COCKEYSVILLE, MD.—Sinclair and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies, hosted another in a continuing series of ATSC 3.0 device interoperability trials this week.

This time, the testing centered on DRM (digital rights management) and signal signing, dynamic ad insertion, the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer, dynamic service changes, interactive services, enhanced audio and video services, failover recovery, and performance of a “BEST” (Broadcast-Enabled Streaming Television) channel feature whereby an over-the-air signaled channel is delivered via a broadband connection.

According to Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media Technologies and Sinclair’s senior vice president of advanced technology, the June 3-7 “interop,” or “plugfest” was the seventh such event to be hosted by ONE Media, and the second in-person trialing of NextGenTV technology since 2020.

More than two dozen equipment manufacturers and broadcast groups participated in the trialing, which took place in the ONE Media lab facility at Sinclair’s headquarters located in this Baltimore suburb. More than 100 separate tests were scheduled to be conducted during the four-and-a-half-day event.

Trials involved air chain (encoder, packager, gateway and exciter) technology providers, as well as 3.0 receiver and emergency alerting equipment manufacturers. ONE Media and Sinclair, in addition to providing the facility, also distributed Baltimore area ATSC 3.0 off-air signals to participants’ workstations to create a real-world testing environment.

What's Being Trialed This Time
Along with continued testing of ATSC 3.0’s MMT (MPEG media transport) and DRM (digital rights management) components, this year’s sessions also addressed signal modulation changes, with the latter being especially important as new NextGen TV services such as datacasting, DAI (dynamic ad insertion) and BPS (broadcast positioning service) are rolled out.

As explained by the event’s coordinator, and ONE Media senior systems engineer, Jason Kim, with 3.0, the signal modulation component is not fixed as was the case in earlier DTV implementations and standards.

“With ATSC 3.0 you can make your signal robust, but you’re not going to have as much bandwidth and throughput,” he said. “[Alternatively], you can change things to increase bandwidth to deliver as much data as possible, but the signal is not going to be as robust. There’s a tradeoff.”

“We’re trying to find a sweet spot where we can continue our linear video services and also provide robust mobile data delivery. Since the ATSC 3.0 physical layer modulation is flexible, we can optimize this,” he added.

Kim stated that testing of 3.0 physical layer configurations in preparation for datacasting would be part of the interop schedule.

“This is important, not just for Sinclair, but for others as well,” he said. “We are testing different configurations end-to-end in the delivery chain. Our number one priority is to ensure that there is no service disruption to television viewers. We want to find a modulation ‘sweet spot’ where this is possible.”

Kim observed too that while DRM testing had been part of previous interop events, it figured heavily into this year’s schedule as well.

“We want to make sure that there is interoperability with all of the existing receivers out there,” he said.

Aitken amplified Kim’s remarks.

“You’ve had early issues in connection with DRM that have stuck in the minds of some,” said Aitken, recalling that there had been mixed opinions about the technology developed to ensure that a network’s high-quality content wasn’t accessible by those who would want to use it for monetary gain.

“The battle cry has been that DRM gets in the way,” said Aitken. “At this event, we’re seeing that the different permutations of DRM are working quite well. This is a testimony to everyone involved, and also serves to raise a hand in the crowd and say ‘wait a minute — there’s a lot being said about little to nothing.’ Here’s the proof [a consensus on DRM]. Here’s the industry coming together.”

A Quicker Way of Rolling out NextGen TV
Kim observed that the “failover recovery” element of the interop testing was being performed in connection with a technology that’s being developed to allow broadcasters to very quickly deploy ATSC 3.0 services.

“This is an air chain that’s set up in the cloud,” said Kim. “It’s a totally virtual air chain. ONE Media and Sinclair demonstrated this air-chain-in-the-cloud concept at the NAB Show this year. We’re using the same air chain in our tests this week. This is the first time that a cloud air chain has been used at an interop.”

