Society of Broadcast Engineers

Chapter 16, Seattle, WA

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March ended the third coldest winter since 1958 in the Puget Sound area and the seventh coldest March ever as well as the sixth snowiest winter.  Those of us who have had to trek to remote mountain transmitter sites, it has not been easy, and may be as bad as last winter.  Alan Robinson has been busy providing snow cat taxi service to Tiger and South mountain and it is going to be a while before we can drive our four-wheelers to the mountain sites.

March was also the first time I have had to wonder if my entire cyberworld had vanished into a black hole.  I was setting up my laptop for backup with my 1Tb external hard drive through a USB port and charging my Iphone on another.  I plugged the laptop power cord into a 110 outlet across the room, and as I plugged the DC plug into the laptop, there was a snap and the laptop, Iphone, and backup drive instantly went dark.  Was the laptop, Iphone, and backup drive gone into never, never land?   I removed the hard drives from the laptop and the backup, and found the data was intact.  I took the Iphone to the Apple store and they verified that, while there was no physical abuse evident, it indeed was permanently dark.  They gave me a brand new phone without  further discussion.  Maybe online backup is not such a bad idea.

Elsewhere in the broadcast ether world:
While overshadowed by approach of June DTV drop dead issues, the white spaces issue continues to loom with the potential encroachment on DTV service.  SBE National has asked the FCC

to reconsider the white space order allowing broadband deployment in the white spaces, citing the lack of wireless microphone protection.  The SBE request says the proposed spectrum sensing as a tool to protect wireless microphones is inadequate. KING-FM recently lost their T1 connection to Tiger Mountain as a result of the recent winter storm damage and their HD2 and HD3 signals went dark as a result.  Because of the heavy snow on Tiger Mountain, it took several days to get to the site and restore the multicast signals.  Perhaps not unexpected, the KING switchboard was not overwhelmed with calls, but there were a few inquiries about the missing service.  With the retail electronics industry claiming more than a million HD radios in the market and consumers aware of the multicast services available, demand for the services should increase significantly.

Most of the big players in the Seattle Broadcast market have installed and certified their new Arbitron encoders and off-air monitoring equipment.  This new Personal People Meter (PPM) service will replace Arbitron’s current diary-based ratings with passive, electronic measurement.  The PPM system automatically reports audience exposure to inaudible codes embedded in a broadcast signal.  In the Top 50 markets,  Arbitron is providing PPM encoders free of charge and will report PPM audience estimates for all FCC-licensed AM and FM radio stations—including noncommercial stations—that wish to participate. The gathered PPM data is pricey however, and is only provided to those who subscribe to the PPM service.

The road to West Tiger was plowed by DNR thereby permitting access to most of the sites by conventional vehicles.  This picture, taken on March 22nd shows just how much snow we have had to contend with this winter.   Global warming indeed !

  Clear Channel Radio is going after the Iphone radio business with their Iheart application.  CC says their Iheart radio application has been downloaded more than a million times.  Clearchannel streams radio content from their stations at 64k.  Clear Channel’s announcement comes at the same time as the NAB announcement  applauding mobile phone service providers for including FM radio-capable handset devices on some cell phone products.  Verizon Wireless and AT&T recently said they were adding FM radio receivers to supported mobile phones.  I have not heard if this includes HD multicasting.

NAB 2009 is a couple of weeks away, so I am sure there will be a lot to report for next months “From the chair.”

SBE Chapter 16 Secretary Report

SBE Chapter 16 Secretary Report

Wednesday March 11, 2009
There was no Executive Board meeting.

Thursday March 12, 2009
Chapter Meeting

Twenty Chapter 16 members and visitors traveled to the Red Robin Restaurant in Bellevue for the regular Chapter meeting.  The Red Robin was a last minute change after Chairman Jim Dalke discovered the night before that our regular venue, the Black Bear had closed its doors!  Chairman Dalke called the meeting to order shortly before 12 noon.  Steve Lockwood’s absence was noted by Chairman Dalke; Steve and his wife are proud parents again and Steve is on a short leash.  Treasurer Terry Spring noted that the Chapter remains solvent. This was followed by a round of introductions.   After lunch, it was decided by the raising of hands that the Red Robin would be a fine place to have future meetings.

