The FCC last week issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would give TV stations the right to use ATSC 3.0. This was made in response to a petition made in April 2016 by a consortium of Public Television, NAB, the Consumer Technology Association, and the AWARN Alliance.
There are several catches, however. One would require stations to continue broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 as they do now. The other is that manufacturers would not be required to produce equipment that could be used to decode the signals. The likelihood that broadcasters would use the technology is near zero, especially due to upcoming TV spectrum repacking that will use all available bandwidth in just about every market. A third hurdle is that consumers would have to bear the cost of converting the ATSC 3.0 signals to something usable with present TV sets.
Broadcasters and manufacturers will have an opportunity in the coming months to comment on the NPRM.
General Manager Chuck Dunning told a teary-eyed station staff Wednesday, January 25, that the San Diego’s CW6 News Department would stop operations on March 31. Further, he said, they would end the CW affiliation and close the Kearny Mesa facility May 31 this year. At that time, XETV Tijuana will begin relaying Canal 9 from Mexico City. Continue reading XETV to Close its US Operations→
Bob Gonsett, a well-known broadcast engineering consultant who counted among his clients XETV Tijuana, said this about the announced closure of their San Diego office:
Early XETV screen logo
XETV not only had the best channel to cover San Diego from a propagation standpoint, it also had a rich history of being technologically first in a number of important areas including the use of circular polarization which significantly improved indoor “rabbit ear” reception. Station management in the U.S. was constantly striving to make XETV Number One and they made the funds available to do so. The Tijuana transmitter plant, run by Felipe Fernandez, was a meticulous operation in full compliance with SCT/FCC mandates and from a labor perspective,
Phil always advocated the very best for his engineers. He was a true father to many. It was an honor and privilege for me to work with XETV for decades as their FCC engineering consultant.
Sumit Singh of Moseley discusses LTE technology for broadcast microwave news at KFMB-TV.
An attentive crowd at the KFMB studios heard Sumnit Singh make a case for using the technology developed for consumer mobile devices to relay news audio and video to broadcast outlets over private networks. It should be interesting to see if stations step up to the plate to capitalize this evolution, or if an organization will step up to finance the movement and then resell to broadcasters, or if the technology will die on the vine before being rolled out.
KFMB hired two Broadcast Maintenance Engineers in November.
Julio Ramirez, KFMB Broadcast Engineer
The AM/FM/TV combo hired Julio Ramirez, previously with the Signal Wiz contract engineering company assisting with maintenance at KPRI (FM), KSDY-LD, and other clients. More recently, he had done IT work at XETV for Paul Redfield’s Orbdot contracting services company, and tech support for ESET security software. Julio enjoys music and photography after hours.
Joseph Pandolfo, KFMB Broadcast Engineer
KFMB also hired Joseph Pandolfo, past Chief Engineer at each KMIR Palm Springs, WTXL Tallahassee and WDBD Jackson. He had also served with Harris Broadcast as server product field support engineer. He’s been a member of SBE since 1984 and has a CBNT certification.