He elaborated that the “failover” component of the testing was especially important for when cloud-based 3.0 is implemented on a large scale.

“We’re testing failover between cloud and on-premises air chain implementations to see how fast these changes can be made,” said Kim. We need to [establish] the best way to do this so the viewer doesn’t notice. We need to see how receivers react and if this changeover can be done seamlessly.”

Interop Timing
Aitken noted that this year’s interop event had been scheduled to occur close to the June 12-13 ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference and associated meetings.

“We thought that a lot of folks would be in town for either the interop or the ATSC annual conference; maybe for one or the other, and for many, both,” said Aitken. “If it didn’t make sense to come for one thing, it makes sense to come for two things. This event [the interop] is all the more timely because of the push within the FCC to sunset ATSC 1.0.

“I expect that within the next few years we’ll have the ATSC 3.0 national rollout well underway. Washington is sort of a strange place these days, so nobody is taking bets on exactly what’s going to happen and when something’s going to happen, but I can tell you that’s something’s going to happen.”

Advantages of In-Person Testing
While noting that ATSC 3.0-related interops of plugfests had continued virtually during the pandemic, both Aitken and Kim acknowledged that there was no substitute for the in-person testing and evaluation that was taking place at this year’s event.

“At an in-person event, we all see the same thing and work together to troubleshoot any problems,” said Kim. “This happens a lot faster when you’re doing things in person. You get more things done in person. It’s very different from a virtual environment.”

“If you get the right people together at the same time in the same place, and deal with the same issues, many of these issues are easy to resolve,” said Aitken. “We saw that last time, especially in connection with signal signing. One party had it right and three had it wrong. What they had differently was quickly worked out.

“We’ve got encoding, packaging, scheduling, modulation, along with the demodulation and display — the entire chain all in one place,” he observed. “It’s rare that you have in the same room multiple representatives from every piece of the broadcast chain.

The interop event attracted some 55 participants traveling from a variety of countries with a presence or interest in NextGen TV development. Organizations represented included ADTH, Airwavz, Alticast, Anywave, Ateme, DigiCAP, DS Broadcast, DTV Innovations, EiTV, Enensys, Gray Media, Harmonic, Hisense, Heartland Video Systems (HVS), iWedia, Koherence, Maru Eng, News-Press & Gazette (NPG), Pearl TV, Rhode & Schwarz, Samsung, Sinclair/ONE Media, Sony, Synamedia, TCL, Triveni Digital, Velope, and Zixi.

RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF.—The movers and shakers of the content production community gathered under the HPA Tech Retreat banner once again here in southern California’s Coachella Valley resort area to hear about the latest industry trends, technological breakthroughs and issues, network, and also “kick back” a bit from winter doldrums.

The year’s event, held Feb. 16-20, marked the 30th anniversary of a gathering that began as a rather small “winter break” and eventually morphed over the years into a consistently sold-out “must attend” conference, with attendance limited to 800. The Hollywood Professional Association serves the professional community of the post-production industry in film, television, and digital media.

As might be expected, the topic of artificial intelligence permeated the 2025 Tech Retreat, with AI either the subject or object of more than a third of the presentations, and managing to creep into a number of other panel discussions and exchanges of information. (AI-related topics even factored into the Retreat’s daily “breakfast roundtable” discussions where attendees could listen to, and join in, timely discussions as they enjoy breakfast.)

The Human Factor In AI-Based Content Creation
“This year’s topic could not be more timely,” said Seth Hallen, HPA past-president, in opening the conference’s initial “Supersession,” which was themed “The Evolving Human Role in AI-Driven Film and TV Production and Post-Production Workflows.”

“A year ago, we sat on this stage and introduced — and maybe in some cases — dragged people into this world of AI,” said Hallen. “Since then, we have marveled at the sheer power of these tools. AI is transforming workflows and long-held processes, and causing more debate than any technology shift that we’ve seen in years. But today, we’re going to shift our focus. Let’s refocus our attention away from the tools themselves and turn, in fact, to the humans, because the real power of AI isn’t about replacing creativity, it’s about amplifying it.

