To date, numerous applications for low power FM stations in San Diego county filed during the October-November 2013 window have been dismissed due to violations of 2nd adjacent channel spacing rules.

In March, applications by Dennis Newsome and The Rice Church for 101.1 MHz stations were rejected. Each is inside the 2nd adjacent channel interference zones for KFMB-FM and KGB-FM in San Diego. Other applicants for 101.1 have yet to be addressed.

An application for 99.5 MHz in Fallbrook dismissed in January has been appealed after moving transmitter location and is awaiting approval.

The FCC requires that applicants have no potential listeners in the calculated 2nd adjacent interference zone, making it virtually impossible to create a low power FM station in a highly populated area or between large markets.

A number of other local applications were objected to by REC Networks earlier, with some of those applications having been withdrawn and others not addressed yet by the FCC. Those objections were based on the allegation that hundreds of applications were filed by the same entity. The FCC requires that each LPFM application be filed by a unique, local person or group.

Interestingly, numerous 2nd adjacent FM stations co-exist just across the border in Tijuana. The practical interference zone for these stations decreases to zero when stations are co-located.

Current Chairman Doug Alman announced the results of the online election of new officers for the 2014 – 2015 year starting in April. All positions were unopposed, and an additional question asked for nominees for the appointed position of Program Chair.

Here are the newly elected leaders:

• Chair – Andrew Lombard, CBTE, Director of Engineering at KGTV/Scripps Media
• Vice Chair – Manny Cervantes, Chief Engineer, U-T TV
• Secretary/Treasurer – Matthew Schiller, CBT, Engineer at KGTV

Andrew will pick a Program Chair, either from the nominees or from the chapter at large.

Many thanks to KGTV for hosting the lunch Meeting on Wednesday, March 19, and to Steve Moreen of RF Specialties for picking up the lunch tab.

Our guest presenter, Dr. Ron Fellman, Founder and President of QVidium Technologies based here in San Diego, gave a highly informative lecture well targeted for the broadcast engineering audience.

Ron has had a significant involvement in the research and development of video transport over the Internet as both a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSD and the founder and former President of Path1 Networks.  His presentation provided a historical overview of video over Internet streaming technology as well as the state-of-the-art techniques now used in QVidium and QVAVC™ products to enable the transport of broadcast-quality video, including High Definition (HD) video, over Internet networks with reliability and minimal latency.