• Contents for this Newsletter

About This Newsletter
Meeting Announcement
Upcoming Meeting Schedule
Meeting Minutes
Don Borchert Induced Into Hall Of Fame
SBE's Short Circuits
Amateur Radio News
Chapter 24 Seeking Newsletter Editor
SBE Names New Certification Director
SBE Leader Skills Seminar
Sprint/Nextel BAS Website
FCC Rulemakings
Upcoming Events
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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Ken Dillard of Statmon Technologies will give us a presentation of past methods and requirements for transmitter remote controls and then look at today’s expanded remote control requirements and how to handle our ever increasing responsibilities.   An overview of the tools that we currently have to accomplish these tasks and their limitations we be discussed.

The discussion continues as we evaluate new platforms to better manage an expanding variety of equipment and devices used at transmission sites, the NOC and Master Control. We will discuss what the expectations should realistically be for a software based platform in implementing a remote control and monitoring system.  Statmon Technologies will give a practical example using their AXESS software and EIF-32+ interface hardware.

Orban will have their Audio Processing Demo truck in the parking lot for your pre-meeting inspection.

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Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers meet on June 22, 2006 and held their annual picnic at Badger Prairie Park at Verona, WI. There were 10 members present, of whom 7 were certified. There were also 5 guests present. There was a short business meeting held after the picnic dinner was held.

Chair Cliff Groth called the meeting to order, stating that because of it being the picnic meeting, the meeting would be informal. Leonard Charles made the motion to accept the May minutes as published in the newsletter with Kevin Ruppert seconding the motion. Secretary Tom Smith and Past Chair Jim Magee reported that they both sent in nominations for the national awards. Tom had sent in applications for best website, frequency coordination, newsletter and conference (Broadcasters Clinic). Jim sent in applications for website, newsletter, and best article.

Program Chair Steve Paugh reported that the July meeting would be a program from Satmon Technologies, the August meeting was open, and the September meeting would be a tour of the airport, which would require sign-up to attend due to airport security.

Treasurer Leslie Franzen reported the Chapter bank balance, which is in the black.

Frequency Coordinator Tom Smith reported that the Sports Video Group, an organization of sports television production personal, was going to have a meeting on June 27th of which the main topic was the proposed rules and laws to allow unlicensed consumer equipment on the TV bands in the so-called white areas. He also mentioned that in the May issue of Mix there was a very good article on the wireless mike issue. Leonard Charles, who is also involved with the MSTV, reported that the proposed law would broaden the use of unlicensed equipment on the TV band from just WI-MAX systems to all kinds of wireless devices including wireless phones, remote controls and any other wireless device that may be in you home.

Cliff Groth reported that HD radio was growing with Midwest Broadcast stations planning on starting operations soon.

There was a brief discussion on the February 17, 2009 analog TV shutdown. It was also noted that there were several SBE members in attendance at the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s Hall of Fame Dinner to see Don Brocht inducted into the Hall Of Fame.

Entertainment was supplied by Trailing Edge Entertainment; otherwise know as the two Kevins, Kevin Peckham and Kevin Ruppert.

A motion was made to thank Steve Paugh for organizing the Picnic and doing a fine job as Chef.

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On June 16th, Don Borchert was induced in the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s Hall of Fame along with two other longtime Wisconsin broadcasters. The ceremony was held at the WBA Summer Conference at the Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake. In attendance were 19 former inductees into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Don was the first person to be honored that evening. Don was honored for his contributions in the development of the Wisconsin Public Television and Radio facilities in Vilas Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus, the Madison Community Tower and his 30 plus years of promoting broadcast engineering education with his management of the Broadcasters Clinic.

Before being awarded his plaque, a video was run in which Don reminisced about his career. Also interviewed in the video were retired Wisconsin Public Broadcasting Directors Luke Lamb and Byron Knight, WBA President John Labbs, and WISC Chief Engineer Leonard Charles. John Labbs presented Don with his plaque after the video. Don made a short acceptance speech thanking the WBA and stating that he had an enjoyable and interesting career and had no regrets in choosing broadcast engineering as a career.

Also in attendance were his wife, Mary, his grandson, and members of the Broadcast Clinic Program Committee Gary Mach, Mark Burg, Leonard Charles and Tom Smith and SBE board member Keith Kinter.

The two other inductees were former Communications professor, WHA-TV manager, UW Stevens Point President and Governor of Wisconsin Lee Sherman Dreyfus and longtime Eau Claire area broadcast salesman and manager Marty Green. Governor Dreyfus was unable to attend and his grandson accepted his award.

