• Contents for this Newsletter

About This Newsletter
Meeting Announcement
Upcoming Meeting Schedule
Meeting Minutes
Hearing Held On Unlicensed Devices
Cast Your Ballot!
SBE Certification Information Available
Sprint/Nextel BAS Website
Amateur Radio News
Chapter 24 Listserver Available
Chapter 24 Seeking Newsletter Editor
SBE Short Circuits
Local Legals
FCC Rulemakings
Chapter Sustaining Members
Return to 2006 Newsletter Archives Page

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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:

© 2006 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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After collecting the ballots for the election of officers, we will have a tour of the new ECB technical operations center and adjoining technical core. The new facility is located in the basement of the Wisconsin Public Broadcasting Center. Many of you will remember that the old facility was located above street level. We will have a guided tour by our own Chapter 24 members Mike Norton and Fred Sperry.

Remember to put your membership number on your ballot for validation. Extra ballots will be on hand.

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SBE Chapter 24 held their monthly meeting on March 21, 2006 at Mid-West Family Radio. The meeting was delayed from its original date of March 16, 2006 due to a snowstorm on that day. Vice-chair Dennis Baldridge opened the meeting at 7:03 PM. There were 13 members present of whom 12 were certified. There were also 8 guests.

The minutes for the February meeting were approved as published in the March Newsletter on a motion by Steve Paugh and second by Leonard Charles.

Treasurer Leslie Franzen reported on the current bank balance.

Leonard Charles, Chapter liaison to the national SBE reported on a number of items including the location of the SBE booth at NAB (South Hall), which is also the location of the SBE Seminars. Chuck also noted the days for the various SBE meetings at NAB as well as the awards deadline of May 31st and the Leadership Conference on June 6-8.

He mentioned the new insurance program that the SBE has with Liberty Mutual Insurance, which includes auto and homeowners insurance.

Frequency Coordinator Tom Smith had nothing to report locally, but did mention the two bills in the U.S. Senate that would allow for WIMax operation on unused TV Channels. He also mentioned the current problems with spectrum management where non-engineering types determine policy.

Newsletter Editor, Mike Norton announced that the deadline for newsletter articles was April 7th with the folding party at WKOW on April 12th. Vice–Chair Dennis Baldridge also mentioned that we were still looking for someone to replace Mike as he wishes to retire from editing the newsletter.

Program Chair Steve Paugh announced that the next two meetings will be at ECB with the April 18th meeting having a program by Statmon Technologies on remote monitoring and the May 17th meeting being a tour of the new ECB operating Center. The June 22nd meeting will be the annual picnic.

Sustaining Membership Chair Fred Sperry reported that WMTV and Maney Logic had renewed their sustaining membership. There are currently 23 sustaining members.

Steve Paugh gave a report on the election committee stating that there were nominees for all the offices. The nominees are Cliff Groth, Chair; Dennis Baldridge, Vice-Chair; Tom Smith, Secretary; and Leslie Frazen, Treasurer.

The meeting was adjourned and Mid-West Family Chief Engineer John Bauer and his staff conducted a tour of their new facility, which houses the studios of eight Madison radio stations.

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On March 14, 2006, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Wireless issues and Spectrum Reform. The hearing covered the use of unlicensed devices on the TV band and other spectrum issues such as spectrum auctions and spectrum management. There were two panels that provided testimony before the Committee.

On the first panel, there were representatives of government including Ms. Catherine W. Seidel, Acting Bureau Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission; Mr. John M.R. Kneuer, Acting Assistant Secretary Communications and Information, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce; and Ms. Jayetta Hecker, Director of the Physical Infrastructure Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office

On the second panel, there were representatives of industry and consumer groups including Mr. Thomas F. Walsh, President of the Board, Rural Cellular Association; Dr. Kevin Kahn, Director of the Communications Technology Lab, Intel Corporation; Mr. Robert W. Hubbard, Secretary and Treasurer, Association for Maximum Service Television; Ms. Jeannine Kenney, Senior Policy Advisor, Consumer Union; and Mr. Lawrence J. White, Co-Chair of the Spectrum Policy Working Group, The Digital Age Communications Act Project, Progress & Freedom Foundation.

The three government representatives in their prepared statements basically gave a history on spectrum allocation and possible policies for future allocation and granting licenses for spectrum usage, including auctions and the use of unlicensed spectrum.

