Fallbrook broadcast engineering consultant Robert Gonsett was honored for “Lifetime Achievement” at the Chapter 36 December banquet. The dinner, at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel at Montgomery Field, had in attendance many of Bob’s local clients and friends.

Bob used his widely published CGC Communicator this fall to coordinate news regarding the Station Fire in Los Angeles that threatened the transmitter sites on Mt. Harvard and Mt. Wilson. Sometimes he sent multiple messages daily to assure word got out about road outages and progress of the fire’s front line.

A southern Californian resident from birth, Bob began his regional frequency measuring and spectrum analysis business in the early 1970s. He helped several FM stations shuffle frequencies or change facilities (or both) in order to improve their coverage while decreasing their RFR footprint. In Tucson, he was able to create a new, more accessible and better located radio transmission site from scratch. And he worked closely with Mexican authorities and broadcasters, including longtime client XETV, whom he convinced to change to circular polarity to improve rabbit ear antenna reception.

A special thanks to TV Magic and SCMS for helping to make this event a success. Chairwoman Gail Pineda and Program Chairwoman Eva Langer put substantial work into the event, including obtaining door prizes that walked away with several in attendance.

We all know the value of broadcast automation from companies such as Sundance, Harris, Crispin and others. Based on a traffic log, these systems manage both longform and commercial playback during a predictable broadcast day. There is another way to look at automation and efficiency.

At the next Chapter 36 meeting, Jeff Muhleman, Product Marketing Manager for DNF Controls will present the company’s latest whitepaper, DNF Event-Based Automation. The whitepaper demonstrates how this new automation category compliments traditional automation systems as well as substantially improves operations in live production by simply adding intelligent rules-based equipment control into existing workflows around virtually any existing equipment.

TV Magic San Diego hosts the meeting Wednesday, November 11th. The meeting starts at 12:00 Noon and will end around 1:30PM. DNF Controls buys lunch.

Call Eva at 858-650-3155 with any questions.

You all know by now that capturing and trimming audio and video for later playout is a big waste of time. Store and forward servers and versatile playout servers are all the rage now, because you cut out all that labor in the middle processes.

At the next Chapter 36 meeting, Vice President of Broadcast Market Development for Omneon, Paul Turner, presents an overview on File Based Workflows and compression—not one size fits all. TV Magic San Diego hosts the meeting  Wednesday, October 14. The meeting starts at 12:00 Noon and will end around 1:30PM. Omneon buys lunch. Call Eva at 858-650-3155 with any questions.

Paul recently had an article published in Broadcast Engineering covering “The New World of Codecs and Formats”. The article was an overview on file-based workflows.

We beat all summer attendance records with 45 attending the chapter’s August 19 meeting this year featured a truck show and tell at Clear Channel Communications. Four specially outfitted rigs were there, from Clear Channel, CBS, KGTV Mc Graw-Hill, and the Federal Communications Commission.

CBS Radio Emergency Response Vehicle, visiting from Los Angeles.

Mike Prasser, CBS Radio San Diego market Director of Engineering, shows a simple but utilitarian studio inside the CBS truck. Electronics include telephones and interface gear, playout computer, CD player, microphones, and mixer. Just as important, it had air conditioning.

Scott Mason, CBS Radio Los Angeles market Director of Engineering headed up the fabrication of this Emergency Response Vehicle. He’s shown holding up the wall opposite the transmitter gear in the rear of the truck. Besides an FM transmitter, they have a wideband transmit vertical folded dipole and mast on-board. Scott serves also as liaison officer for chapter 36, and devoted his day to getting the rig to San Diego and back, and meeting our friendly engineers.

Host Clear Channel San Diego showed off its Emergency Response Vehicle serving Southern California radio markets. Like the CBS truck, it has a transmitter and antenna, studio equipment, and communications gear, as well as a generator trailer. Staffer Steve Frick, on-board in the blue shirt, demonstrated some of the gear inside. Dean Inhoff, also part of the Clear Channel team is in the red shirt. Director of Engineering John Rigg led the build-out team, and provided a parking lot for the Truck-O-Rama. Thanks, John!

KGTV’s combo ENG/SNV rig, believed to be the latest in the San Diego market. Nicely outfitted by TEC in St. Louis, who later provided ENG safety classes this year. Director of Engineering Andrew Lombard proudly showed it off.

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CBS’s Lee McGowan looks on as Hiep Le of the FCC demonstrates their dash-mounted computer controlling direction finding and spectrum analysis radio gear. The unmarked SUV has special antennas mounted within its fiberglass roof.

Tell me you haven’t at one time or another put a little Stick-On microphone preamp in a remote booth or edit room, or used a Stick-On mixer to feed an IFB circuit somewhere. How about a silence sense module to automatically switch between air and production for IFB?

Radio Design Labs, RDL, is the small company many of us have wished we’d thought of first. They make small modules designed to do some utility job and keep you from having to make it yourself or venture into lower quality equipment.

Chuck Smith of RDL stops by to meet us for lunch at TV Magic, September 16, noon. He’ll discuss the history of the company and talk about applications for their newest products. Members and guests welcome. TV Magic is at 8112 Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa.