CERTIFICATION NEWS
by Michael Scott

Chapter Meeting Minutes

By Walt Lowery

CLAY'S CORNER
By Clay Freinwald

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OUR MEETINGS
Go to Meetings Page for details of next meeting

SBE Chapter 16
Monthly Luncheon Meetings
are held on the second Thursday of each month at
12 Noon
at Pasta Bella on Queen Anne

SBE Chapter 16
Board Meetings
are usually held on the second Wednesday of each month at 6 pm
at Kiro Radio/Entercom Studios,
1820 Eastlake Avenue East., Seattle

Pasta Bella on Queen Anne
1530 Queen Ave. N. #C
Seattle, WA 98109
206-284-9827

Get a Map on the
Meetings Page

Other SBE chapters may republish articles from the WAVEGUIDE provided credit is given the SBE WAVEGUIDE, SBE Chapter 16, Inc., Seattle, Washington.

SBE 16 January Luncheon

Kelly Alford, VP, Fisher Communications, will make a presentation on Digital Centralcasting for TV.

Jim Dalke
SBE16 Chairman

January Issue

2007 SBE16 Christmas Party
Jim Dalke, CPBE

     The second annual SBE Chapter 16 Christmas Party turned out even better than last year's.  We had 40 members and friends of the chapter attending, and with the help of our accomplished Christmas party chairman and MC, Tom McGinley, we had a drawing with many gifts and prizes
     The event was held again at Ivar's famous Salmon House on the North side of Lake Union and opened with adult beverages courtesy of Hatfield & Dawson.  The dinner that followed was the best that I can remember with a sumptuous wild salmon, filet mignon and lobster ravioli Haida buffet
     This years prizes included two HD Radios, an IPod Shuffle, a classic Heil Microphone, Gift cards for dinner at Dukes, VOM's and golf balls.
Thanks to our generous sponsors including RF Specialties, Broadcast Tools, Burk Technologies, Broadcast General Store, Harris Broadcast, Neural Audio, Westlake Electronics, BSW, Telos, CBS, and Walt Lowery.

Directional Antenna Proofs without Field Measurements?
Jim Dalke, CPBE AMD

The NAB Science and Technology Department sponsored a two day seminar in November on a radically new way of proofing AM directional antenna arrays.
The new method would replace the present field work that involves making hundreds of measurements and extensive analysis.  The new proofs would use computer modeling for design and then carefully and accurately sampling and monitoring the RF current in each antenna.

Ben Dawson, one of the seminars presenters and developer of the new technique, says this new method of proofing antenna performance could cost as little as ten percent of the present methods, and cut the proof time from weeks and months to a few days.

The new method of proofing is called "antenna modeling" and involves computer analysis of hundreds of the physical and electrical characteristics of the antenna array and phasing system to predict the antenna current in each tower of the array and accurately predict the directional pattern.

The two-day seminar provided broadcast engineers with the basics needed to utilize computer modeling software for designing performance-optimized AM directional antenna phasing and coupling systems to improve directional antenna performance.

Dawson talked about how he had used the new computer analysis on several off-shore directional systems where the traditional FCC required proof was not needed to produce excellent results and performance.

AM antenna expert Ron Rackley joined Dawson, along with antenna modeling software specialist Jerry Westberg, to lead the seminar demonstrating how moment method modeling makes analysis of actual tower current distributions possible and how the computer modeling technique is used to proof an array.

The FCC is now considering a proposal to allow the use of computer modeling for the purpose of evaluating AM antenna performance. The availability of fast personal computers allow the broadcast engineer to accurately model tasks that in the past required days and weeks of tedious work.

With accurate antenna current monitoring, this new technique will not only simplify the proofing of a new directional array, but will make maintaining the array much easier by simplifying or eliminating the requirements for regular monitor point measurements.

Chapter Meetings

Minutes

Walt Lowery

SBE Chapter 16
Executive Board Meeting
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Executive Board of SBE Chapter 16 met at the offices of Hatfield & Dawson in Seattle. Present were board members: Jim Dalke, Clay Freinwald, Mike Gilbert, Stephen Lockwood, Walt Lowery, Tom McGinley and Terry Spring.

It was announced that to date 32 people had signed up for the Christmas party. It was decided that the vendors attending should pay for the dinner in additional to any door prizes they contributed. Tom McGinley agreed to MC the party and send a head count to Ivar’s next Tuesday. The November 20th party will replace the regular December meeting.

The topic of advertising rates in The Waveguide was discussed and it was agreed to raise the rates to $245.00 for a business card listing and $595.00 for a half-page ad. Terry Spring will send invoices to all current advertisers. Jeanne Gilbert, the Waveguide editor, requested that we get new artwork from several of the advertisers due to poor quality imaging.

Because of additional duties she is taking on at her “day job,” Mrs. Gilbert will no longer be able to serve as editor of The Waveguide after January 2008. She will continue to maintain the Chapter’s website.

The January 2008 meeting will feature a presentation by Kelly Alford on the topic of TV Centralcasting. Jim Dalke will handle the presentation in March featuring a review of the new AM directional rules.

With no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned.

Walt Lowery
Secretary

by Michael Scott,
Certification Chairman

January 2008 Issue

    2008 is here! Where has all the time gone? The ‘Tree’ is put away and the after effects of ‘New Years’ merry-making has bubbled out of our systems. Resolutions! Anyone?

   I think it’s time for the ‘senior’ and ‘not-so-senior’ among us to start thinking about converting all those years of professional achievement into a certification ‘statement’… yes, the CPBE – Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer.

Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer (CPBE)

The candidate for Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer must have at least twenty (20) years of professional broadcast engineering or related technologies experience in radio and/or television, exclusive of any educational credit. Because the CPBE requires twenty years of professional experience in broadcast engineering, educational credits will not be counted toward that total. CPBE candidates must verify 20 years of compensated professional experience excluding educational credits. The candidate must presently be certified on the Senior Broadcast Engineer level unless registered as a State Professional Electrical Engineer.
The candidate must submit evidence satisfactory to the Committee that he or she has the appropriate engineering background, experience and training. The candidate must demonstrate a degree of knowledge and participation in one or more of (but not limited to) the following:

1. Maintenance
2. Systems Design
3. Management or Supervision
4. Continuing Education

A state registered Professional Engineer’s license will count as four (4) years. However, if you are a state registered Professional Electrical Engineer and meet the 20 years of service in broadcast or related technology, you may obtain Professional Broadcast Engineer Certification without taking a test.
The candidate must have three (3) letters of reference. Two (2) must be from Certified Professional Broadcast Engineers, Certified Senior Broadcast Engineers or State Registered Professional Engineers. At least one letter of reference must be from a person who has supervised his/her work. This person does not necessarily have to be certified; however, if he or she is certified at one of the above-mentioned levels, that reference will be counted as two (2) letters. The required letters of reference, written specifically for the 20-year certification level, must accompany the application. In addition to the completed application form, a resume attached to the application is most helpful to the National Certification Committee in reviewing the application. You must also submit a statement showing why you believe your professional experience, educational background and training qualifies you for certification under this provision of the Certification Program.
The review procedure for Professional Broadcast Engineer certification will be the same as that used for recertification. The application for CPBE will be reviewed by the SBE Local Chapter Certification Committee before final evaluation by the National Certification Committee.

NOTE: The Certified Broadcast Engineer certificate will carry space for a special designation in either AM/FM or TV. The candidate may take the Broadcast Engineer examination by meeting the experience requirement either in AM/FM or TV or in both fields of specialization. Satisfactory passing of one or more of these classes will permit the person to attach the respective designation(s) to the certificate. Designations will be by examination only.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Have a great Thanksgiving!
  
Dates to Remember:

2007 Certification Application & Testing Deadlines

CERTIFICATION OBJECTIVES
To raise the professional status of broadcast engineers by providing standards of professional competence in the practice of broadcasting engineering. To recognize those individuals who, by fulfilling the requirements of knowledge, experience, responsibility, and conduct, meet those standards of professional competence. To encourage broadcast engineers to continue their professional development.

For more information and/or application forms please feel free to contact Michael Scott, CPBE.

E-Mail:  okscott at halcyon.com or
certification at sbe16.org
Voice:  (253) 680-7198
Fax:  (253)845-5882

FEATURING NEWS, RUMORS AND VIEWS
FROM USUALLY RELIABLE AND IRREFUTABLE SOURCES

By Clay Freinwald

January Issue

Clay’s Corner for January 2008        

Here we are, another year…8 years past Y2K and still nothing?

I was great to see all of you at the Christmas Party, wow…what a turn-out.   Lots of great food, drink and prizes.   Tom McGinley was amazing as MC, especially the fact that he was able to do as well considering the degree of lubrication.   I did learn a few new items, for instance – db really stands for Dog Biscuits….geeesh after all this time !

Thankfully, the weather has become less of an issue, at least it has not been blowing in excess of 100 mph with flooding.    Lots of snow in the Mountains however.   Getting to our higher sites is, at this writing, becoming a chore for a snow-cat.   On Christmas eve I found my self aboard Alan Robinsons machine going up to South Mountain to see what was wrong with the KDDS Antenna heaters. This site is amazing…At just over 3000 feet with a 400 foot tower and nothing between you and the ocean, it can certainly get the ice and snow.  I like to tell my friends back in Western New York that we too have lake-effect-snow…It’s just that our ‘lake’ is bigger than theirs!   Get the feeling that I will be riding in that machine again this year.  4 wheel drive vehicles are only good to the point where the axels are pushing snow and they are done.

Other than some stations being under-water (again) in Centralia, we have been pretty lucky.  Not so for some in the mid-west and East-Coast where wind and ice have taken down several towers and caused considerable damage.

Have you been following the saga of the downtown Bus Tunnel?  Shut down for a long time all due to a computer problem?   Yah sure, this is progress.   Betcha a box of relays and a 7400 TTL chips and we could have this thing up and running.    Ever notice how government and computers = problems?