From the prepared statements of the second panel, Mr. Walsh requested auction policies that would benefit small rural cellular companies, including the use of smaller market areas to be auctioned. The current trend is for the government to auction large areas consisting of many markets or states, which favor large corporations. Mr. Kahn’s prepared statement centered on the unlicensed use of the TV broadcast band with 6 ½ pages of the 10 page statement dedicated to that subject. His statement also endorsed the passage of the bills that Mr. Stevens and Senators Allen and Kerry have proposed that would force the FCC to allow unlicensed devices to operate on the TV band.

Mr. Hubbard, representing the MSTV, gave a prepared statement that was basically a rebuttal to Intel and others concerning the use of unlicensed devices in the TV band. Mr. Hubbard’s prepared statement was 21 pages and he also had three appendixes which included a 36 page report by the Canadian Communication Research Centre, and a 10 page report by Meintel, Sgrignoli and Wallace on tests showing interference issues with unlicensed devices to TV receivers and a 36 page report by Meintel, Sgrignoli and Wallace showing open channel or "white" areas in various markets.

Ms. Kenney had a 15 page prepared statement of which a little over two pages centered on her groups support of the use of unlicensed devices in the TV bands. The rest of the statement deals with wireless and wired phone issues including broadband by telcos. Mr. White’s statement called for the end of both the current licensed and unlicensed models for managing the spectrum and called for the privatization of all spectrum.

Senator Steven’s question and answer session was published and at the end, he asked for more information from the panelist. He asked that unlike Mr. Hubbard, they limit their further statements to 2 or 3 pages.

All the panels statements and video of the hearing are available on the Committees website which can be found as part Congressional website (thomas.loc.gov).

In other news about the proposed use of unlicensed devices in the TV band, Sportsvideo.org reported in their electronic newsletter that a bill identical to Senator Ted Stevens has been introduced in the House to allow for unlicensed devices in the TV band. The sponsors include Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). The bill and any press statements from the sponsors have not yet been posted on the Congressional website.

Sportsvideo.org also reported concerns from the National Football League, Shure, Sennheiser, CBS Sports and Media General Broadcast Group. Sportsvideo.org also reported that the MSTV had scheduled meetings with House and Senate staff on April 10, 11, 12, 13, and 17th.

From thomas.loc.gov and Sportsvideo.org

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Enclosed with this newsletter is the official ballot for the SBE Chapter 24, 2006 election of officers. The deadline for returning your ballot to the nomination chair is Monday, April 24th, 2006. The nominations committee will count the ballots on the evening of Wednesday, April 26th, 2006 at WISC-TV.

You may turn in your ballot in person during the April 18th, 2006 chapter meeting. If you are unable to attend the April meeting, you may mail your ballot directly to me at:

Please indicate "Ballot" on the envelope and we will hold your ballot unopened until the official counting process. Your ballot must be in our possession before we begin the counting on April 26th. Remember that your membership must be current to be eligible to vote. Your membership number must be entered on the ballot for it to be valid. Thanks to the nomination committee members Jim Hermanson and Leonard Charles.

In the list of appointed officers published in last months newsletter, Jim Hermanson’s name was inadvertently left off. Jim is the Chapter 24 Certification Chair.

The current appointed officers are Certification Chair- Jim Hermanson, Program Committee Chair- Steve Paugh, Program Committee Members- Fred Sperry and Steve Zimmerman, Membership- Paul Stoffel, Sustaining Membership- Fred Sperry, Frequency Coordination- Tom Smith and National Liaison- Leonard Charles.

There is a vacancy for the position of Special Events Chair and Mike Norton would like to train someone to take over as editor of the award-winning Chapter 24 Newsletter. Please consider filling one of these vacancies.

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Certification information brochures and applications are available from Jim Hermanson, the Chapter 24 Certification Chair.

If you are considering taking an SBE certification exam, would like more information, or have questions about the process, you are encouraged to contact Jim. He can be reached by sending an email message to jhermanson@wisctv.com.

You can also find out more infomation about SBE Certification by visiting the National SBE website at: www.sbe.org/cert_index.php.

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Learn more infomation about the Broadcast Auxilary Service changes in the 2 GHz ENG band, and find out how it effects your station at: www.2ghzrelocation.com

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• The FCC approved a proposal March 17 to create a new Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (PS&HSB) that would assume some functions now under the umbrella of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB). But it appears that the Amateur Radio Service–now within the WTB’s Public Safety and Critical Infrastructure Division, headed by Michael J. Wilhelm, WS6BR–will remain within the WTB, according to Anthony Dale, Acting Director of the FCC’s Office of Managing Director (OMD).

"The Critical Infrastructure piece–that’s things like taxi cabs, Amateur Radio, chemical plants, all that type of thing–those are not public safety-specific functions," Dale said in response to a reporter’s question following the FCC open meeting. "The plan is to keep those in the Wireless Bureau." An official document spelling out just which functions and services will end up where has not yet been made public, and even Dale did not appear to be entirely clear on specifics. He and others stressed that some PS&HSB functions may overlap those of other bureaus.

• The FCC has invited comments on the American Radio Relay League’s Petition for Rule Making, designated RM-11325, which seeks to modify a Part 97 rule governing spread spectrum (SS) operation on Amateur Radio frequencies. The League has asked the Commission to drop all but the first sentence of §97.311(d), which now requires the use of automatic power control (APC) for SS stations running more than 1 watt, but retain the 100 W overall power limitation for SS. "The effect of the rule change would be to eliminate an automatic power control provision that has proven over time to be impractical" in terms of compliance, the League said in its petition, filed March 13. It also conceded that the provision–one the League had proposed and supported more than 10 years ago–was unnecessary to protect the operations of other licensees and had "unfortunately served as an unintended but effective deterrent to spread spectrum experimentation" on ham radio. Comments are due Wednesday, May 3; reply comments are due Thursday, May 18.

• Members of the Titusville and the North Brevard Amateur Radio clubs in Florida will be on the air as special event station N4S Sunday, April 9, through Saturday, April 15, at the Florida Space Authority facility at the Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station complex. The N4S special event will celebrate the silver anniversary of NASA’s successful space shuttle program, which began with the launch of the shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981. Through contacts with stations around the globe, the special event hopes to increase awareness of the many NASA men and women of space technology and note their accomplishments.

(Excerpts from the American Radio Relay League’s <www.arrl.org> web site)

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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.

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

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The Chapter 24 Newsletter is published monthly by SBE Chapter 24 Inc., Madison, WI.

Could you be the next newsletter editor? Chapter 24 is seeking a volunteer to become the next editor of the award- winning Chapter 24 newsletter. Good PC skills are helpful and experience with PageMaker for Windows a plus.

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The Society of Broadcast Engineers is partnering with NAB to present the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference (BEC) at this years NAB spring convention. The BEC features the special in-depth Ennes Workshops on Saturday plus informative sessions covering the latest in broadcast technology from Sunday through Thursday. SBE also has a full slate of meetings during the week. Download a PDF map of SBE meetings and events at www.sbe.org.

Members of SBE can register for the NAB convention at a special "partner" rate, a savings of $200 off the NAB non-member rate. To get the discount, SBE members register using a special NAB Partner link to the NAB online registration form. At Step 6 of the online registration form (Registration Selection), select the Broadcast Engineering Conference listed under "NAB Partner."

The annual spring SBE Membership Meeting will be held Tuesday, April 25 from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm in S227 of the Las Vegas Convention Center. SBE will present its Lifetime Achievement Award to a deserving member. We’ll also be recognizing the 30th anniversary of the SBE Program of Certification which will include a special token given to the first 250 SBE certified individuals attending, sponsored in part by Middle Atlantic Products. We will also recognize a number of our local chapter certification chairs and the National Certification Committee.

There will also be a special Membership Meeting memento for the first 100 members in attendance and a nice "bigger" prize that a lucky winner will take home. The Spring SBE Membership Meeting is sponsored by Microwave Radio Communications. We thank them for their support. Be sure to include the SBE Membership Meeting on your NAB convention schedule.

SBE will hold several other meetings during NAB2006 that may be of interest to you. (Located at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel unless otherwise indicated)

We’re moving to the second floor of the South Hall, Lobby Booth 28, which is just up the escalator from the South Hall main entrance and just outside the entry to the exhibits on the second floor. The BEC is also moving to the second floor of the South Hall.

Be sure to plan to visit the SBE booth while at the convention. We’ll have the popular "CertPreview" exam preparation software programs available along with all of our SBE published books including the SBE Television Operators Handbook, SBE Chief Operators Handbook and SBE Handbook for Radio Operators. The booth will also have a nice selection of broadcast engineering-related technical books available to members at SBE member-discount prices and an assortment of SBE logo items. Membership renewals and new memberships may also be transacted at the booth.

Some SBE Members go above and beyond the call of duty to do their jobs and serve SBE and the broadcast industry, and some local SBE chapters do an excellent job of serving their members. But often these efforts can go unrecognized. Don’t let that happen this year. Make your nominations now for the 2005 SBE Chapter and Individual Awards.

There are five chapter and five individual award categories from which to choose when making a nomination. Three chapter awards are determined by using statistical information on record at the SBE National Office. In addition, five of the chapter awards are divided into two classes so that chapters with vastly different membership sizes are not competing with each other. This means that up to 18 awards could be presented.

Award winners will be notified in July and invited to attend the 2006 SBE National Meeting, which will be held September 26-27 in conjunction with the 34th Annual SBE22 Broadcast & Technology Expo sponsored by Central New York Chapter 22 in Verona, N.Y. Winners will be presented with either a certificate or a plaque at the SBE National Awards Dinner held Wednesday, September 27.

Nominations are due to the SBE National Office no later than May 31, 2006. For additional information, please contact Angel Bates at abates@sbe.org or (317) 846-9000 or Larry Wilkins, Awards Committee Chair, at larry.wilkins@cumulus.com or (334) 303-2525.

The Society of Broadcast Engineers, in response to those who have requested a forum dedicated and limited to the discussion of issues related to the Emergency Alert System, has instituted the ‘SBE-EAS Exchange. The EAS Exchange will be moderated by SBE EAS Committee Chair, Clay Freinwald, CPBE. On occasion, another member of the SBE EAS Committee may also moderate the discussion. SBE membership is encouraged to participate on the EAS Exchange, but it is not required.

Participants can discuss equipment issues, the latest related FCC activity, share EAS failures or success stories etc.

To subscribe to the SBE-EAS Exchange, go to http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/sbe-eas.

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The FCC has granted voluntary assignment of construction permits with restrictions for the four FM translators from Sister Grace, Inc. to Starboard Media Foundation, Inc.

Sister Grace, Inc. was granted a large number of construction permits for FM translators in the past couple of years and has been selling some of those construction permits. Starboard Media Foundation, Inc. owns or has applications for 74 radio stations and translators around the country including nine AM and FM stations in Wisconsin of which WHFA (AM) in Poynette and WKRZ (AM) in Lake Geneva are two of them. As both these stations are AM stations and FCC rules prohibit the use of FM translators to rebroadcast AM stations, these translators will be airing programming from one of Starboards FM stations, most likely WOVM in Appleton. The rebroadcast of FM stations in the reserved band (88.1-91.9 MHz) has the fewest restrictions. The applications for transfer and the new authorizations have not been posted on the FCC website, so there is little information on the sale, restrictions or station to be rebroadcast.

This action was announced on March 28, 2006 with the action being taken on March 21, 2006.

The FCC has granted Magnum Communications, Inc. request to reallocate FM channel 240A from Portage, WI to Stoughton, WI. Magnum will have to reapply for the channel and has promised the FCC that it will construct the station if the application is granted. Mid-West Management, Inc had filed objections to the reallocation on grounds that 2,400 persons would receive only one full-time aural service and that Stoughton was not independent of the Madison Urban area. They also claimed that Portage needed the three aural services more than the well-served Madison area.

The FCC claimed that Stoughton was in fact an independent urban area and meets the FCC guidelines as such. The FCC also stated that there would be no loss of night time service for anyone.

The transmitter will need to be located 6.3 miles southwest of Stoughton. The action was taken on April 5, 2006 and released on April 7th.

From FCC Releases (www.fcc.gov)

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The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning the allotment of spectrum within the 4 TV channels that are to be reallocated for Public Safety use as part of the DTV transition. This is the Eighth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on this subject.

This notice deals mainly with the issue of the use of some of this spectrum for broadband communications and whether more of the spectrum should be reallocated for broadband use. The notice also request information on whether there is a continuing need for broadband interoperability and if the FCC should adopt the SAM wideband data interoperability standard.

The FCC has three proposals for reallocation of the spectrum that is currently set aside for broadband, wideband general use and interoperability channels from Motorola, Lucent and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council.

Currently there is a combination of 12.5 KHz channels, which can be combined for 25 KHz for voice and 50 KHz wideband channels, which can be combined for a total of 150 KHz for data and other wideband usage. All the parts are proposing that the 50 KHz channels can be combined for either 1 MHz or 1.25 MHz channels for wideband data and video. Guard bands will also have to be created between the narrowband and wideband channels, as the wideband transmissions will need more power.

This notice shows that much work needs to be done before there can be a unified communications system for the Nations public safety agencies, and these issues may not be solved and equipment available before the end of the DTV transition.

This notice was adopted on March 17, 2006 and released on March 21st. It was published in the Federal Register on April 7th (pages 17786-17790). Comments are due on June 6th and replies on July 6th.

From FCC Release (www.fcc.gov) and the Federal Register (www.access.gpo.gov).

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