Thanks to those of you who took time out from your day to attend my first SBE presentation.
I talked about Part 101 radios and their relevance to broadcasters as well as the importance in reserving spectrum for your wireless STL/TSL links.
A copy of the presentation is here. Please contact me with any questions.
Welcome to the new website! Our previous version, written with the Mambo content management system, was getting long in the tooth. It was inelegant to work with, and it got so that only Internet Explorer would edit the posts, and that won’t do.
The e-mail newsletter interface and appearance was less than optimal, and it would add random exclamation points to the output.
All that, and the host moved from San Diego to somewhere in Florida, and sometimes the latency would give you sufficient time to go to the restroom waiting for a page load.
I have wanted to play with WordPress, and true to its reputation, it’s elegant and well-documented. When I discover a new feature, I tend to think, “Damn, this is good.”
So I made some new banners in Photoshop, deleted a line of CSS code that made the spacing too high at the top, transferred stories going back to 2005, imported the newsletter subscribers, and added some new posts. The old news transfer was laborious, but it was my own fault for misplacing the password for the database administration, which kept me from doing a text dump.
It’s come a long way from the first edition in 1997 that I edited manually on Netscape Navigator. But the content loaded fast, photos were often added, and hey–the news got out.
I hope to add some very useful new features, including comments from members on our stories and the ability for sponsors to sign-up and renew online. The site is already simple enough to operate that any of you could add a story easily.
I still have to create and post the sponsor banners and move additional old posts.
There’s never enough time.
Just in case you were expecting a reprieve, the FCC left no doubt in its mandate that the June 30th deadline remains for the new CAP/EAS receiver/encoder requirements. The FCC says: “This means any necessary equipment must be installed and operational by that date.”
Sage Alerting Systems EAS encoders can finally be updated for the new EAS CAP-compliant rules that begin June 30, 2012. The company posted the firmware upgrade here.
Candidates for the board of directors of the Society of Broadcast Engineers have been slated by the SBE Nominations Committee. The election will be held beginning July 26 and run through August 28. Candidates include:
President
Ralph Hogan, CPBE, DRB, CBNT, Director of Engineering, KJZZ-FM/KBAQ-FM, Tempe, AZ, Chapter 117
Vice President
Joseph Snelson, CPBE, 8-VSB, Vice President of Engineering, Meredith Corporation, Las Vegas, Nev., Chapter 128
Secretary
James Leifer, CPBE, Director of Engineering and IT, Clear Channel Communications, Boynton Beach, Fla., Chapter 53
Treasurer
Jerry Massey, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNT, Corporate Regional Engineer and DoE, Entercom Communications, Greenville, S.C., Chapter 86
Director Candidates
Tim Anderson, CPBE, DRB, CBNT, Mgr. Radio Market & Product Development, Harris Corp., Covington, Ky., Chapter 33
Andrea Cummis, CBT, CTO, Technology & Operations Consultant, Roseland, N.J., Chapter 15
Steve Fluker, CBT, Senior Engineer, Cox Media Group Orlando, Orlando, Fla., Chapter 42
Kirk Harnack, CBRE, Vice President- Telos Products, Telos Systems, Nashville, Tenn., Chapter 103
John Heimerl, CPBE, Vice President, WHRO TV/Radio, Norfolk, Va., Chapter 54
Gary Kline, CBT, CBNT, Senior Vice President Corporate Engineering & IT, Cumulus Media, Atlanta, GA, Chapter 5
Scott Mason, CPBE, CBNT, Regional Director of Engineering, CBS Radio, Los Angeles, Calif., Chapter 47
Wayne Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNT, Asst. Dir. of Educational Broadcast Services, Office of Information Technology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, Chapter 99
Qualified members, nominated by a voting member and endorsed by at least nine additional voting members, may be added to the ballot. Candidates must be voting members, current in their SBE dues and hold certification by the SBE at an engineering level (CBT or higher). If elected, these same requirements apply during the term of office. Voting members include Regular, Senior, Fellow and Life members and the voting representatives of SBE Sustaining Members. Candidate nominations are to be emailed, faxed or mailed to the SBE national office in Indianapolis, attention: National Secretary, James Leifer, CPBE, and be received by no later than 4 p.m., EDT, July 13, 2012.
The election will commence via the Internet on July 26. Voting members who chose to opt out of electronic balloting during this year’s dues renewal period will receive their ballots in the mail.
All ballots are to be completed on-line, or if mailed, arrive at the SBE national office, by 4:30 p.m. EDT on August 28. Votes will be tabulated that evening by an authorized board of tellers.