What do you know about current practices in tower lighting? Are the latest LED arrays always legal? Can you just have tower crews unscrew your old incandescent bulbs and replace them with LEDs? If so, what about your flasher? Are there better ways to power your lamps on an AM tower? What do you know about the trend to lamp fewer towers? Will LEDs really save money?
Whether or not you know all of the answers to these questions, why not join us at the June 10, 2015 SBE Chapter 36 meeting at 12 noon? It’s at KFMB, 7677 Engineer Road, in Kearny Mesa. Parking on the street. Dialight buys lunch.
About Presenter Craig Franck
Craig lives in Littleton, Colorado and manages sales in 19 western states. He worked in the telecom field for 25 years in the area of analog and digital voice and data, microwave radios, and power systems with companies such as Tellabs, Motorola, Eltec/Valere. He has electronics and business degrees.
Sometimes it seems like we broadcast engineers now live in a black box era, when we tend to just retire and recycle a failed piece of equipment instead of repairing it. This can be due to the faster obsolescence cycle as devices are marketed with vast improvements in performance and storage. Besides, what devices now come with schematics? And even if they did, you would have to contend with multilayer boards and tiny surface-mount components. Continue reading Check Out This Component Tester→
After its sale to Tribune Corporation, publishers of the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union Tribune management immediately laid off 178 employees, including all printing press and UT-TV staff. Manny Cervantes, SBE Chapter 36 Vice Chairman and the last engineer at UT-TV. He had been the facility’s Chief Engineer during its three-year attempt to bring live and recorded news video to the utsandiego.com website and cable TV. Manny said yesterday that the UT-TV staff recently numbered only 12 until the May final layoff. Manny had been a systems engineer for TV Magic until the company failed in 2012.
K35DG on Mt. Soledad switched to an ATSC broadcast on channel 35 on May 28, 2015, just one day ahead of an FCC-imposed deadline that would have eliminated their eligibility for spectrum auction participation as a Class A low power TV station. The flash cut was conducted by yours truly with a new Anywave 5X exciter and PA140W power amplifier from RF Specialties. The new system has an ERP of only 150 watts due to spacing restrictions and Mexican treaty limitations. UCSD is retiring its Larcan NTSC transmitter installed in the early 1990’s.
The presentation will be an overview of IP based broadcast infrastructures. We address some of the fundamental questions broadcasters have been asking. Why do we even want IP at our core? What advantages do IP-based designs bring to my facility? What liabilities do IP designs bring to broadcast systems? We’ll cover current and emerging SMTPE standards on equipment and how current baseband technology will migrate into the IP world.
Join us Wednesday, May 20, at noon at KGTV, 4600 Air Way in San Diego, at I-805 and CA-94. Grass Valley will buy lunch. Everyone is welcome.
About Our Presenter
Robert Erickson is the Regional Account Manager for Grass Valley a Belden Brand, covering Broadcast, Post-Production, Government and Military sales for the San Diego and Los Angeles Markets. Robert started with Grass Valley in 2008 as a Senior System Engineer designing critical infrastructure systems for broadcast networks worldwide. In late 2013 Robert moved to Los Angeles to embark in his new sales role for Southern California. Prior to joining Grass Valley, he was the Director of Engineering for KTUZ Telemundo in Oklahoma City, and Chief Engineer for KOKH/KOCB FOX and CW in Oklahoma City. Outside of work Robert is an amateur radio operator, avid motorcycle rider and outdoorsman. On weekends he can usually be found exploring the southern California region and all the eccentricities that go along with it.