Hallen then turned the program over to Renard Jenkins, president and chief executive officer of I2A2 Technologies, Studios and Labs, who stressed the importance of the human factor in meaningfully creating anything with artificial intelligence.

Jenkins observed that one year ago, AI’s stage of development could be compared to that of an infant or toddler, and in the intervening period, that toddler has now developed into a teenager. “We’re at the stage where AI thinks it knows more than we do,” he said. “We can do nothing right in AI’s eyes. We are not helpful to AI.”

Jenkins noted, however, that whether or not “the teenager” agrees, it still needs guidance.

“The teenager still needs the input from parents. Teenagers — no matter how smart they think they are — can only learn, can only grow [if they have guidance].”

In relating this human analogy to AI, Jenkins stressed that developers of the technology needed to spend plenty of time to be sure that their models “are ethically sourced, responsibly built, and actually have a purpose,” and not to merely “graft off what’s already there.”

He also offered encouragement for anyone who might feel threatened by the incursion of AI into the content creation industry. “If anybody tells you that AI is going to replace the workers, replace the artists, AI is going to replace, replace, replace…, I will theorize that person is extremely misguided as to how these tools and how these systems should be used, and how they can be most impactful to us as a society.”

Jenkins admonished anyone whose work and career path will likely involve AI technology to take advantage of the educational opportunities that now exist in the area of artificial intelligence and get “upskilled.”

“Upskilling” is the way forward for those of you who are concerned about where our industry is going,” he said. “Start now Prepare yourself for where this is going. Get yourself into this space.”

A Fresh Look At AI
Tech Retreat presentations also examined changes in AI evolution during the past year.

In one of these — “Is The Industry Sitting On An AI Goldmine Or A Ticking Timebomb?” — Richard Welsh, SMPTE president and senior vice president of innovation at Deluxe, provided an update on recent legal decisions involving the technology, with one of these providing some amplification on the previously-established rulings on copyrightability involving AI.

“The [U.S. Copyright] Office confirms that the use of AI to assist in the process of creation or the inclusion of AI-generated material in a larger human-generated work does not bar copyrightability,” said Welsh, in citing a very recent (Jan. 29, 2025) U.S. Copyright Office bulletin. He added that this excluded, however, “the mere provision of prompts.”

Welsh said that the European Union is also taking a fresh look at AI, repeating a Feb. 12 dispatch from Reuters that reported that “draft rules that regulated technology patents, AI and consumer privacy to messaging apps had been scrapped.”

He also noted that an EU “Liability Directive” now allows consumers to bring lawsuits based on “harm due to the fault or omission of (the) provider, developer or user of AI technology,” and that new legislation requires generative AI developers to disclose if copyrighted material is used in training data.

Welsh said that the “ticking timebomb” in the title of his presentation referred to legal aspects surrounding content that involved AI in some way. “We in the industry need to spend a lot of time talking about this,” said Welsh.

In looking at some of the items content creators needed to consider when involving AI in their work, Welsh noted that “AI needs to be trained only on your own work, so data from other’s works doesn’t get in there.”

He also stated that traceability of all elements used in creating content was very important. “Rights are going to become more and more important; this is already a big issue,” said Welsh. With the explosion of content originating from dashcams, surveillance cameras, other non-mainstream sources, it’s more important than ever to know where your video clips are coming from.

“Every bit of data that comes into your organization needs to be tagged as to its source,” said Welsh. “Tag everything.”

Can AI Have A Role In Sustainability?
In a slightly different take on the value of AI in the media industry, Barbara Lange, principal and chief executive officer of Kibo121, noted in her presentation — “AI for Good: The Role of Emerging Tech in Sustainability”— that AI was something of a double-edged sword.

