We learned last month that Chapter 36 member Nigel Worrall accepted the position as Plant Manager at Broadcast Microwave Systems’ Kemel, Germany facility. Nigel most recently served as Applications Engineering Manager, and has been with BMS since 2010.
BMS has manufactured ENG microwave transmission systems for decades, but since being purchased by Cohu they produce systems primarily for law enforcement, and often now for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Francisco Laurent Martinez, who served as engineer and Chief Engineer of the Transmission Department at XETV in Tijuana from 1959 till this month, passed away March 24, 2013 in Tijuana. He saw the facility progress from a single English-language ABC affiliate for San Diego to a cluster of eight Televisa-operated TV stations, all now with solid-state transmitters and antennas on two self-supporting 500 foot towers.
He mentored engineer Humberto Borzani, who told us Francisco was born December 7th, 1930 in Tijuana. He graduated in 1956 as an Engineer with a major in Electronics and Communications in Mexico City. He served as Chief Engineer of the Radio Monitoring Station of SCT (the Mexican equivalent of the FCC) from 1972 to 1987. The SCT sent him to Washington to coordinate cross-border frequency allocation studies in 1979.
Francisco served as professor at the Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana from 1971 till 1987, and was founder of the associated cultural FM station Radio Tecnológico 88.7 MHz FM from 1987 till 2005.
On a personal note, I worked at XETV’s U.S. operations from 2004 till 2010, but was always warmly welcomed at the Mexican master control and transmission site. I have never seen a transmitter site like the one Francisco led, from the marble floor at the entrance and master control rooms to the spotless transmitter rooms to the twice-filtered air and shiny copper transmission lines. The 1955 GE transmitter was ready for air until just a few years ago. Their UPS and generator backups kept the transmitters going without interruption for years at a time. Francisco was justifiably proud of that facility, and he will be missed.
Just when you thought your H.264 codecs were about as efficient as possible for transmitting your media files, along comes H.265. This new HEVC is likely to change everything. But how much more efficient is it? What exactly is different about it? How are vendors gearing up for the new codec? When will it be ready for prime time?
Chapter 36 is fortunate enough to bring to our March meeting highly regarded speaker Joel Wilhite from Harmonic.
Be sure to mark your calendar for 6:30 PM, March 28th at the KGTV studios, 4600 Air Way, near where the I-805 and CA-94 freeways meet. Note this special evening time and day. Harmonic will provide dinner at 6:30, followed by a brief business meeting and the presentation. RSVP so that we can get a good count for dinner to rsvp@sbe36.org.
Joel Wilhite has been a Broadcast Solutions Manager for Harmonic for 18 years, designing media compression and storage systems for news and programming originators. He’s frequently called on to update groups like SBE with technology presentations.
James Culligan of El Cajon recently became an SBE Certified Radio Operator.
Ken Tondreau joined Avid Technology as Enterprise Account Manager for the Los Angeles region in January this year. Ken had been a Sales Representative with Grass Valley since 1986. Ken recently renewed as Certified Broadcast Technologist.
Matt Lunati joined a technical team installing and servicing mobile cellular sites for CellularOne in Show Low, Arizona. Matt says they serve a large network in northeast Arizona.
Broadcast engineering managers who get hired from outside the company have to spend some time becoming familiar with the plant. Not so with Fred Swift, who took over as Chief Engineer at KUSI after 29 years of building much of the facility. Fred succeeds Richard Large, who retired February 1st.
Like most older broadcast engineers, much of Fred’s knowledge is self-taught. “I took ROP electronics Junior and Senior year of high school at Santana. I got up at 5AM everyday to catch the bus to Santana from Mt. Miguel. I got my [Third Class] FCC License at 16, had an A.S. equivalent when I graduated high school, then worked at Conic Data Systems about a year on L-band FM video transmitters. A guy in the calibration lab told me about a job at KCST-TV (now KNSD). I applied, and Tom Wimberly, the chief then, hired me. That’s when Richard and I met. Tom hired Richard from WAND-TV. He came in about a year after me and left after a couple of years to work in Philly at WPHL-TV. Then He was Hired to put KUSI on the air.
“A lot of my education was self-taught. The most beneficial part was freelance work. I’ve done Atlanta Olympics, two Super Bowls, Oscars red carpet wireless HD cameras, New York Marathon, NBC Golf, etc. Those shows teach you a lot technically and a lot about your abilities and confidence.”
When Fred started at KUSI in 1984, the station was outfitted as an RCA package of 1/2″ reel VTRs, Plumbicon cameras, telecine, Grass Valley switcher, and big TVU-55 UHF transmitter. But Fred embraced change and taught himself the technologies necessary to eventually integrate high definition file-based streaming and transmission systems. You always see him at local high tech seminars.
At channel 39, Fred met his wife who continues as Production Manager at KNSD after 36 years. They have one son Daniel who is a student and works at Sea World.
When asked about career highlights, Fred mentions moving to Viewridge Avenue location and starting newscasts in 30 days. More recently, their conversion of master control and news studio to HD. The trademark of KUSI is their low-cost, high local content news with its many live on-location shows, and Fred was always part of those behind the scenes.
Fred and Richard battled the effects of the 2003 Cedar and 2007 Harris and Witch Creek fires, when their ENG relay sites were going down one by one, backup generators running out of fuel, phone lines failing, burnt telephone poles falling.
During the 2007 Harris fire, the Mt. San Miguel site Proscan antenna rotator stopped turning. “It was the only site still up for us. I was at Jamacha junction watching the site at midnight from below, on the phone with Richard telling him it looks like the fire went past our site and south west toward Otay Ranch because some genius thought a back fire in Proctor valley was a good idea.
“Richard and I went to Miguel around 9 AM (the next morning) and wanted to go to our site. We were stopped by US Forest Service brush truck with four firefighters. We requested they escort us up to the site. Their reply was, ‘No way—it’s too dangerous—but you can go by yourselves!’
“We got up to site through fire tornadoes in the canyons. It was very surreal, like the moon. Scorched earth and dead wildlife everywhere. We entered our site and found the cable company building collapsed, still smoldering. We went to our building and noticed our roof cap was smoking pretty well. I called our assignment desk to have CDF come up and put some water on the fire. [CDF] basically said, ‘You’re on your own.’
“Richard got the ladder out. I found a five gallon bucket and some RG-59 for a rope, and I bucket brigaded water up to him on the roof and we put it out ourselves. We fixed the bad relay in the Troll [controller] and came back to studio. Wow–what week that was!”
In spite of their tight budgets, Fred and Richard managed an almost complete upgrade to high definition video. Their current news operation uses JVC GY-HM-700’s that output .MOV files directly to Apple Final Cut Pro. They play out video with a Bitcentral system.
Their channel 18 ATSC transmitter is a Harris Diamond Solid State with Apex exciters. Fred says that next on the horizon is a bonded cellular field video transport backpack system.
KUSI is looking for an Assistant Chief Engineer. And no, you don’t have to commit to 29 years.