KSON-AM Finally Set to Rebuild Tower

Lincoln Financial Media finally got approval from the City of San Diego to reconstruct its KSON-AM tower south of downtown. That tower, you may remember (article), had its top crumple over in a windstorm late in December 2004. Some 200 feet was left after the limp top sections were removed.

The replacement, also a self-supporter, will reach the same 445 feet height nearby on the same plot of land in the middle of a towing yard along I-5 where it meets the south terminus of State Route 15. The new tower will also have the same shunt feed design. But the new steel members are designed to be of sufficient strength to handle high winds and some antennas on top.

KSON-AM at 1240 kHz and KURS at 1040 kHz have continued sharing the remainder of the old tower after crews removed the damaged upper third.

According to San Diego Market Director of Engineering and SBE Chapter 36 Chair Eric Schecter, Joel Saxberg has served as AM consultant for the project. David Evans and Associates has provided navigation through the city permitting processes that started three years ago. Sabre Communications of Sioux City, Iowa will fabricate the steel kit, and RD Engineering and Construction of El Cajon will erect the tower.

Upon its completion, KBNT-CA channel 17 is expected to return to the top with an ERI 8-bay omni-directional antenna along with an antenna from Teletrac Fleet Management radio services. Eric expects crews to complete construction by the end of 2008.

September 2008 Meeting – Triveni Digital – “ATSC Bitstream Verification”

Due to the complexity of the ATSC Transport Stream, broadcasters can find ourselves out of compliance. Some errors, while violations of the standards, do not produce degraded quality for the viewer. When even minor errors frequently trigger broadcasters’ alarms for inconsequential problems, important alarms often go ignored. The A/78 Recommended Practice was designed to address this problem. It develops a system of triage amongst the error types, ranging from unwatchable to invisible. By monitoring through devices that employ A/78, broadcasters can be assured of being quickly informed of any problems that will impact video quality.

Join San Diego SBE Chapter 36 for its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, September 17 at noon at Bay City Television, 8253 Ronson Road in Kearny Mesa. Triveni buys lunch. Expect the presentation to last till 1:30 PM. As always, guests are welcome.

About Richard Chernock

Dr. Chernock, the author of A/78 and Director of Technology at Triveni Digital, develops strategic directions for metadata management, content distribution and monitoring for emerging digital television systems. Previously, he was a Research Staff Member at IBM Research, investigating digital broadcast technologies. Dr. Chernock is active in a number of the ATSC and SCTE standards committees, particularly in the areas of metadata, monitoring and data broadcast. He is a participant in the SCTE HMS activity. He chairs a number of ad hoc committees within ATSC whose work relates to metadata and transport issues. He is vice-chair of the Technology Group on Distribution (TSG) and chairing the Non-Real-Time Services and Mobile/Handheld management layer activities within ATSC. In another life, he used transmission electron microscopy to study materials characteristics for advanced ceramics packaging and semiconductor technology at IBM. His ScD was from MIT in the field of nuclear materials engineering.

September 2008 Meeting – Nautel

When you get 30 engineers show up for a radio-themed meeting as we had in August, you can get cocky enough to call for two meetings in one month. Yeah, that’s what we’re doing in September. Our second presentation this month is by Jeff Welton of Nautel, the broadcast radio transmitter guys. TV Magic will host the meeting at noon, Thursday, September 25. Jeff will buy you lunch. TV Magic is at 8112 Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa. Expect the presentation to last to near 1:30 PM.

About the Meeting

The proposed 10dB increase to digital sideband power levels for stations broadcasting with HD Radio(tm) technology in the FM band will have significant impact on equipment and infrastructure requirements. Even if the sideband power were to increase by a lesser amount, the effect will be much more serious than many have realized. This presentation will cover the increase and the associated changes that may be required with various methods of injecting the HD radio signal onto the analog. In addition it will cover technology that has been implemented, or is being developed, to assist stations in achieving the highest possible signal level increase with the least possible impact.

About Jeff Welton

Jeff Welton is a graduate of the Electronics Engineering Technician and Technologist programs at RCC Institute of Electronics (formerly Radio College of Canada) in Ontario, Canada. He has worked in electronics repair, installation, quality assurance and manufacturing since 1985. In 1990, he joined Nautel in the Customer Service Department. Then in March 2007, Jeff accepted a position with Nautel’s Sales Department, where he has been able to use his technical background to help customers find the best possible solutions for their particular requirements.

About Nautel

Nautel is a global leader in the design, manufacture, sales and support of high power Radio Frequency (RF) products for AM and FM broadcast, navigation, industrial and space-based applications.  With a long history of creating highly innovative products, Nautel continues to lead the way in providing valuable new solutions for the digital radio broadcast revolution.

XETV and KSWB Swap Networks

In February, Ed Wilson left his position as President of the Fox Television Network to become President of Tribune Broadcasting. The next month, he announced that Tribune’s TV station KSWB in San Diego would take over the Fox affiliation from XETV August 1, 2008, ending channel 6’s 22-year run with the network.

The race was on for KSWB Director of Engineering John Weigand to outfit the station not only for news, but high definition. Last Friday the station did just that, airing a four-hour morning program and hour-long 10 PM newscast, both in HD. This after a year of outsourcing news entirely to NBC O&O KNSD.

During the four months, they installed multiple Sony PMW-EX3 1080i cameras, a Ross Vision switcher, and related furniture and terminal gear. Crews from Tribune sister stations KTLA Los Angeles and WGN Chicago helped out.

Meanwhile, XETV negotiated with the CW Network to assume that affiliation on the same August 1 date. The contract wasn’t finalized until July 3, with 29 days to air.

The only technical challenge for XETV after changing web domain names was converting its DTV chain from the Fox Network’s elegant MPEG splicer that doesn’t involve decoding to the CBS distribution scheme that involves decoding not only HD video, but Dolby E audio, then rencoding AC-3 on an MPEG2 stream downstream of local switching. XETV aired the first night of CW with simple stereo audio, not having yet received the Dolby equipment.

There were a few stumbles during the transition, like Dish Network’s swapping channels, DirecTV’s forgetting to swap HD resolutions, KSWB’s 40 minutes of silence to debut its morning news, and XETV’s lip sync issues. But KSWB successfully introduced HD news, including ENG, and at a new price point as the technology advances.

The author is Director of Engineering for Bay City Television, US Operators of XETV Tijuana. 

Harris to Host HD Sideband Talk with Dinner

Harris is pleased to invite you and your engineering staff to a special dinner and presentation from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM on Wednesday August 13th at our favorite spot, The Butcher Shop. Dinner is being served at 6:30 PM.

Harris will be featuring their latest Value Engineered products and a presentation provided by Tim Anderson on the proposed -10dB HD sideband power increase and how this will affect you. Tim has more than 30 years experience in broadcast engineering. He joined Harris Corporation in August 2007 as Radio Product Line Manager.  Prior to joining Harris, he served as a broadcast engineer for iBiquity Digital, developer of the HD Radio™ standard.  While there, he was instrumental in the development and testing of the HD Radio transmission system and advanced application services.

Come enjoy a great dinner and informative presentation complements of Harris. Since Dinner is provided I would request that you confirm you can make it and give me a head count of the folks that will be coming so we can prepare accordingly.

Thanks for taking the time and I hope to see you there.

RSVP with head count to al.jason@harris.com.

Society of Broadcast Engineers