Local News, National

San Diego FCC Field Office to Close in Compromise Plan

The FCC Enforcement Bureau July 16th adopted a plan to keep more field offices open than originally proposed, but San Diego still did not make the cut, instead relying on services from the Los Angeles office. The FCC came under fire for its planned reduction in force from Greg Walden of the House of Representatives and from the SBE and broadcast industry lobbyists concerned about piracy and RF noise sources. The FCC responded to Congressional inquiries with a letter and Q & A document outlining their reasoning for the cutbacks.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler responded to concerns about staffing in May, defending their plans to close offices, citing analysis that showed poor efficiency of services. SBE President Joe Snelson, in a Radio World interview, said their own input regarding field services indicated critically overworked staff, though he said they could not analyze the input  from consultants regarding their recommendations because they were not made public.

Precise closure dates have not been announced.

 

National, Seminars

Importance of Proper Grounding Webinar

The “Importance of Proper Grounding” SBE webinar will be presented on Thursday, July 23 at 2 p.m. ET. The one-hour program will review the elements of a building’s wiring and grounding systems (including lightning protection) that pertain to power quality at communications facilities and improve up-time. Proper wiring and grounding, beyond those minimal requirements of the NEC, can greatly alleviate power quality problems in broadcast and public service communications facilities. These improvements can be very cost-effective, usually simple in description, and help prevent costly downtime and equipment damage. The presentation concentrates on actual experiences at broadcast facilities where grounding and lightning protection were of paramount importance in maintaining system availability.

Continue reading Importance of Proper Grounding Webinar →

Local News

SBE 36 Welcomes “Blue”

Chapter 36 welcomes new member LaDarien LaBlue. He’s a broadcast engineer at KGTV 10 and word has it he’s fast learner and a strong contributor to the team.

“I come from a pure HR and IT background working at illumina for past seven years as Senior Executive IT Technician. I played baseball at LSU and Northwestern State University. I’m from Louisiana and have 4 older brothers and a beautiful daughter named Jordyn. I love what I do here at KGTV.

“It’s really no different, other than things move very fast in broadcast. What I’m learning is that most broadcast equipment is going IP-based and I’m really excited about that.”

Local News

Transfer of San Diego’s Lincoln Financial Stations to Entercom Complete

The FCC today announced the approval of transferring ownership of Lincoln Financial radio stations to Entercom. In San Diego, this includes rocker KBZT 94.9 MHz, country KSON 97.3 MHz, and soft rock KIFM 98.1 MHz, In Escondido, this includes the KSON repeater Class A KSOQ 92.1 MHz.The Department of Justice still has to approve the buy-out from an antitrust perspective.If approved, Entercom will own over 110 stations in 26 markets. Entercom took over management of Lincoln Financial stations early this year with a limited marketing agreement (LMA).

Bill Eisenhamer continues to lead the local engineering effort and reports no major changes yet.

Meetings

July Meeting: What’s New at Nautel

For several decades, the technological, bandwidth, and cost differences between television and radio made them two different electronic media. Information technology erases many of those differences. For example, IBOC has provisions for video while ATSC has provisions for radio, and IP has provisions for both. If broadcast engineering was separated into TV and radio in the past, this generation of engineers is divided between the over-the-air and content technologists. Broadcasting’s future is always bright and the nature of its creators, transmission, content and business plans constantly changing. There are practical things broadcast engineers can do for their stations and themselves, and some things broadcast engineers at some level already mostly know we can expect of the future.

Nautel has been working on both TV and radio transmitters of late, and are especially known for their products’ condition reporting that leads to predictive servicing and a tight design loop.

Join us Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 12 noon at KFMB, 7677 Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Nautel buys lunch.

About Our Guest Speaker

Fred Baumgartner, CPBE, is a fellow in the Society of Broadcast Engineers, a trustee of the Ennes Foundation, Fellow of the Radio Club of America and Nautel’s TV product manager. Fred was Director of Broadcast Engineering for Qualcomm’s MediaFLO project. Previously, he directed Leitch/Harris’ Systems Engineering group. Up to that time, he served as Director of Engineering for the Comcast Media Center in Denver. Before joining the satellite and cable origination world, he held the positions of Chief Engineer in Denver, Indianapolis, and Madison. Fred was also heavily involved with the development of EAS, and has authored several hundred articles on radio and TV engineering.

Society of Broadcast Engineers