Society of Broadcast Engineers

Chapter 16, Seattle, WA

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February was a month of reflection and goodbye's.  As I write this on the last day of a short month, I received an email bulletin that Paul Harvey had passed away.  The news caused a flashback to my first days in radio in the early 60's. My big break was getting a job as a DJ and assistant Chief Engineer in Boise at KGEM, Idaho's most powerful station at the time (10kW.) The most sacred and perpetually sold out time slot on the station was noon every day with the fifteen minute Paul Harvey Report.  His distinctive style and delivery made him a radio legend and I have listened to him regularly on KVI.

Jim Robinson of ABC Radio Networks said it well: "Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history. As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households. His career in radio spanned more than seven decades, during which time countless millions of listeners were both informed and entertained by his "News & Comment" and "Rest of the Story" features. Our thoughts and prayers are now with his son Paul Jr. and the rest of the Harvey family."

It was just a week ago that I attended the memorial for Denny Granard of Westlake Electronics who passed away January 13.  It was just a year after leaving KGEM that I came to Seattle to join KING Broadcasting and met the Granard Family at their Westlake store a couple of blocks from the KING broadcast facility (AM, FM and TV in those days.)  Denny's memorial was one of those that you come away with sadness at his passing, and at the same time a hope that I can be remembered as well as

Denny.  The Granard family expressed thanks to the SBE members that were able to attend the service.

Next week, my family and I will be going down to Oregon to celebrate my father's 95th birthday.  I only hope I can arrive at the ninth decade of my life with the attitude and mental vigor as my father.  He retired from a 40 hour work week just a few years ago when the horse he was riding pitched him off and he landed on his hip.  An avid outdoorsman, he bagged his last deer on a hunt on the ranch where he worked at age 91.

On a lighter note and speaking of passing, the once ubiquitous Muzak Elevator Music is in bankruptcy.  While the company is best known for elevator music, it recently has been focused on creating playlists for retail stores and installing professional sound systems.

We also expected the demise of analog television in February, but alas, the President and Congress have given the technology of old another few months to languish in pain.  Part of the delay is blamed on the lack of coupons for DTV converters for the old analog TV's.  While some stations have shut down their analog transmitters, many major market network stations are continuing their analog transmissions.

The DTV crisis is getting the blame for a delay in the FCC's consideration of an FM digital power increase.  Acting Chairman Copps said consideration of AM's operating FM translators and the latest proposal for allowing a new class of LPFM "local community" stations would have to wait for the DTV transition mess to settle.

Sunset Feb. 20th from the Entercom site on West Tiger Mt.

    NAB 2009 in Las Vegas is a month away and many network and station engineers are expected to skip their annual visit this year.  Even some exhibitors are cancelling or scaling back.  The flip side: air fares and hotels are cheaper than I can ever remember.  I bought a round trip ticket and 3 nights in a major hotel for $250.

  I picked up a neat HD Radio Tuner today at Best Buy, on sale for $79 (regular price is $99.)  It is an Insignia brand and has a 2U rack form factor.  The nice LCD display shows both HD and RBDS text.  This tuner should be great for low cost off air monitoring and audio for PPM monitors for both main and multicast channels.

That is it for this month folks, so.. "gooood. day!"

KRKO Transmitter building

SBE Chapter 16 Secretary Report

Wednesday February 4, 2009
KRKO Open House

Twenty six Chapter 16 members, visitors and workers involved in the broadcast and communications industry gathered on Wednesday February 4th at an Open House and lunch at the new KRKO transmitter site near Everett, WA.  Host and owner Andy Skotdal was on hand to provide a brief history of the challenges he’s faced in getting the 50kW multi-tower AM broadcast transmitter facility constructed and on the air.  Andy also answered questions from those that were assembled on a reasonably nice February day.  While attendees enjoyed pizza and refreshments, Steve Lockwood of Hatfield and Dawson gave a brief presentation on AM bandwidth and AM IBOC.  In other business, Chairman Jim Dalke reported on the unexpected passing of Denny Granard.  Denny was a longtime fixture behind the sales counter at Westlake Electronic Supply in downtown Seattle.

Wednesday February 11, 2009
Executive Board Meeting at Hatfield and Dawson

Chapter Chairman Jim Dalke called the meeting to order at 6:50PM.  Also in attendance were Vice Chairman Steve Lockwood, Treasurer Terry Spring, interim Secretary John Price, and Directors Clay Freinwald and Tom McGinley.

The first item discussed was the current advertising rates for Waveguide advertisers.  Chairman Dalke also asked for an up to date list of the current advertisers and their rates.  Treasurer Spring said he’d get the information assembled and forwarded to Jim.

