• Contents for this Newsletter

About This Newsletter
Meeting Announcement
Upcoming Meeting Schedule
Meeting Minutes
Ennes Covers The IT World
FCC Cracks Down On Indecency
Amateur Radio News
FCC Concludes Auction On New Video Service
SBE Short Circuits
Web Site Enhancements
FCC Issues Report On Video Competition
Chapter 24 Listserver Available
Local Legals
Chapter Sustaining Members
Return to 2004 Newsletter Archives

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The Chapter 24 Newsletter is published monthly by Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers; Madison, Wisconsin. Original hard copy edited by Mike Norton on Pagemaker 5.0. Submissions of interest to the broadcast technical community are welcome. You can make your submissions by e-mail to:

© 2004 by SBE Chapter 24. Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the Society, its officers, or its members. SBE Chapter 24 regrets, but is not liable for, any omissions or errors. The Chapter 24 Newsletter is published twelve times per year. Other SBE Chapters are permitted to use excerpts if attributed to the original author, sources, and SBE Chapter 24.

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Bob Stoffs, Community Services Manager for Madison gas and Electric, will give a presentation about the West Campus Cogeneration Facility currently under construction. He will describe the technology being used and the planning that went into its construction.

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Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers met on Thursday, January 15, 2004 at WHA-TV, Madison, Wisconsin for the chapter’s monthly meeting. There were 17 members in attendance, 10 of whom were certified, and 2 guests.

The meeting was called to order at 7:06 PM by Chapter Chair Vicki Kipp. The minutes of the November and December meetings as published in the January newsletter were approved.

Newsletter editor Mike Norton announced the deadline for articles for the February issue will be Friday, January 30th at midnight. The folding party will be held Wednesday, February 4th at 5:30 PM at WKOW-TV.

There was no Treasurer’s report.

Membership chair Paul Stoffel reported the chapter membership was holding strong.

Sustaining membership chair Fred Sperry reported on the recent renewals of WISC-TV, WKOW-TV, and Broadcast Richardson. Currently the chapter has 24 sustaining members.

Program committee chair Steve Paugh reported the next meeting with be Tuesday, February 17th at the Wisconsin Public Broadcasting Center and will be a presentation by MG&E on the new Campus co-generation facility. Nominations for the April elections will be opened then. The March meeting will be Wednesday, March 17th and will be a presentation on DV Editing by Focus Enhancement and will also be open for nominations.

The chapter has been asked by Larry Bloomfield if we would like to have the Taste of NAB presentation again this year. The tentative date would by Friday, July 30 (subject to change). The picnic would shift to June.

Certification char Jim Hermanson submitted his report that one CBNT exam will be given in February and that one recertification request has been processed.

Frequency Coordinator Tom Smith reported that he has not received any recent calls for coordination. There continue to be proposed schemes for overriding car radios by emergency vehicles. The FCC is considering rules to make interference measurements based on background noise (of interest to broadcasters using the lower 6GHz band). He had an exchange with a consulting engineer in Marshall regarding do-it-yourself prior coordination. It is possible rather then paying. Source of information is the National Spectrum Managers and the FCC rules.

National Liaison Leonard Charles reported that the SBE has filed with the FCC to reconsider their October 3rd Frequency Coordination ruling due to the inaccuracy of the ULS database. The SBE national publication the Signal received an award. The SBE Executive meeting will be January 24th. Contact your board member if you have any issues to be address. And there was a reminder that certification fees are going up January 31st, generally an increase of $5. The managers’ course is being offered this summer- Level 1 is in June and level 2 is in August, both in Indianapolis.

Under new business, Secretary Jim Magee discussed a few possible bylaw changes. Among the items discussed was an increase in the sustaining member fee along with a new mailing benefit. An alternative to the mailing benefit and fee increase was suggested that the sustaining members could submit items to be mailed by the Chapter but postal fees paid by the sustaining member. Also discussed was a 3 year term limit for the Secretary and Treasurer offices. The Chapter officers will further discuss the proposed changes.

