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Local News

Rick Hill Passes

San Diego sports radio technician Rick “Red” Hill died September 29 of pancreatic cancer. Rick was a fixture in setting up Padres and Chargers radio broadcasts, and worked for KFMB and iHeart Media, among others.

Seminars

Electrical Safety Class for Broadcast Engineers Offered in Los Angeles

(Edited 9/15/15 – New location) Save the Date! Sept 25, Friday, 730am-5pm, for a full day of electrical safety training, organized and sponsored in part by SBE Chapter 47, Los Angeles. All are welcome to attend.

This all-day seminar at KLCS-TV in Los Angeles will cover education about electricity and basic electrical safety techniques designed to keep you alive!  When you are done with this one day course and pass the in-class written test, you will receive a certificate for Electrical Safety – Cal-OHSA, Title 8 and NFPA 70E (2015 standards).

Presented by Joseph O’Dwyer, President O’Dwyer Technical Services.  Joe has taught this class to Disney, ESPN, ABC, Apple, JP Morgan, Boeing and many other corporate employees.  Is it raw?  Yes. Is it scary? Yes. Will there be gory pictures and videos? Absolutely.

This class is not meant to teach you to be an electrician, but if you deal with electricity at tower sites, transmitter sites or even studios, or you find yourself presented with electrical situations alone at these sites, this class is for you. Consider bringing your facilities personnel. Have you ever had to open an old, rusty panel with electricity in it and maybe its a little dirty? WAIT, don’t open it before you attend this class! Be smart and be prepared! We’re not talking snakes and rats here.

Topics include:

  • Codes and Standards
  • Safety Fundamentals
  • Electric Shock
  • ARC Flash and Blast
  • Safe Work Practices
  • Maintenance for Safety

Expect tests before and after instruction. 70% passing grade required for certificate

Register here.

NOTE: We require a minimum of 20 students to hold the class and a max of 25. We reserve the right to cancel the class if the minimum is not reached.Refunds will be provided if we cancel the class.

Meetings

July Meeting: What’s New at Nautel

For several decades, the technological, bandwidth, and cost differences between television and radio made them two different electronic media. Information technology erases many of those differences. For example, IBOC has provisions for video while ATSC has provisions for radio, and IP has provisions for both. If broadcast engineering was separated into TV and radio in the past, this generation of engineers is divided between the over-the-air and content technologists. Broadcasting’s future is always bright and the nature of its creators, transmission, content and business plans constantly changing. There are practical things broadcast engineers can do for their stations and themselves, and some things broadcast engineers at some level already mostly know we can expect of the future.

Nautel has been working on both TV and radio transmitters of late, and are especially known for their products’ condition reporting that leads to predictive servicing and a tight design loop.

Join us Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 12 noon at KFMB, 7677 Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Nautel buys lunch.

About Our Guest Speaker

Fred Baumgartner, CPBE, is a fellow in the Society of Broadcast Engineers, a trustee of the Ennes Foundation, Fellow of the Radio Club of America and Nautel’s TV product manager. Fred was Director of Broadcast Engineering for Qualcomm’s MediaFLO project. Previously, he directed Leitch/Harris’ Systems Engineering group. Up to that time, he served as Director of Engineering for the Comcast Media Center in Denver. Before joining the satellite and cable origination world, he held the positions of Chief Engineer in Denver, Indianapolis, and Madison. Fred was also heavily involved with the development of EAS, and has authored several hundred articles on radio and TV engineering.

Local News, National

FCC Memo Says San Diego Field Office May Close

Articles in Radio World and ARRL websites last week each quote internal FCC memos saying the Enforcement Bureau is set to reduce its field staff by half and close two-thirds of its field offices, including the one in San Diego. In the memo, EB Chief Travis LeBlanc and FCC Managing Director Jon Wilkins said the Bureau needed to take “a fresh look” at its 20-year-old operating model in light of technology changes and tighter budgets.

Under the plan, in the southwest, the Los Angeles field office would remain open, and Phoenix would have detection equipment in place but San Diego’s office would permanently close.

Part of the staff reduction plan would include creating a “Tiger Team” of agents “flexible enough to support other high-priority initiatives.” Under the plan, all field agents would have engineering backgrounds “to support the primary focus on RF spectrum enforcement.”

Apparently management would not be immune from the cuts, with director positions shrinking from 21 to 5, and administrative support positions from 10 down to 3.