Dick Warren, a veteran San Diego radio talent and engineer, passed away this week after suffering a stroke recently. He has been a member of the San Diego SBE chapter longer than any other engineer.

Dick worked at a number of legacy stations, including KSON 1240 and KSDO 1130 AM. He most recently served as a contract engineer for a number of lesser-known stations, such as KKSM Palomar College, KNSN San Diego, and KPRI (when it was Compass Radio 102.1).

Zeb Navarro of KKSM says a memorial service for Dick has been set by his family for July 21st. You can learn more and communicate your desire to attend by sending a message to his family at mailto:dickwarrenrsvp@gmail.com.   This is to help them get a good handle on how many people will attend.

There will also be two scholarships established in Dick’s name. One will be at Palomar College and the other with the San Diego ARRL. Dick’s daughter Rechelle Mojica says, “In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the [memorial scholarship] fund either by a check made out to the Palomar College Foundation, 1140 West Mission Road, San Marcos CA 92069 OR online. On the drop-down Donations category page, click Radio Station KKSM and it will be credited to the Dick Warren Memorial Scholarship.”

Bill Lipis, mostly retired engineer who brought us the bad news said, “Dick’s big claim to fame was MANY years as KSON country DJ and then he started doing engineering and spinning the country hits! I worked my first weekend board shift with Dick as KSON DJ at the College Grove picture window studios. He later started engineering about every station in town. Dick was at KSON starting out when Jack Rabell was Chief and DJ. Dick also spent years at 1130 KSDO studios and transmitter through a lot of moves! He is truly one of the best and kindness people.”

Bob Gonsett said, “Dick was a fabulous professional announcer (KSON years ago), an accomplished Amateur Radio operator (K6OBS) and an excellent broadcast engineer. He was a Christian, a gentle giant and true friend. He spoke from the heart. He was one of those people you’d meet once and just want to be around again and again. The last time I had the pleasure of working with Dick was on Mt. Soledad a few years ago. We were inspecting an FM transmitter plant and discussing a number of possible improvements. As usual, he had foreseen complications and worked out solutions so we could proceed without a hitch. He will be greatly missed by all.”

I had the pleasure of working with Dick at KPRI-FM/Compass Broadcasting and was always impressed by his positive attitude and vast radio engineering experience.

Regardless of the brand of EAS device you use, you need to update the IPAWS certificate authority file to keep your incoming CAPS notifications valid. Here are some links to help you update your IPAWS CA:

• Sage-ENDEC
• DASDEC or Monroe

As of this writing, Gorman-Redlich and Trilithic had not posted notifications about updating IPAWS certifications.

Two San Diego LPTV outlets have requested new channel assignments after having been displaced by telecom taking over 600 MHz telecom spectrum that had been UHF TV channels 38 through 51. Digital LPTV stations have until May 15 to request a displacement channel. Continue reading Displaced San Diego LPTVs Ask for Relief – UPDATED 6/7/2018 →

According to Director of Engineering J.R. Rogers, the San Diego Entercom station cluster is all nestled into their new facilities across the street from iHeartMedia at 9665 Granite Ridge Drive.

Unlike their cramped studios at CBS on Linda Vista Road and Entercom (formerly Lincoln Financial) on Murray Canyon Road, the new location has 14 studios, including a performance hall, video production and edit suite, five live FM studios, five production-edit studios, and two voicetrack studios.

The  Entercom suite, with Sunny FM (KXSN 98.1), Alt 949 (KBZT 94.9), and KSON Country (now at 103.7), moved first at the end of 2017. The old CBS cluster, The Fan (KWFN 97.3) and KYXY 96.5 joined this year.

J.R. said of the project, “We began moving in the first part of January and continued to move stations until March. It was a difficult move because we were still building while moving stations in. Our former landlord in Mission Valley refused to extend our lease so we had to move ‘Ready or Not.’ We are not finished with the build as yet. We are out of the panic build stage and into the ‘What’s Missing’ stage. With that, there is also quite a bit of new technology that has to be learned and mastered.”

That “new technology” included SAS and their Dante AoIP as well as WideOrbit automation that neither station group had used before.

Integrator on the project was PME of Chicago.

In addition to J.R., the local technical crew includes Bill Eisenhamer, Chief Engineer for KBZT, KXSN, and KSON; Mike Prasser, Chief Engineer for KYXY and KWFN; and Steve Cilurzo, Assistant Chief Engineer to Mike and Bill.

Salem Media, owners of two San Diego area AM radio stations, filed with the FCC recently to modify their FM translator construction permits.

KCBQ San Diego on 1170 kHz is asking for 96.1 MHz in the San Marcos Mountains near Vista with a westward-aiming pattern, callsign K241CT Oceanside.

KPRZ San Marcos on 1210 kHz is asking for 106.1 MHz above Lake San Marcos with a westward-aiming pattern, callsign K291CR Encinitas.