Speaking of problems, looks like the natives in Sno-County are restless over Andy’s plan to add a couple of towers to the new KRKO array.  Apparently seizing upon a new cancer scare study as a means of limiting the growth of the grove of towers.  Good luck Andy !  

Radio ratings don’t have any great surprises…1-KMPS, 2-KUBE, 3 – KRWM (Playing Christmas music I might add).  Tied at #4 are KOMO and KIRO and tied at # 9 are KBKS, KISW and KKWF.

I see where  a new AM station is planned for Thurston County.  This time the COL will be Yelm with a site east of the small town.   Thanks to a 3 tower array and 10kw day and 6 Kw night, it should do fairly well covering the area SE of Olympia, a location of significant growth.    Don’t worry about hearing the 1120 operation in the Seattle area as we are in a nice null.   Brian Butler is the applicant.

The buzz is starting to increase about DTV and the demise of analog.  Some stations are running some pretty good promos on the subject.    The word is now being spread about converter boxes too.   Will be interesting to see how many actually opt for these.  Looks like the sales of DTV’s is really starting to take off.   Then, if you have cable, this means that you can keep your vintage round-tube RCA on-line for a while.

The FCC certainly has been the focus of attention with their recent decision regarding cross ownership between newspapers and broadcast stations.   Whereas we are only about a year away from a change in administration this is likely to be an issue that will live on.   Seattle is one of the markets where these new rules are applicable, however I don’t see the PI, Times or Tribune being in play any time soon. 

Sorry to report the passing of Tony Morous on December 5th.   Tony was one of several TV transmitter operators at the old channel 11 plant at Olalla, known as the North 40.  He retired back in 1990.

The FCC has awarded 10 Mhz of the 700 Mhz spectrum to PSST or Public Safety Spectrum Trust.  The vultures are warming up on the flight line now awaiting the day that our legacy TV channels go silent, meanwhile others are rubbing their checkbooks awaiting their time.    Who would have thought that we would see spectrum managed in this way?

The writers strike is taking a big bite out of the revenue stream of network TV.  Apparently the late night guys are coming back without their services.  This all comes at a time when conventional network-TV has more competition than ever before.  When you read that a network is refunding advertisers, you know that things are bad. Meanwhile the revenue picture for Radio is not all that bright.   Not a pretty time for our industry.    At the same time, revenue is down for newspapers.   I vividly recall when the advertising pie was split only 3 ways….not anymore.   Remember when the classified ad section of your local paper was thick?

Looks like Qwest is tossing in the towel on their proposal to build out their system to compete with cable TV, the reason - too costly.

On the 24th of this month we are going to have a big pow-wow to consider what we would do in our area should we have a big, Katrina size, event.   I have some ideas that be used to seed that discussion, I sincerely hope someone from your station can be in attendance.   For more information, contact Phil Johnson, Central Puget LECC Chair at
Phil Johnson < p_johnson58@msn.com >.

And, while I am at it, the next SECC (State EAS Committee) meeting will be on Wed, Jan 9th at the State EMD offices at Camp Murray.

.So when are we going to see this 2 Gig BAS/ENG band changeover take place?  Well on Dec 6th, Sprint Nextel, NAB, MSTV and SBE got together and agreed to a plan that would speed up the process.  The date now is August 2009.   Perhaps Greg Thies would be so good as to come to one of our chapter meetings and explain to everyone just what this means in terms of equipment changes etc for our area?

A while back I asked a question about giving up your telephone etc.  Here are some stat’s to consider –

51% of the adult public now considers a home computer a necessity and not a luxury.
65% consider a TV set a necessity (thankfully)
49% feel that way about their cell phone
33% feel that way about their TV delivery medium (Cable or Satellite)
29% feel high speed Internet is a necessity.
5% feel that way about a flat screen TV
3% consider an IPod a necessity.

HD Radio continues to make gains on the receiver side.   Volvo will now offer HDR on most of their new models, meanwhile, their parent, Ford is making it an option for 2008 models.  I go back to my prediction that, at least for FM, HD Radio will become standard on Car Radios in the next few years.   I guess the question is…why not.   On the AM side ….whoa !   Some rough sledding ahead.

Don’t see this every day.  Clear Channel got hit with a 40 Megabuck verdict involving a contract with a streaming company….Ouch!

The FCC released their new LPFM Rules and an NPRM where they are seeking input on technical issues….Like using contour based protection criteria.   The FM game is increasingly looking more like AM all the time.

Dielectric recent announced a deal whereby they will be supplying a new master antenna system for DTV at the San Francisco Mt Sutro tower.  All together some 11 stations will use the new hardware.   Can you imagine having 11 of our local stations agree to do that?   That would be like taking all the TV stations at Queen Ann, Capital Hill and West Tiger and putting them into a common system…whew!

Could it be?   Apparently so, the Sun is getting spots again.  It’s been a long dry spell with minimal solar activity.   If you are an active HF Ham you know what this means.

Sorry to report that Peter Dahl, the long time maker of transformers is going out of business.   Many a broadcast station has been rescued by Peters handy work.. Apparently Ill health is the reason.