There was no old business.

Professional announcements, Token Creek Productions will be adding a second 53’ truck this summer. Paul Stoffel announced that WHA will be posting an audio position starting Jan 18th and it will be open for 2 weeks.

Guests were Troy Davis of Utah Scientific, John Reuter of Alpha Video, and sustaining members Matt Anderson and Jon Tatooles of Sound Devices.

The meeting adjourned at 7:32 PM

The program was a presentation by Jon Tatooles of Sound Devices on Field Production Audio.

Submitted by Jim Magee, Secretary

Thanks to Steve Paugh and Tom Smith for arranging the January meeting and program. Thanks also to Jon Tatooles and Matt Anderson from Sound Devices for their presentation.

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SBE provides many educational opportunities throughout the year, several in cooperation with the Ennes Educational Foundation Trust. One prime opportunity every year is the Ennes program at the NAB spring show in Las Vegas. Here, SBE and the Ennes Trust can gather a number of top-quality presenters together for a full day of education. This year’s program promises to make the trip to NAB well worth the time and effort.

Many of us broadcast engineers are lifting up our broadcast operations, building an information technology (IT) base beneath it, and setting the station back down on top of it. Even if your facility hasn’t started this yet, you may see that transition coming faster than even IBOC or HDTV.

Saturday, April 17, 2004, the Ennes program at NAB2004 will bring a unique group of engineers, both manufacturers and broadcasters, to offer their experience in "Converting Broadcast Operations to an Information Technology Platform." Andrea Cummis, CBT, CTO, Senior Vice President of Engineering for Oxygen Network, hosts the morning sessions.

Al Kovalick, Pinnacle’s Chief Technology Officer, starts off the program with a broad tutorial on storage architectures and connectivity, covering the decision points that each broadcast operation must make. Kovalick worked for 25 years at Hewlett-Packard as a designer, system architect and technical strategist before joining Pinnacle, and he holds 18 patents.

Ted Mina follows with a tutorial on the IT aspects of managing content from a service level perspective. Mina is a principal of the Technology Solutions Group (TSG) within EMC’s Telco, Media and Entertainment division. Mina’s career focuses on delivering strategy and solutions development services to EMC’s top Media, Telco and Enterprise clients. He will focus on case studies and the best IT practices from his own experience.

Isilon co-founder Sujal Patel describes the limitations and pitfalls of approaching the broadcast project with standard IT tools. Prior to founding Isilon, Patel spent nearly five years at RealNetworks, in part as the chief architect behind the company’s second-generation core media delivery system.

Considering the "what to do, and what not to do" of IT conversion, Lynn Rowe, the Chief Executive Officer for One World Technologies, rolls up his sleeves and covers the edge where traditional IT infrastructure breaks down in the broadcast world. Rowe is well known in the broadcast industry for being on the leading edge of technology, which is where his company thrives.

Finishing up just before the lunch break, John Hoehn, from IBM’s Business Consulting Services, takes up the topic of Middleware - the secret sauce that allows the islands to be combined in the IT conversion process.

After lunch, William Hayes, Director of Engineering and Technology for Iowa Public Television and author of the Digital Journal column in TV Technology, moderates the sessions, which will turn to case histories and real-world conversion lessons. First up, however, is V-ISAN and the challenge of maintaining the "card catalog" in a purely digital world. Craig Finseth, Firwood Consulting, will speak of Universal Media Identification, and the next world where central registries catalog and define content.

Clear Channel Vice President of Engineering Mike DeClue will cover the new, more flexible and reliable modes of operation Clear Channel derives from its new IT paradigm. DeClue is a long-time broadcast engineer, well-rooted in the business of operating broadcast facilities.

Then there is Kevin Ivey, who is currently serving as BBC Technology’s Project Director for ESPN’s Digital Conversion Project. BBCT’s project team at ESPN is building the pilot and full implementation of Media Asset Management and Command & Control systems to support ESPN’s new digital production center and the network’s high-definition television offerings. Ivey previously held the post of Vice President, Research and Development at CNN, the Atlanta-based 24-hour cable news pioneer.