The induction of Governor Dreyfus also made another first. In 1999, his father Woods Dreyfus was inducted in the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame, which made this the first father-son member to the Hall of Fame. In video comments, the former Governor said that that made the honor even more special.

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Three members of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) were recently elected to the membership grade of Fellow by the SBE Board of Directors. The nominations of Raymond C. Benedict, CPBE, Gary S. Hartman, CPBE and Troy D. Pennington, CPBE were acted on by the Board at their April 23 meeting in Las Vegas.

The recipients will be recognized during the SBE National Awards Dinner, held as a part of the SBE National Meeting, September 27 in Verona, New York.

The annual meeting is being held in conjunction with the Broadcast & Technology Expo, sponsored by SBE Chapter 22 of Central New York.

Ray Benedict is Director of Spectrum Engineering for CBS Corporation and is responsible for the FCC licensing and engineering regulatory compliance matters for all of the CBS owned entities. Benedict has almost 50 years of service to the broadcast industry, beginning in his home state of Vermont.

Benedict is an active member of SBE, serving as a member of the Board of Directors in the early 1980’s and again from 1996 through 1999. He then served as Secretary from 2000 through 2001, vice president from 2001 through 2003 and then as national president for two terms from 2003 through 2005. He is currently serving on the Board as Immediate Past President. He has been SBE Life Certified at the CPBE level since 1998.

Gary Hartman holds SBE member number 974, having joined SBE on February 3, 1969. His career in broadcast engineering has spanned six decades and has been an active member of SBE Chapter 22 for the last 37 years.

As a charter member of Chapter 22, Hartman held several positions over an eight year period beginning in 1971, including the chairman’s post from January 1976 to March 1978.

Hartman served as chairman for the highly successful Chapter 22 SBE regional convention during the early 1980’s. About that time, he became involved in the chapter’s frequency coordination committee and has served as volunteer Frequency Coordinator for his region for many years.

The third recipient of the rank of SBE Fellow is Troy Pennington, a veteran of more than 35 years in broadcasting. Pennington is Regional Director of Engineering for Cumulus Broadcasting, serving the Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee areas and is based in Nashville.

Pennington served Chapter 68 in Birmingham as its chapter chairman for two terms and also vice chairman, newsletter editor, secretary/treasurer for three terms and program chairman. He was active in the formation of the chapter in Montgomery and the reorganization of the Huntsville chapter. He is active now with Chapter 103 in Nashville.

He has served the National SBE as President for two terms, vice president, treasurer and twice as a national Director. Additionally, he has served as chairman of the Executive Committee, as a member of the Certification Committee, represented SBE on the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference planning committee.

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• Five astronaut-hams now are aboard the International Space Station, and one of them – European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, DF4TR – has officially joined the Expedition 13 crew for the remainder of its duty tour and for about half of Expedition 14’s tour – six months in all, according to NASA. His arrival marks the first time since May 2003 that the ISS has had a three-member crew. Reiter and six other astronauts – two of them also hams – arrived July 6 aboard shuttle Discovery.

There to greet the newcomers when they came aboard the ISS were Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, RV3BS, and Flight Engineer and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ. The shuttle and ISS crews will spend the next week conducting joint operations, including two spacewalks and the transfer of cargo. Discovery delivered hardware and supplies, most of which are located in the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module, which were attached to the station’s Unity module July 7. Then, the two crews were scheduled to transfer unneeded items from the station to Leonardo for the trip back to Earth.

Discovery shot into space from Cape Kennedy July 4 – the first Independence Day shuttle launch ever and only the second since the Columbia disaster in 2003. Relieved mission control personnel reacted with hoots, handshakes and hugs after the twice-postponed Discovery mission STS-121 reached preliminary orbit without a hitch.

The STS-121 crew includes Commander Steven Lindsey; Pilot Mark Kelly; mission specialists Stephanie Wilson, KD5DZE, Lisa Nowak, KC5ZTB; Michael Fossum and Piers Sellers.

Figure 1. Taking a training break: Astronauts Lisa Nowak, KC5ZTB (left) and Stephanie Wilson, KD5DZE. [NASA Photo]

Weather worries kept Discovery on the launch pad July 1 and 2. NASA managers also were concerned about a crack discovered in foam insulation near a bracket holding the liquid oxygen feed line in place on the external fuel tank. Some insulation also broke free during launch.

