streaming only tells half the story. Media consolidation, voice tracking, and corporate cost cutting hollowed out AM and FM from the inside. Strip out the local DJs, local news, and community connection, and you're left with a zombie…Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiomedia consolidationpodcastinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/17/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/17/FM coverage maps look bold and confident, but the actual audience listens six feet off the ground, weaving between buildings and hills where signals get chewed up. That's where audio turns fluttery and listeners quietly tune away. And the old "just add a booster" fix can make things worse in the…Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMTRadio & BroadcastingradioaudiocellularFM radiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/16/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/16/The FCC put foreign-manufactured consumer routers on the covered list, and if your facility is running one of those boxes in a mission-critical spot, it's time for a hard look at the rack. I break down what the new rules actually say, what's still unclear for brands that design in the US but build…Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMTPrivacy & Securityradiobroadcastingfiber internetHD RadioFCCnetwork securityhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/15/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/15/I stopped waiting for the "Ugly's Electrical Reference" of networking and built my own. When you're standing in front of a switch at 11 p.m. and need the exact Cisco IOS command, a clean Wireshark filter, or a subnet answer right now, generic documentation and endless search results are a trap. I…Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:00:00 GMTNetworkingbroadcastingaudionetworkinghttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/14/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/14/A nearly 100-year-old radio news network is going dark on May 22, roughly 700 affiliates are affected, and the radio news team is gone. This isn't a relic being retired. It's a working system being switched off because it stopped fitting a spreadsheet. The top-of-hour newscast is infrastructure.…Mon, 23 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradiohttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/13/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/13/I hit a point where rereading the same sentence three times stopped being funny and started being exhausting. I'm almost 40, and I finally decided to get evaluated for ADHD and autism, because "just try harder" is not a plan. I go back to school, when neurodivergence was poorly understood and kids…Thu, 19 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMTPersonalradioautismADHDhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/12/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/12/YouTube Music blurred the words to your favorite songs and called it premium. This episode digs into the decision to cap free lyric views and sell the unblur, and why charging for basic comprehension is the wrong kind of innovation. A working feature got downgraded to manufacture demand. There's a…Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMTMediaYouTube Musichttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/11/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/11/Canada is shutting down Weather Radio Canada, and the timing could not be worse. Those 162 MHz VHF transmitters are a quiet 24/7 public safety backbone, and the replacement plan is apps, websites, and phone alerts. Anyone who has lived through a multi-day outage knows how that goes: power drops…Fri, 13 Mar 2026 02:00:00 GMTRadio & Broadcastingradioweather alertshttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/10/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/10/Before infinite feeds, there was Channel 99: a scrolling list of what was on, and you sat there waiting for your channel to come back around like it was a small punishment. Turns out the system behind it was more interesting than the scroll. Local headends, satellite data, and a Commodore Amiga…Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMTMediatelevision historyhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/9/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/9/Your dishwasher doesn't need a firmware update to clean plates, and your oven shouldn't require an account to roast dinner. This episode is about the gap between promised convenience and what connected appliances actually do: collect data, gate features, and creep ads into places they don't belong.…Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMTNetworkingsmart homeWi-Fihttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/8/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/8/Windows 10 support ended, and Microsoft's answer is hardware requirements that sideline perfectly capable machines. There's a smarter path than buying a new PC: Zorin OS, a Linux desktop built to feel familiar while staying fast and secure on hardware you already own. I cover what actually changes…Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMTTechnologyBig TechLinuxhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/7/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/7/Your TV is not just a screen. It's an ad tech computer with a giant display, and it's hungry for your viewing data. Automatic content recognition fingerprints what's on screen, even over HDMI from your cable box or console. App usage and button presses get logged as telemetry. Advertising IDs…Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMTPrivacy & Securityprivacysmart TVsDNShttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/6/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/6/Your laptop shouldn't feel like it's wading through syrup, and the fix is usually storage, not a new machine. This episode untangles the acronyms that confuse everyone: HDD, SSD, NVMe, and M.2, and what each one actually means for boot times, game loads, and general responsiveness. The key is…Mon, 09 Feb 2026 06:00:00 GMTTechnologycomputer performancehttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/5/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/5/Forget the hype cycle. This episode breaks AI into pieces you can actually use: the broad umbrella term, machine learning underneath it, and generative tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot on top. These models predict tokens to produce fluent language, and fluent is not the same as true.…Mon, 02 Feb 2026 06:00:00 GMTTechnologyAIhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/4/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/4/You asked for a library and got a shopping mall. This episode digs into why search results slid downhill: crowded ad units, affiliate-heavy pages, and AI summaries that sound confident while averaging mediocre sources. I walk through the mechanics in plain English. Monetization reshaped the first…Mon, 26 Jan 2026 06:00:00 GMTTechnologyBig TechRSSGoogle Searchhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/3/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/3/Ever scroll past the same joke, the same cropped video, and replies that don't quite sound human? This episode digs into why the web feels hollow without buying the doomsday version. I frame dead internet theory like a signal problem: automation raised the noise floor, ranking systems amplified…Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:00:00 GMTTechnologyRSSDead Internet Theoryhttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/2/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/2/You type an address, hit enter, and a page shows up. Or it doesn't, and you have no idea why. This episode walks through everything that actually happens in between: cache checks, DNS lookups, TLS handshakes, and packets hopping across routers and fiber before your page assembles on screen. The…Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:00:00 GMTNetworkingfiber internetcellularnetworkingDNSWi-Fihttps://tylerwoodward.me/episode/1/https://tylerwoodward.me/episode/1/Full bars, and Netflix still buffers. The problem isn't your internet plan, it's the air you share. Wi-Fi is radio, devices take turns talking, and a busy evening throttles performance even when the signal looks strong. Once you see Wi-Fi as a shared intersection instead of a private lane…Mon, 05 Jan 2026 06:00:00 GMTNetworkingradiofiber internetWi-Fi