Turner Entertainment, under Vice President of Engineering Clyde Smith, has made the IT move into a new 198,000-square-foot facility with an extensive IT infrastructure, and Smith has a lot to talk about with the many channels and media outlets supported.

Christopher Golson, SGI’s Senior Director of Marketing Strategy for the Media Industries, has a front row seat to the IT conversion and makes the perfect close to an IT-centric day.

To attend the Ennes program, you must be a full-NAB conference registrant. SBE members receive a $200 discount off of the NAB non-member, full conference registration rate (the form is only available at www.sbe.org). The Ennes training Saturday and the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference sessions that start Sunday are core to a broadcast engineer’s convention experience and the source of a lot of what he or she will take home. We hope to see you there!

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On January 27th, the FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture against several subsidiaries of Clear Channel Communications for $755,000. This fine is for 26 apparent indecency violations for material that aired on the "Bubba the Love Sponge" program. Clear Channel also received a fine of $40,000 for failure to maintain certain files in the stations public files.

The stations that are affected by this ruling are all in Florida and are WPLA(FM), Callahan; WCKT(FM), Port Charlotte; WXTB(FM), Clearwater: and WRLX(FM), West Palm Beach. The company has 30 days to pay the fine or appeal.

Commissioner Michael Copps dissented, commenting that the fines could be considered the cost of doing business and that the stations should be designated for a license revocation hearing. He stated that Clear Channel had been fined at least three other times, and the only way to stop the "race to the bottom" was for the Commission to take a firm stand.

The FCC also issued a $27,500 fine to Young Broadcasting for an incident on KRON(TV) in San Francisco in which a guest on a program exposed himself.

Finally, Chairman Michael Powell and Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy issued statements condemning the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake incident at the Super Bowl Half-time Show, with Powell promising an investigation. The chairman said "I have instructed the Commission to open an immediate investigation into [the half-time] broadcast. Our investigation will be thorough and swift."

From FCC Press Releases (www.fcc.gov)

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• The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) wants the FCC to create a new entry-level license, reduce the number of actual license classes to three, and drop the Morse code testing requirement for all classes except for Amateur Extra. The ARRL has filed a Petition for Rule Making asking the FCC to amend its Part 97 rules to complete the Amateur Radio Service restructuring the Commission began in 1999 but, in ARRL’s opinion, left unfinished. The League says its petition follows in the footsteps of changes in Article 25 of the international Radio Regulations adopted at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2003. Among those changes, WRC-03 deleted the Morse testing requirement for amateur applicants seeking HF privileges and left it up to individual countries to determine whether or not they want to mandate Morse testing. While several countries—including Germany, the UK and Australia—already have dropped their Morse testing requirements, the ARRL emphasized in its petition that Morse code is not the primary issue at hand.

"Changes in Morse telegraphy are one aspect of the proposal, and it would be insufficient for the Commission to address those issues in a vacuum," the League said, calling its licensing proposal "a plan for the next decade." The ARRL said that plan’s overall intention is "to encourage newcomers to the Amateur Service and to encourage those who enter its ranks to proceed further on a course of technical self-training and exposure to all aspects of the avocation."

Last fall various parties filed a total of 14 Morse-related petitions with the FCC. Several called on the Commission to drop the Morse requirement altogether, while others proposed to keep and even expand the requirement or put forth various license restructuring schemes of their own. The petitions attracted thousands of comments from the amateur community.

"Now, the issue is not merely whether there should or should not be Morse telegraphy as an examination requirement," the ARRL said, "but rather what is the best overall approach for positioning the Amateur Service for future growth and incentive-based self-training."

• The AO-40 amateur radio satellite went silent January 27th, and ground controllers are still trying to figure out just what happened aboard the spacecraft to cause a significant drop in the bus voltage. AO-40 controllers are fairly certain that one or more shorted battery cells are at the root of the problem. Efforts to restart the satellite’s 2.4-GHz downlink transmitter so far have been unsuccessful.