The speaker was Ben Dawson of Hatfield and Dawson Consulting Engineers.  Bens’ presentation was “The New FCC Rules for Moment Method AM Directional Antenna Proofs of Performance 47CFR73.15”.  His talk on the new FCC rules pertaining to the proofing of AM arrays included plenty of history on the development of directional antennas for AM broadcast.   

The meeting adjourned at 1:30PM

Respectfully submitted,
John Price
Interim Chapter 16 Secretary    

National Certification News: (Reprinted from ‘End of year’ report)

2008 was a good year for certification (see numbers below). 2009 looks like it could do just as well. For the 2009 February exams we have 89 exams scheduled to be taken.

January 2009 also brough the completed 7th edition of the Television Operator’s Certification Handbook. Thanks to Dane, Doug, and Joe, because of your diligence the TV Op book is ready to go in time for the Digital C0onversion and NAB.

Highlights:

New Certifications in2008 -  432
Recertification’s -                285
Life Certifications -               44
Exam Failures -                  130
No Shows -                             30

CertOreview Purchases -     423
Publications Sold -                 373

Employer Notifications -        92
New Members from Cert. -    94

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Another great year for SBE and Certification! April showers bring May flowers. So you guessed it! Now is the time to think about signing-up for your next round of Certification testing. Have wonderful Spring……

Dates to Remember in 2009
Certification Application Deadlines:

April 1, 2009               @NAB                        Test Date: April 21, 2009
April 17, 2009             @Local Chapters        Test Date: June 5-15, 2009
June 5, 2009                @Local Chapters        Test Date: August 7-17, 2009
September 18, 2009    @Local Chapters        Test Date November 6-16, 2009

     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@halcyon.com ; Voice (253) 680-7756 ; FAX (253) 845-5882

Welcome to Spring…………Things here in the low-lands are starting to turn green and bud, but up in the mountains, it’s another story.  I am writing this on March 23nd having just returned from yet another snowshoe hike at West Tiger.  Thankfully DNR had the road plowed so we were able to drive up there.   Had they not done so, we would be having to rely on snowmobiles or a snow cat.   I recall last year, when we also had a lot of snow at West Tiger, there was a lot of talk that it was a freak winter…Uh huh !

Big news around these parts is that the FCC has approved of the sale of KBKS (106.1) to Clear Channel.  The actual transfer is April 1.    With the economic situation these events are few and far between these days.

Sad to hear of the passing of Bill O’Mara.   Oldsters remember watching him on KING-5 doing sports and, of course, the hydro’s on Lake Washington.  I had my chance to work with Bill, many years ago, doing broadcasts of ‘limited’ boat races.   Understand he was 92.   For those of us that are beyond what most call retirement age, he was quite an inspiration.

Lets not forget the passing of a broadcasting legend this past month, Paul Harvey and
Bill Lane, part owner of RF Specialties also left us in late February.

Another passing is KIRO 710 AM as they change to ESPN Sports Radio.  After all these years, who would have thought that KIRO would not be doing morning news?   And who would have thought that they’d shift their news-talk to a Tacoma licensed FM station?

Andy Skotdol continues to make news in the Snoqualmie Valley now that he has turned up the power on KRKO.   I even got to see Andy on TV as one of the local stations did a story about telephone RFI.   Gee no news crew every showed up when I was doing telephone interference mitigation.   The fact that Andy wants to install a couple more towers has also been a factor.  Here’s a link to one of the TV reports -
http://www.king5.com/video/index.html?nvid=342515&shu=1

Years of wondering have come to an end and Seattle has become a one-newspaper town.   With the passing of he PI, and a couple of years ago, the King County Journal, we are left with the Tribune from Tacoma and the Times in Seattle….for a while.   There
Is certainly talk about the possible demise of these.  McClatchy, owner of the Tribune, is cutting about 1600 jobs nationwide or about 15%.   Perhaps my age is showing, but
I really enjoy a newspaper.    I recall many years ago when newspapers were the thing to be feared in the world of advertising with Radio and TV way down the list.   Today,
we are all hanging on –  The PI is charting new territory with what will reportedly be an on-line only product.  All eyes are on this experiment.  Will the PI, on line, work?..Time will tell.   Certainly Newspapers as well as broadcasters are frantically trying to figure out how to create new financial model that will permit them to continue and this certainly involves everything on-line.   The fate of the PI may well be the canary in the coal mine here.

