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.

It’s been about 25 years since Steve Church first visited Chapter 36 with his amazing new Telos auto-nulling DSP hybrid. It was one of those mind-bending moments that can change the way you look at everything thereafter.

Telos returns to San Diego for our July 15 meeting. Mike Uhl will talk about voice over IP technology using the public internet for high-quality two-way communication. Featuring the latest codecs from Fraunhofer and automatically adjustable codec designs from Telos, the Zephyr IP is said to provide a reliable connection. This allows broadcasters and other program providers to achieve ISDN quality without the installation issues and costs associated with ISDN service.

Join us at TV Magic for a 12 noon lunch, followed by a brief business agenda and the main presentation, to end by 1:30 PM so that you can return to work.

Larry Bloomfield brings his annual Taste of the NAB road show to TV Magic in San Diego Wednesday, June 3. It all starts at 11:30 AM, with a paid lunch. Then Larry says a few words about the products making their way across the country. There are numerous door prizes as well: gift certificates, shirts, software, and blank media. You’ll be entered to win grand prizes at the end of the tour as well, including test equipment, a copy of the NAB Engineering Handbook, and a $1,000 gift certificate.

Based on your feedback, this year we’ll conclude the main program at 1:30PM so that you may return to work, but you are welcome to meet with factory representatives and check out the demonstrations.

Expect to see and hear about:

• AJA video converters and amplifiers
• Axcera transmitters
• Dielectric antennas and systems
• Ensemble
• Omneon
• ESE time products and accessories
• Blackmagic Design
• Wheatstone
• JVC Pro
• Linear Industries
• Trilithic EAS Systems
• Henry Engineering
• Playbox Technologies
• Plura Broadcast

Last year’s Taste of the NAB was a big success and we all learned a few things. Join us Thursday, June 5. Members and guests welcome. TV Magic is at 8112 Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa. No reservations required.

TV Magic will be hosting the May 20th SBE meeting at the San Diego office.  Ian Caldwell with Algolith will discuss technologies of noise reduction, including Mosquito Noise Reduction and Dynamic Noise Reduction. Lunch starts at noon, the meeting will run from 12:30PM to 1:30PM. TV Magic is located at 8112 Engineer Road, San Diego. If you have any questions, contact Eva at 858-650-3155.

Algolith solutions include a series of FPGA-based image processing and enhancement cards designed to meet the exacting needs of broadcast, cable, satellite, and IPTV providers. Ian will discuss, various approaches and technologies of noise reduction, including Mosquito Noise Reduction, Dynamic Noise Reduction, Block Artifact Reduction, Multiple Type Noise Reduction, Motion Adaptive De-Interlacer, Anti-Aliasing Processor and others. He will also give an overview of “Open Gear” technology for broadcasters.