"Our current best understanding is that we suffered a catastrophic failure of the main battery, which is clamping the bus voltage at a low level," according to Stacey Mills, W4SM, of the AO-40 command team. "Accordingly, we have been concentrating our efforts on trying to connect the auxiliary battery to the main bus and disconnect the main battery, placing it on trickle charge for further analysis."

The AO-40 ground team is sending blind commands to the spacecraft to activate its onboard computerized control system in order to switch in the auxiliary battery bank, which was tied to the main battery bank after the bus voltage drop January 26th.

(Excerpts from the www.arrl.org web site)

HamNet meets the second Sunday of each month at 0000 GMT on 14.205 MHz. Hal Hostetler WA7BGX is the Control Station.

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The FCC has concluded, on January 27th, an auction for a new video and data band. The new band will occupy the 12.2 to 12.7 GHz band, which is the same band that is used for direct broadcast satellite. The total amount bid was $118,721,835 for 192 of 214 available licenses. These licenses are based on geographic areas. Each licensee receives a 500 MHz block of spectrum. They are permitted to operate one-way video or data services in this band. Two-way operation will require other spectrum or communication methods for a return path.

In order to avoid interference with DBS, transmitters will need to be directional with the transmitted signal pointed South. These will require all the receive antennas for the new service to point 180 degrees opposite of the direction required to receive DBS satellites.

From FCC Release (www.fcc.gov)

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The dates have been established for the 2004 SBE Leader Skills Seminar. SBE will present this outstanding opportunity for broadcast engineers to receive management training - people skills training if you will – for the eighth consecutive year. Course I will be held June 2-4 in Indianapolis at the Marten House hotel and Conference Center. Course II will be held August 11-13 also in Indy at the Marten House. Participants in Course II must have already attended Course I this year or in the past.

Our seminar leader will be Dick Cupka, who has taught leader skills for more than 35 years across the USA and in several other countries. More than 1,000 broadcast engineers have taken part in this program since its inception. For more information, contact Angel Bates at SBE.

The SBE Fellowship Committee is now accepting nominations of qualified members to be considered for recognition as SBE Fellows.

The Fellow designation is the most distinguished recognition presented to members by the Society. Members of SBE may earn the Fellowship rank through several paths of achievement including conspicuous service, valuable contributions to the advancement of broadcast engineering or its allied professions, or by disseminating their knowledge and promoting its application in practice. The names of nominees are brought to the Board of Directors for consideration and election. Only 62 members have been recognized with the Fellow honor in the Society’s nearly 40 year history.

Perhaps there is a member in your chapter who has distinguished him or herself in the field of broadcast engineering. Consider sending a nomination to the Fellowship Committee.

Candidates for election to Fellow must be proposed in writing by a voting member. The nomination must include an appropriate and complete history of the nominee and the endorsement of at least five other voting members. Nominations are confidential. Candidates should not be aware that they have been nominated. Nominations for the year 2004 must be received no later than March 31 for consideration. Recipients will be notified by the SBE Secretary and will receive their award at the SBE National Awards Dinner next October in Boston, during the SBE 2004 National Meeting.

To submit a nomination, send to: Martin Sandberg, CPBE, Chairman, SBE Fellowship Committee, 9807 Edgecove Drive, Dallas, Texas, 75238-1535 or to sandytex@swbell.net.

A reminder that the SBE Board of Directors approved a $5.00 increase in certification and recertification fees for the Broadcast Technologist, Broadcast Engineer, Senior Broadcast Engineer and Professional Broadcast Engineer certification levels. The new rates went into affect on January 1, 2004. This is the first increase in certification fees since 1991.

The SBE Certification Committee has established exam dates for 2004. Check the list below for the exam period that is best for you. For more information, see your Chapter Certification Chair or contact Linda Baun, Certification Director at the SBE National Office at (317) 846-9000 or lbaun@sbe.org. The SBE Board of Directors voted to increase certification fees January 1, 2004.

Please note: SBE Certification exams are administered only by SBE and are proctored in-person by qualified and approved representatives of SBE. No other organization is authorized to administer SBE exams.

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The Chapter’s web site (http://www.sbe24.org) has a "Chapter 24 Archives" section. The section is accessible with a click from the front page menu. From the archives menu page you can click to past Chapter newsletters, past Chapter Officers lists, and a listing of the Chapter’s past meeting dates with program subjects.

Also available in the archive section is the meeting attendance history for individual members. Simply access the "Meeting Attendance" page from the archive menu, enter your last name and membership number, and you’ll get a listing of all the Chapter 24 meetings you have attended. This should be handy when applying for recertification, as meeting attendance gets you recertification points. Launch your web browser and check it out.

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The FCC has released its Tenth Annual Report on Video Competition. This report lists the gains and losses of the various video suppliers over the last year, and describes the changes over the last ten years. This report mainly concerns non-broadcast video suppliers including cable, satellite, broadband, and home video sales.

In 1993, cable TV made up nearly 100% of the market; now with 65.9 million subscribers, cable controls 75% of the market. Direct Broadcast Satellite with 20 million subscribers has 21.6% of the market They had 11.6% growth in the last year. Wireless Cable (MMDS) has 200,000 subscribers or .21% of the market. MMDS has lost 800,000 subscribers since its peak in 1998, and 280,000 in the last year. Private cable serving apartment and condo complexes have 1.2 million subscribers or 1.27% of the market. They lost 400,000 subscribers in the last year.

The report is 147 pages, but the press release with its attached fact sheet is 10 pages and gives an overview of the state of the industry. The report can be very useful in long range planning, as it can provide information on many industry trends.

From FCC Press Release (www.fcc.gov)

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Chapter 24 members are invited to join the chapter listserver. To subscribe, send an email message to the following address: msnsbe-request@broadcast.net. In the body of email message type: subscribe. (The subject line can be left blank.)

The Mailman package the listserver is running on also has a web interface for subscribing to the list. Point your browser to www.broadcast.net/mailman/listinfo/msnsbe to subscribe.

Instructions and a confirmation message will be emailed to you. To post to the list, address your email to: msnsbe@broadcast.net.

The SBE National also has a listserver: To subscribe, send email to: sbe-request@broadcast.net. Body of email message: subscribe. To post to the list, send email to: sbe@broadcast.net.

There are also various other lists of technical interest running on the broadcast.net Mailman package. To view the lists, go to www.broadcast.net/mailman/listinfo, or send an email to msnsbe-request@broadcast.net with lists in the body of the message.

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Acme Television Licenses of Madison, LLC is seeking permission to modify a construction permit to move its transmitter site to the City of Madison from Footville. The proposed transmitter site will be at coordinates of 43 degrees, 3 minutes and 3 seconds North and 89 degrees, 29 minutes, 13 seconds west. This site is 2 seconds South and 2 seconds East of WMTV’s tower.

Acme is proposing to build a tower that will be occupied by both WBUW and WMTV. The proposed tower will be 395.9 meters high with WBUW-TV operating at 415 meters above average terrain and WBUW-DT operating at 387 meters above average terrain. WBUW-TV will operate with five megawatts and WBUW-DT with 200 kilowatts. The previous construction permit allowed WBUW to move their transmitter to the Madison Community Tower.

With the new site, WBUW would be able to cover their entire city of license, Janesville, with a city grade signal. The FCC had granted a waiver to WBUW under the old construction permit that allowed them permission to not have to cover the far Southeast corner of Janesville with a city grade signal.

Notice of the application was made on January 29, 2004.

The FCC has dismissed an application by the Christian Communication Network for a FM translator for Madison. The translator was to rebroadcast WVCX-FM in Tomah.

The transmitter site was to be at 43-03’-09" north / 89-28’-42" west (27 Doppler Tower) and operate with a power of 10 watts at 84 meters above ground.

From FCC Media Bureau Online Database (www.fcc.gov/media)

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