The well-attended Open House held the previous week at KRKO was discussed.  Clay asked if anyone had taken pictures; Jim said he had and would make them available for the Waveguide.

Ideas for future Chapter meeting programs were discussed next.  Suggestions included a return visit to the Telephone Museum in Seattle and a first time visit to the Museum of Radio and Electricity in Bellingham.   Clay offered as possible program topics presentations by representatives of Nautel and Media Flo.  Jim thought there’d be some interest in having longtime PNB and USWest Mobile Shop guy Gary Hart and former FCC inspector Denny Anderson offer some recollections on their experiences.  Other suggestions were presentations by former weatherman, now PSE spokesman Andy Wapler and also James Hatfield, of Hatfield and Dawson.  Clay said he’d contact Elis Terry at Nautel and John would contact Marty Hadfield of Media Flo to see if they’d be interested in doing future programs. 

 Tom McGinley asked about the complete list of prizewinners from the Ivar’s Christmas Party.  It was believed that Walt Lowrey had the list.  John said he’d contact Walt about the list.   

Lunch time at KRKO

MARCH SBE LUNCHEON
Thursday March 12
Luncheon Presenter will be Ben Dawson!

Ben will bring us up-to-date on the
new FCC rules permitting computer
modeling of AM directional arrays.
Computer modeling eliminates the
time and expense of traditional field
measurements for performance
verification.

Stephen Lockwood will also make a short presentation
on the principles of RF Safety in and around high
powered AM transmitter equipment.

I have to say-- that is some ways-- having a working knowledge of ‘Broadcast Networking’ is critical in planning, operating, and maintaining today’s computer driven facilities. I highly recommend that you consider updating your knowledge in this area – then joining a growing number of your fellow SBE members—as a CBNT.

Certified Broadcast Networking Technologist (CBNT)

This certification is designed for persons who wish to demonstrate a basic familiarity with networking hardware as utilized in business and audio/video applications in broadcast facilities. The Certified Broadcast Networking Technologist certification can be obtained by meeting one of the following requirements:

• By achieving a passing grade on the proficiency examination. There is no experience requirement to be eligible for the examination other than current employment in broadcast engineering or related technology.

The Certified Broadcast Networking Technologist Exam: The exam consists of 50 multiple-choice questions relating to radio and television broadcast station internal network installation and operation. The examination is not software-specific and is designed to place an emphasis on the hardware and installation issues common to all platforms. Each exam is computer-selected from a pool of questions, and every exam is unique. Each correct answer will be worth two (2) points. The Broadcast Networking Technologist exam will consist of questions on:

• Network topologies and layouts
• Common network protocols
• Wiring standards and practices             
• Maintenance, troubleshooting and connectivity issues
• Challenges unique to broadcast-based networks

 

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

If you look out in my yard the bulbs are sprouting through the snow…What’s with this?  Oh well, spring will happen…in it’s own time.

Last month, I lamented about the ending of NTSC and shipped my column to Jeannie Gilbert the publisher.   I should have known that the politicians would get involved and muddy the water.  Now we have a new date in June.  Wonder what the Las Vegas odds makers are giving this one for coming true?     Except for the U’s that have already dropped their analog, all the major video emitters in the Seattle market are keeping their analog plants running.  Meanwhile over in Spokane a number of stations made the switch with apparently not much fuss.   According to Bob Wyatt of KSPS….KXLY, KAYU, KSPS, and KHQ shut off analog.  KREM, KSKN and KGPX are still on with analog till June 12.   It was reported that the FCC received 28,000 calls nationwide.   For some reason I am left to believe that regardless of how many announcements are aired about this, there will always be a percentage that will complain that nobody told them.

Most of the major news items this month continue to be the economy…Here are some snippets I gathered since we last met –

I read where a station decided to buck the trend and doubled the sales commission of their sales staff.   Sure like to hear how that turns out.   It is interesting that some stations are enlarging their sales staffs while others are cutting their numbers.  I guess time will tell what strategy is the right one.

An AM station in a Chicago suburb, citing economic issues,  has asked the FCC for permission to go-dark for at least 6 months as has AM in Charlotte, NC. I would guess that there is going to be quite a few stations go this route as only the fit will survive.   .   I suspect that there will be some small TV’s follow.

Salem Communications, who operates a number of radio stations in the Seattle area, is put in place a 5% pay cut for all.  Executives pay will be cut 10%....This is addition to laying off 10% of their employees.

An idea that keeps coming up is an – ad tax.  States are looking for money, any where they can get it and taxing advertising is one place they are looking.

Another victim is Muzak who recently filed its bankruptcy paperwork.  What is not well known is that Muzak was born in Seattle.

Catching a lot of people by surprise, Google announced that they were getting out of the radio automation business and the business of selling un-sold radio station inventory.