On that topic – Here is a collection of items about how the economic situation is impacting our biz - 

Morris Communications, who owns stations in the PNW, has announced they are reducing salaries by 5 to 10%.

Our states economic woes have impacted the Clover Park Technical College as they have announced they shutting down of programs, among them – Their class in Video Production.

A recent issue of Radio World has a rather long list of radio stations that are now dark. Of the over 85 AM’s listed, none are in Washington State….on the list of over 100 FM’s, 4 of them are in our state. One of them is a LPFM in Yakima.  

Salem Communications, which operates a number of AM stations in this area, announced the their Q4 revenues were down 8.6 %

Fisher has announced that their radio revenues fell by 18.3% in Q4, however overall revenue was up 7.2%

The economy is hitting those at the top also – According to published reports, CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone has lost 80% of his net worth. 

According to Moody, the outfit that rates businesses etc, there are several  radio ownerships that may end up defaulting, including big names like  – Emmis, Citadel and Salem.   They also list several TV and newspaper ownerships.   Citadel is an example of how bad things can get.   Their final day on the big-board saw their stock priced at 1-cent.

Entercom, operator of 4 FM’s in Seattle, reported Q4 revenue down 14%.

Belo, operator of channels 5 and 16 here, has dropped their 401K match and laid off 150 across the country.  The axe reportedly fell here in Seattle also.  I have no report of just how many were impacted.
.
If it makes you feel any better, Paul Allen has lost some 7 Billion with his investment in struggling cable company, Charter.

You have to wonder if a lot of what we have grown up with will become, just like us, extinct….A friend of mine recently sent me a list of things that are about to become extinct in America –

– The Yellow Pages – Don’t you look for numbers  on-line now?

- Classified Ads – Remember when those made up a large part of the daily
- Movie Rental Stores – More fall out from every increasing on-line speeds.
- Dial-up Internet Access – Gee there are still some that hang on to slow speed.

– Landline telephones – I wrote about this recently.   I guess the fact that I have DSL is a factor for me keeping my land-line.  Even if it only gets a fraction of the calls these days.

- VCR’s – For about 30 years they were king – How come I still hear the word tape on TV these days…and when they play back a recording of a 911 call – they show an old video of an old Ampex reel to reel – (come on TV – time to show the viewers a picture of a server with blinking LED’s !
-  Answering Machines – Yikes – Another age related issue, I still have one !
-  Film Cameras – Even the file die-hards have gone digital
-  Incandescent Bulbs – Looking at the local big-box retailer, they are still stocking them. Hard to believe that CFL’s  and LED’s will replace every size of light-bulb…but maybe.
-  Bowling Alleys – Hard to find them these days…but I have not been looking.
-  The Milkman – Back in 1950 over half of the milk was delivered to a home, not anymore.  
- Hand-Written Letters – Can you remember the last time you wrote a letter –with a pen or pencil?
-  Personal Checks – Another age related issue – today its plastic everything.
- Drive-in Theaters – Gee I thought they were gone
 -  News Magazines– News stands are not what they used to be and those magazines that hang on are getting pretty skinny. 
- Analog TV – Certainly the over the air kind.  But what about all those analog sets that are fed by cable?   Will the cable outfits, someday, pull the plug on analog?
Guess what else is going away?..... Last month, the US Coast Guard <http://www.uscg.mil/> announced that due to economic conditions, they would be closing down the 24 LORAN-C (Long Range Aid to Navigation) <http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/loran/default.htm> stations operated under the auspices of the USCG.    Guess this means those big towers over at George will be coming down?
If you are not a boater you may have missed the fact that NOAA has stopped using it’s satellites to monitor 121.5 MHz for analog distress beacons.  Replacing them is new digital devices operating on 406 MHz.
The FCC was not amused as Mt Spokane high school decided to install a cellular jamming transmitter to deal with students using texting and calling on their wireless devices.  
High winds took down a tower in South Carolina belonging to WSPA-TV in early March.   A good load of ice helped with the disaster.
I attended the annual Mike and Key Amateur Radio Club electronic flea market this past month with Dwight Small and Marty Hadfield.  Was good to see old friends.   Was good to see Walt Jamison holding fort at a table selling some good-ole-stuff.   If you enjoy this type of activity…Mark your calendar for the following events –
The annual Seaside Hamfest, SeaPac at Seaside, Oregon, June 6 and 7th
Radio Club of Tacoma Hamfest – August 8th in Spanaway.
Despite all the rumors that the FCC can only work on DTV Conversion…the good news is that they did take down a pirate operator in Milwaukee and fined him 10 Grand.  They also nailed some stations in North Dakota for Public File violations.
Can you say - here we go again?  Apparently a California