To be on the safe side, prior to docking, Lindsey piloted Discovery through a back-flip maneuver to allow Vinogradov and Williams to eyeball and capture imagery of the orbiter’s heat shield for any signs of damage.

NASA is pinning its hopes on a successful Discovery mission, since the space shuttle is the only vehicle capable of transporting the components remaining to complete the ISS, including the ESA’s Columbus module, which has been outfitted to accommodate Amateur Radio.

The astronaut-hams aboard the ISS currently use the downlink frequency of 145.800 MHz to communicate with earthbound amateurs. FM voice uplink to ISS is on 145.200 MHz. The Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) operates a web site, www.amsat.org, that calculates overhead passes of the ISS at a particular location to predict when communications will be possible.

(Excerpts from the arrl.org and amsat.org web sites)

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Could you be the next newsletter editor? Are you an aspiring technical writer that can explain the technology ? 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.

Please contact the Chapter Chair for more information.

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I am pleased to announce that Megan Clappe has been promoted to the position of Certification Director, effective July 1. Megan has served on the SBE National Office staff as Certification Assistant since September of 2003. During that time, she has been involved in many facets of the certification program. That experience has prepared Meagan well for this new role.

Megan fills the vacancy created following the resignation of Linda Baun, announced in May. Linda, who will be with SBE through the month of June, has accepted the position of vice president with the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association.

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From August 8 to 10 2006, the SBE will hold its SBE Leader-Skills Course II in Indianapolis. This is part one of the two-part leader skills seminar. Subtitled "Expanding Your People Skills," the course will be held at the Radisson Hotel Indianapolis Airport in Indianapolis.

The event is sponsored by the Society of Broadcast Engineers and taught by Richard Cupka. Information on the seminar is available online at http://www.sbe.org/documents/Leader-Skills_Reg06_001.pdf

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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 has opened a new Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on broadcast ownership. This action is due to a requirement in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that the FCC hold periodic reviews of the ownership rules and a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Prometheus v. FCC which stayed and remanded several media ownership rules that the FCC had adopted in the 2002 Biennial Review Order.

The FCC seeks to address several issues raised by the Court Ruling. These include revision of the numerical limits of station which are commonly owned in a market as determined in the 2002 action. The FCC will also take a look at radio/television and newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership. The court also has questions that the FCC will address concerning minority ownership.

The FCC put out a fact sheet with the press release describing the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. In the fact sheet, the FCC stated that the notice seeks comment on local TV ownership limits, local radio ownership limits, the newspaper broadcast cross-ownership ban, the radio-TV cross ownership ban, the dual network ban and the UHF discount on the national TV ownership limit.

The Commission will also do comprehensive studies on how people get news and information, competition between different types of media, and marketplace changes since the last review of ownership rules. Additional studies will be done on localism, minority participation in today’s media, and the impact on independent, children’s, and family programming and the diversity of such programming. $200,000 is budgeted for these studies.

The FCC will hold six public hearings on this ownership proceeding which will include discussions on how the ownership limits affect localism, competition, diversity, minority ownership, seniors citizens, advertisers, rural America, the economy, and the disabled community. Also to be discussed is the effects on the ownership limits on children’s and family programming, religious programming, music and the arts, campaign and community coverage, and independent programming. Finally they want information on the effect of the internet on broadcasting.

The comment period will be 120 days and the FCC will have a link on their homepage to the webpage dedicated to the media ownership proceeding.

The three Republican members of the Commission, Chair Kevin Martin and newcomers Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert M. McDowell made one-page general statements on the action, but the two Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, made five and four page statements in which they concurred in part and dissented in part. They concurred that action was required and necessary. But both complained that the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking did not address the issues in depth. Commissioner Adelstein stated that "it was like submitting a high-school term paper for a PH.D. thesis." The full notice, which has not been released as of this writing, is not very long according to Copps and Adelstein.

Both noted that the FCC has not completed its three year-old inquiry into localism and that should be done before any action on ownership rules. They also stated that the FCC failed to listen to 3 million citizens in the last ownership rulemaking and that action was rejected by the Senate and the Courts. They ask for more public hearings, more research and a comment period on the final rulemaking notice. Currently, according to Copps and Adelstein the Commission will write and adopt rules based on comments from this notice and will not seek comments on the specific rules that they write.

This action was adopted on June 21, 2006. At this time the FCC has only released a press release with fact sheet and the comments of the five Commissioners. A date has not been set for the comment period.

This Rulemaking comes from the Federal Aeronautics Administration and not the FCC. Still, broadcasters should be aware of this rulemaking as it affects you in a numbers of ways. Besides the FAA wanting to know if your tower is in a flight path and could be hit by an airplane, the FAA is concerned that you can cause interference to radios and radio navigation aids.

The FAA is proposing that all users of RF in certain bands including some broadcast bands and anyone constructing a tower over 200 feet or in an airport flight path notify that FAA 60 days before construction or 60 days before applying for local zoning or building permits. This is an increase from a 30 day notification requirement.

Anyone using the RF bands of 54-108 MHz, 150-216 MHZ, 406-420 MHz, 932-935/941 MHz, 952-960 MHz, 1390-1400 MHz, 2500-2700 MHz, 3700-4200 MHz, 5000-6525 MHz, 7450-8550 MHz, 14.2-14.4 GHz and 21.2-23.6 GHz who constructs or modifies the antenna system including number of bays, gain, height, location, beamwidth, or beam direction must notify the FAA. Even thought the FAA does not use these bands, they are adjacent to FAA bands used by aircraft and for radiolocation including beacons and radar. Of concern to broadcasters is 54-108 MHz which is low-band VHF TV and FM, 150-216 MHz which is land mobile including VHF remote pick-up and high band VHF-TV. FM is a special concern to the FAA and has been subject to some review by them because it is just below the main aircraft communication and location band.

The FAA is also increasing some review of facilities near private airports that have radio location landing systems.

All towers over 200 feet are subject to review by the FAA, but any tower 500 feet and over has been considered a hazard to aviation and subject to special review. Because the minimum height an aircraft can fly is 500 feet, the FAA is decreasing the height for towers not subject to review to 499 feet.

The notice was published in the Federal Register on June 13, 2006 on pages 34028-34045. Comments are due on September 11, 2006.

On June 8, 2006, the FCC released a notice asking for comment on setting aside some spectrum for the test of various methods of spectrum sharing. This action is concurrent with an inquiry by the National Telecommunications Information Agency (NTIA). The two agencies wish to set aside 20 MHz of spectrum to test various methods of sharing spectrum among different types of users.

The FCC asked in the notice what the goals and scope of the test-bed should be, what the logistics of operations should be, if the present experimental licensing system would work in this system, what information the FCC would require from users before tests are authorized or made, and how test information would be handles by the testers and the FCC.

Comments were due on July 10th and replies are due on July 24th.

The FCC has asked for comments on a report on emergency readiness from a panel setup by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in January. This panel was setup to review the communications problems caused during Hurricane Katrina and find methods to avoid them in the future. This report was adopted by the Commission on June 16th and released on June 19th.

The panel made four recommendations. The first was that communication networks and government pre-position stand-by communications equipment and supplies. They recommend that there be training exercises, business and operational continuation plans made and operational check lists created. They recommend that the Network Reliability and Interpretability Council (NRIC) and the Media Security and Reliability Council (MSRC) create their own check lists.

The panel also recommended that a credential program be started by the states, so that repair crews would be able to travel to their sites to repair communications equipment. This would include broadcasters.

The panel also suggested that first responders such as the police and state agencies develop a cache of emergency equipment and that some amount of backup be created for the 911 system. And finally the panel suggested that in order to communicate with the public, the EAS system should be upgraded including better communications to the disabled and non-English speaking persons. They noted that a current FCC inquiry on EAS covered these issues.

The actual report is a 60 page appendix to the 22 page notice. It should be interesting reading to anyone doing emergency preparedness planning as many of their recommendations may influence EAS and government rules and actions during times of emergencies.

The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed rulemaking to create the rules for operation of a broadcast Satellite service with downlinks to the consumer in the 17.3-17.7 and the 17.7-17.8 GHz bands with the uplinks in the 24.75-25.25 GHz. The new service would share the 17.7-17.8 GHz band with broadcast relay, cable relay and part 101 microwave.

The service would be similar to the current 12GHz Direct to home satellite service, and in fact Dish, DirecTV, Pegasus, and Intelsat have made applications for the new band.

The rule making was made on June 21, 2006 and released on June 23rd. The comment period will start 30 after publication in the Federal Register with replies due 15 days later.

From FCC Releases and Notices (www.fcc.gov) and the Federal Register (www.gpo.gov)

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Technology-based fields change rapidly, so you need to keep up. There are some future broadcast conferences which offer educational opportunities for broadcast engineers. To find out more about the scheduled sessions, visit the listed web site.

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