News papers are clearly hurting.  Not only has Hurst announced the Seattle PI is for sale, and will cease publication if a buyer can’t be found…. but they have also stated that some of their other papers, in other markets, may go out of business.  A friend of mine, a PI subscriber, commented the other day that he has received his renewal notice and was wondering what would happen if he paid for another 3 months.  I’ve not heard what he did.

And if you think things are rough at your store – consider GM …they lost 9.6 Billion in 4Q – 08.   But then again – we – are coming to their rescue.

Interesting in these days when commercial and NCE broadcasters are facing thin bottom lines that operation of, so called, pirate radio stations continue.   Recently the FCC cracked down on several of the in the NYC area.  Meanwhile – Florida has, what I feel, is a better idea.  There the state has laws against pirate broadcasters and they have taken action where the FCC has not.   I supposed the Washington State Legislature is too busy with other matters to consider doing that here?

Congratulations to Andy Skotdol on another victory in his long fought battle to erect AM towers near Everett.    For those of you that attended the recent Chapter 16 meeting at the new KRKO facility, you saw the extra room allocated to the proposed 1520 operation.   Out in the tower-farm, 2 more towers will be added to the array.   This is a story that is being followed, not just locally, but nationwide by those on both sides of the argument.   Over the years I have seen many roadblocks thrown up in efforts to prevent the erection of towers, the activity in Everett has really been – One for the books.

Have you made your reservations for NAB yet?   (Seems to me I have been writing that line for the last quarter century).   This years NAB is likely to be pretty skinny due to the eliminating of such travel for most companies.   In my case, NAB is on my dime due to my involvement with SBE, EAS etc.    I anticipate a good deal of heavy thoughts for this old boy this year as this may well be my last trip to sin-city.   My term on the SBE BOD
ends this fall and this means no more Sunday morning board meetings.  Gone also will likely be my role as Chairman of the SBE EAS Committee.   One of the features of trip is the vendor dinners.  I don’t recall the last time I actually paid for dinner while there. This year may well be different as a number of these have been called off.   The best part will be the one I will miss he most…and that is shaking the hands of all the many friends I have made over the years with vendors and other engineers.   To be sure, one last time, The Amateur Radio Reception on Wednesday night.   If you have been thinking about going to NAB, this year might be a good time as the crowds will be smaller and the hotel prices lower.    Perhaps I will see you there.

For some time there has been an ongoing effort to get the makers of cell-phones to include FM radios.   Apparently someone agreed as Nokia recently said they would.  The argument by the cell phone makers has been that for an embedded radio to work very well it needs and antenna and the form-factor of most of today’s wireless devices are so small that the capture area for an FM antenna is going to be very small, yielding poor performance….that is unless you have a headset plugged in.   Wired headsets have been largely replaced with wireless models (Blue-tooth etc).    The folks pressing for
FM radio inclusion are largely those that don’t have much technical expertise.

Something perhaps a bit new – Manufacturers talking about warranties for their equipment.  Nautel, the radio transmitter maker, is advertising 5 years on their new line of transmitters.  Local equipment maker Symetrix is extending warranties on some of it’s products to 2 years.

Broadcasters in Chicago are talking about a proposal to build a 1500 foot tower near the windy city and how it would be taller than the Sears Tower.   I love reading about how flat-landers view these things.   Lets put this into perspective by looking at a couple of our popular area transmission sites..   To get 1500 feet above sea-level in our town you would only need a 75 foot tower on Cougar Mt and to get 1500 feet of elevation at West Tiger you would have to dig down 1500 feet.   Reminds me of those in other areas that have asked me what the elevation of Seattle was and looked puzzled when I responded with  - Where?.   If you really want to make a flat-lander blink….Tell him about Portland where there is an extinct volcano within the city limits.

Have you participated in any Webinars lately?   I’ve participated in a quite a few in the past year.  This is a really great way for a manufacturer to introduce products and technology…Personally, I hope this trend continues as it’s a great way to keep up with the changes.

Hats off to BE, Broadcast Electronics as they will soon start offering courses on RF principles and applications. -             AND – those that attend get re-certification credit with SBE.   This type of offering will enable new people in the industry to gain knowledge…who knows, maybe you can convince some IT folks to learn something about RF.   They keep telling us that cross-training is a good thing.   Pretty hard to get anyone these days to become interested in anything RF…This is going to bite this industry as us old codgers retire and/or die off.   Perhaps I should point out that these courses are not free.   Could it be that manufacturers are turning their engineers into teachers due to the state of the economy?

