Remote transmitter control has actually come a long way from old days of dial-up phone line command and response with stepper relays. Maybe you started when stations used Davicom VT-100 serial terminals with FSK transmission.
Paul Easter of Davicom will tell us about the latest in SNMP control and monitoring technology and how it fits in with today’s group multicast facilities.
Join us Wednesday, August 13, at 12 noon at Clear Channel Communications, 9660 Granite Ridge Drive in San Diego. Davicom picks up the tab for lunch. Expect to be out on your way back to work by 1:30PM.
About Paul Easter
Paul is an SBE Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer with over 35 years of broadcast engineering experience. He grew up in Lubbock, Texas where he learned electronics and was involved with KOHM at Texas Tech. Paul has built over 25 broadcast facilities, and currently serves as Technical Director of Houston Christian Broadcasters, a network of over 30 radio stations and translators throughout the southwestern United States.
We humans love our machines. We polish and parade our cars. We line up hours ahead to buy a new smartphone, tablet computer, or video game processor.
Scottie Rice in the KOGO basement with Civil Defense water.
Scottie Rice, staff engineer at KFMB AM and FM, gives homes to elderly AM radio transmitters.
His latest project was moving the RCA BTA-5F 5kW transmitter from KOGO, and I’ll let him pick up the story from here. Note that like a captain describing his ship at sea, Scottie refers to his inheritance as “she.”
It’s quite possible you don’t know as much about fiber optic transmission of data as you think you do. Like every other technology, fiber is a moving target and there have been several advances in the past decade.
As luck would have it, we have experts in the neighborhood. QPC fiber from San Clemente will appear at our next SBE meeting Wednesday, July 9, at 12 noon at KGTV, 4600 Air Way, San Diego. QPC will buy lunch there in the cafeteria, then we’ll meet in a studio. Members and non-members are welcome.
Steve Wilkes of QPC will go over some current fiber terms and common industry fiber connector types. He’ll discuss expanded beam vs. physical contact pro’s & con’s, then give a live demonstration of the practical limits of different types of fiber optic assemblies. Continue reading July 2014 Meeting: QPC Fiber→
Mike Richards of Western Radio Electronics reports, “As of June 23, 2014 Western Radio Electronics has a new principal owner and relocated to 7374 Convoy Court, San Diego, CA 92111. Our primary phone and fax number will remain the same and for the immediate future you may contact me via email at mike@emailwre.com.”
Mike says the new owner has asked him to stay on as Store Manager. “This will be a new challenge for me, but having worked with many of the SBE members over the last 30 years, it can be successful implementing a focus on customer service and day to day inventory stock for the broadcasting industry here in San Diego. I look forward to talking with engineering staff and management over the next few weeks to get feedback on products we can provide at competitive pricing and good service.
“I will soon be looking for qualified sales persons to maintain contact with our client base. If any person may be interested in full or part time work, please feel free to email me your resume for consideration. I am especially interested in at least one person with recent military service to call on San Diego area installations.”
At our June meeting, Bart Schade, President and CTO of Path 1, discussed the technology behind the new Internet video streaming standard MPEG DASH, and how it contrasts to traditional real-time broadcast video transport. This was another presentation that could make you rethink your concept of codecs, since what you are sending with DASH technology are actual files–not just a stream of framed packets.
PiXiE is a contribution codec supporting SD/HD SDI and using MPEG-4 AVC video compression, HE-AAC/AAC-LC audio compression and pass-through audio. For those wanting advance information, see Bart’s recently released white paper “Real-Time Broadcast Video Services over the Internet using MPEG-DASH.”
