The Yuma-El Centro TV market underwent a changeover to the new BAS 12 MHz per channel ENG microwave spectrum plan Friday, September 22, according to Robbie DeCorse, Chief Engineer at KYMA (NBC) in Yuma. He says that they “haven’t had any issues since the switch; it’s business as usual.

Meanwhile in San Diego, Nextel is working to get the necessary 75%
of the market under contract. Pat Hughes of Sprint-Nextel says that
they believe it will be next summer sometime before the switch takes
place here. He forsees Santa Barbara switching soon, then Palm Springs
and San Diego. Los Angeles will be last due simply to the sheer number
of people involved in the project.

Once the market has contracted for the changeover, there has to be a “caucus” to decide the exact swapover date.

Hughes encourages those who want to learn more to get updated information from their special website at www.2ghzrelocation.com.

The FCC issued September 27 an order asking Joni K. Craig to pay $500 for operating an illegal FM transmitter on 106.9 MHz in the San Diego neighborhood of Encanto. The commission had issued in May two Notices of Unlicensed Operation (NOUO) for the pirate station, located a few blocks south of the KOGO towers. That notice addressed Alan M. Conrad and Maria A. Conrad, who are listed as owners of the property and addressed the assumed name of the station, “Radio Active Radio.

In the latest FCC order, the original $10,000 fine was reduced to
$500 when Craig provided tax documents that proved to the commission’s
satisfaction that she was unable to pay the full fine. She was also
able to convince them that she played only a passive role in the
station and “took steps to shut down the station.” San Diego inspectors
had monitored the station several times between October 2004 and August
2005.

Joni K. Craig is a spokeswoman for the San Diego Foundation for Change.

Clear Channel Communications has named John Rigg to the position of Director of Engineering for the San Diego market cluster. He had been Radio Supervisor at KFMB AM/FM for the past four years. From 1994 to 2002, he had been staff engineer in radio and TV at the KFMB Stations group. John succeeds Kevin Douglass, who had led the local engineering crew since Jacor began accumulating stations here in 1996.

John will also oversee maintenance at the Finest City Broadcasting chain that was sold by Clear Channel to their previous FM General Manager Mike Glickenhaus. The Finest City chain, which includes XHITZ (FM), XETRA-FM, and XHRM (FM), occupies a separate partition in the same building in Kearny Mesa.

He supervises a crew of six veteran radio engineers, including John Morgan, John Barcroft, Ron Foo, Bill Thompson, Dean Imhoff, and Kevin Boyle.

John started in radio broadcasting in San Diego after a stint with Pacific Bell Telephone that included work with telco broadcast services. In 1989, he joined Edens Broadcasting, home of KKLQ AM and FM (now KOGO and KLNV). In 1993, they became part of Parr Broadcasting, which owned the KXST FM outlet on 102.1 (now KPRI). The next year he joined KFMB radio, where he worked for Tom Cox, later to move to the TV side until February of 2002, when he moved back to radio, but this time as Supervisor of KFMB AM and FM.

He joins Tom Cox again, who is Vice President of Engineering for the Western Region of Clear Channel Communications. John will answer to General Manager Bob Bollinger, who had been GM of KFMB radio stations when Tom and John worked there together.

John says that he sees a big challenge ahead overseeing the running of a such a large number of studios.

KFMB has not yet announced John’s successor.

An SBE celebrity of sorts appeared at the annual December chapter banquet. Fred Baumgartner has joined the MediaFLO project at Qualcomm as the Director of Broadcast Engineering.

As opposed to the RF side of the project, Fred tells us that he is working the commercial insertion side. Fred is known for his FCC filing for a community-based low-power AM service in 2003, and for his work with the Ennes Educational Foundation Trust for the SBE. He is organizing an Ennes Workshop for the 2006 NAB Convention, this year with the theme “Everything RF”. He’s served at Senior Systems Engineer with Leitch Technology. He is currently commuting from his home near Denver, where he has been a member of Chapter 48, certified as a CPBE and CBNT. He’s also a licensed ham radio operator—KG0KI. We’re looking forward to seeing more of Fred at future chapter functions.