The announcement that the FCC has a new honcho was met with a lot of positive response.   Michael Copps the new ‘acting’ chairman was quoted as urging commissioners and staffers to conduct business in a more inclusive manner and went on to say that he will “make the FCC more transparent, open and useful to the stakeholders that we serve. And when I say stakeholders, I include not just the industries that we regulate but, more importantly, all citizens.   By the way….Did you ready Chris Imlay’s comments in the last issue of the SBE Signal?....Whew ! …. I just like his hair-style.

Hey where are those pictures??   Come on guys, grab that digital camera and snap a few pictures around the station and share with the rest of us.   Send then to k7cr@blarg.net.    Speaking of pictures – A number of stations that turned off their analog transmitter have recorded the moment and posted it on You-Tube.   Anyone around here going to record the moment?   Let me know and I will be sure and post the link here so we can all see.

Here’s a link to the big moment at KFMB. http://www.cbs8.com:80/global/story.asp?s=9868675

And this from KGTV
http://tinyurl.com/KGTVEndsAnalog

If you are wondering how off-air DTV reception will be at your house – Here is a VERY COOL tool – Give it a try !

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/

I see where the NTSB is going to recommend new rules for TV choppers.   From what I understand they will require someone, other than the pilot to report news, unless it can be shown that the pilots workload is manageable.   This could have an impact here locally as it appears that some stations are using the pilot for reporting duty.    If you recall I commented about the crash back in 2007 in Arizona asking why a given news event requires that there be multiple helicopters flying circles around a news story and suggested that the stations would be money ahead if they shared the video from just one aircraft.

Apparently someone listened as I learned just this week that indeed one market was going to do just that.   Seems to me that in these tight economic times that the ‘big-3’ in Seattle should consider this, especially for those stories that have 3 choppers flying around the same event.

Apparently talk-radio is still getting under the skin of certain politicians with some calling for the return of the, so called, fairness doctrine.    Well the matter came up in congress the last week of February and was defeated.

I was very surprised the other day at my local Costco to find a pallet of HD Radio receivers.   I was also happy to see that they had one turned on and playing a local
HD station.   I played with it a bit and found that it would receive all the local stations. .It included a docking feature for an I-Pod and was selling for $99.99.   This was a first.  
Unlike the TV sets on display, you could actually see what the unit would do with an
off the air signal.  Did you ever ask someone to show you what one of those new DTV’s looks like with an antenna connected and not their RGB loop player?

When we last met, it appeared that Sirius-XM, the satellite radio broadcasters was between a rock and a hard place facing a huge payment.    Then came Liberty Media with a 530 Megabuck loan finding itself owning 40% of the company.   Liberty owns the satellite TV broadcaster, DirecTV, the Discovery Channels etc.  With reportedly more debt payments coming due in the future, it’s not clear where this will lead.   Certainly those that predicted that Satellite Radio demise were close.

Congratulations to BSW on their move to new digs in Tacoma.   I remember when Irv Law started rewinding audio cartridges and selling some broadcast equipment out of a strip mall behind the Pine Cone Café. Now some 30 years later, after a couple of moves, they are celebrating their new digs with a part on March 5th.  The new location has some broadcasting significance as its just about across the street from the former home of KSTW-TV, now KBTC on 19th street.

On the subject of vendors, I am sorry to report on the passing of Sam Lane.   We understand that he had been battling cancer for the past two years.  Bill Newbrough, his partner of many years, will continue to manage the business.  You likely knew them as RF Specialties of Washington.

From our friend Bob Gonset and his CGC Newsletter comes this item – The FCC has lined up 6 DTV stations in a row in LA….all on first adjacent channels from 31 to 36.   Apparently the only place in the country to have this arrangement.   Intermod is the question.

From the, it had to happen department, comes this item.   For year I have been using the call letters KRUD in my various EAS presentations around the country.   Apparently someone decided to take these call letters a step further with - http://www.krud.com/

While I am at it - - You have probably heard of a Sat. receiver failing due to bees building a nest in the feed horn.  But how about a microwave failure due to acorns?   Take a look at this –   And keep this in mind the next time you loose your microwave signal..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdm12KONMBA

I will leave you with this one – You have all experienced the sales pitch about the advantage of using super expensive speaker wire for your stereo (Something about a monster).  Just the other day I stopped by a local retail outlet looking for an HDMI cable and was hit with a very similar pitch from a young fellow that likely does not know the difference between an ohm and a mho explaining that for the best in HD – I just had to buy this – very – expensive cable. (I walked out).   Now comes this one.   Did you ever consider that the reason you have listener fatigue is not because you are listening to something that only a teenager could appreciate…No no no …It could be because you have a poor – POWER CORD !.    Believe me – I could not make this stuff up.   Take a look for yourself by going to – www.essentialsound.com

That’s it for this month – Thanks for the read –

Clay, CPBE, K7CR

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