representative is annoyed by loud TV spots and had introduced ‘the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act’  in Congress.   Perhaps it’s time to look in the attic for that trusty CBS Loudness Controller (remember those?)
Sure was happy to see Costco now selling HD Radios.  They have a display set up that demonstrates a $99 Teac, has a list of stations that are running HD and multicasting an by pushing a button a recording explains what HD Radio is all about.   I was impressed that the receiver, without an outside antenna, was able to receive all the major area HD Radio stations as well as their multicast channels.   An atta-boy to Costco.
On the subject of HD – I see where Larcan is joining others and will offer an HD-Radio translator.   Now what are we going to do about all those analog TV translators out there?
No more delays, so said the President.   Does this mean that we can count on the date in June to say goodbye to analog TV? 

What’s happening with the FM move-in, KMCQ, to Covington.   According to what I’ve heard they are still trying to figure out how to shift the frequency of KAFE in Bellingham that would permit KMCQ to move to Cougar Mt.   Albeit at considerably lower power than the others on that mountain that range from 50 to 100 Kw ERP.  Reportedly the stations owners are trying to sell the property….Problem is, with the economy the way it is now, no one is buying.

The Census Bureau is out with new population info about our state – Here are a couple tid-bits about the changes over this past year –

> Washington state grew 1.5% to 6.55 Million
> The Seattle area grew 1.4%
> Olympia grew 2.9% to just over 245,000
> The fastest growing area continues to be Vancouver/Clark County.
> Since 2000, our state has grown 11% adding just over 655,000 people.

I’m always happy to report an Engineer moving up.   In this case, Dan Dickey has moved up to President of Continental Electronics, long time maker of transmitters in Dallas, Tx.  Had a chance to spend a day with Dan a few years ago, great guy – Congrats Dan!

And finally – For those of you that really know your tools – I leave you with the following, sometimes quite accurate, description of certain tools –

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers.
ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.
SKILL SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.
BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.
VISE-GRIPS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available.
OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for thawing pipes while also burning surrounding materials.
TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
SKILL SAW:  A powerful electrical powered device designed to rapid cut wood into pieces that are too short.   The name has nothing to do with those that own them.
PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.
STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.
HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.
UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts,  clothes and fingers.
DANG-IT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling 'DANG-IT' at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

Enjoy Spring my friends….hope to see you in the sunshine in Las Vegas

Note from the publisher: Please, as Clay said, get your camera out and take some pics for the waveguide and the webpage.

In addition, times are tough all over, have you found some creative ways of surviving? Do you have suggestions for other folks doing the same job you are? Have an opinion about something you read in the Waveguide or elsewhere, share your opinion in a letter to the editor. Come on guys, send me some content. Send your pictures to Clay with a brief description, and your letters to the Editor to me. email: waveguide@sbe16.org

Your SBE publisher, Jeannie Gilbert