Lange observed that AI is a very energy-hungry technology, stating that “by 2030, over 20% of U.S. electricity could be powering data centers for AI,” and noting that in light of this “sustainability is not just a responsibility; it’s a business imperative.”

Lange stated that AI did have a “plus side,” as it is a powerful search tool, and in this application could be used effectively by content creators to reduce the need for re-shoots, which in turn would save time, money, and transportation costs, all of which would go to reducing the M&E industry’s carbon footprint.

“AI is already being deployed in other industries with an eye to sustainability,” she said. “Increasing efficiency in transportation, enhancing indoor climate control, making appliances smarter, optimizing agriculture outcomes, optimizing electricity use, and maximizing resources and utilities.”

Everyone Can Now Be A Content Producer/Distributor
Apart from the main AI theme, a special pre-conference TR-X (“Tech Retreat eXtreme”) program themed “Affordable Production” focused on today’s increasing democratization in the areas of content creation and distribution. “Affordable Production.”

“I don’t know of any other generation in Hollywood that’s been confronted with such a tectonic industry shift in such a small period of time,” stated TR-X co-chair, Mark Chiolis, in describing the disruption created by the emergence of inexpensive devices for capturing content and the pipelines and channels for distributing this content.

In his “Disruptive Pixels: The Big Power of Small Budgets” session keynote, Mike Cioni, founder of several start-up M&E production operations, described the shift in consumer content consumption patterns, citing a survey that revealed “in 2023 the average American purchased only two movie theater tickets, and 84% of podcasts are being viewed on video platforms.”

Cioni blamed this situation on a reluctance by the content production industry to break away from long-established practices and patterns associated with maintaining perhaps an artificially high level of quality, referring to this condition as “friction.”

“In order for us to maintain that quality, we introduced a lot of friction,” he said. “This worked for a long time. If you make a production, you know that it is slow, it is hard, it is expensive. Production and distribution is super complicated and hard. Many companies are now acting on their momentum rather than their propulsion. I believe that there is major trouble on the horizon. I believe that this is why our industry is facing what it’s facing.”

Cioni noted that while breaking away from established practices could be risky, there were rewards for those willing to try something new and different. “If you bet wisely on early adopted technologies, when those inevitably hit as industry standards, your path will be so far ahead that everybody else will be behind.”

Cioni drove home the fact that “the technology gap is shrinking,” by showing video clips illustrating the image quality provided by three very different cameras. The first was captured with an ARRI Alexa, the second with a Fuji GFX 100 camera in the under-$10K price range, and the third was produced by a consumer iPhone. Other than some slight differences in depth of field, the imagery was strikingly identical in quality.

“The difference between a camera costing nearly $100,000 is not that much different than a $1,000 camera,” said Cioni. “It’s all about accessibility to technology.”

In commenting on the shift in content distribution platforms, Cioni noted that “YouTube represented 20.3% of TV viewing in July 2024 according to Nielsen.”

Mark Schubin’s Industry Updates
A regular feature of Tech Retreats is Mark Schubin’s “Technology Year in Review,” in which, in his words, “presents news items involving the cinema and television industry that may have gone unnoticed by many.”

This year, Schubin, a multiple Emmy Award winner and the Retreat’s official “wrangler” or “program maestro,” led off with some good and bad news about movie houses.

“Cinema is still not dead, I’m happy to report,” said Schubin, observing that gross receipts for 2024 were just about what they’d been in 2005. “The problem is that the consumer product index has gone up 65% since 2005, so it’s not the same. It’s comparing apples to oranges.”

Schubin reported that in order to remain in operation, some citizens groups are now buying movie theaters and operating them on a non-profit basis.

Other lesser reported industry news in Schubin’s review included Nielsen figures indicating that streaming now accounts for more than 43% of all viewing, and that while the majority of streaming content a year ago was older TV shows, it’s now mostly new content. Another reversal is the way viewers are consuming content.

“The TV is now a primary viewing device,” he said. “People are not using their phones as much as they’re using their TVs.”

Other factoids from Schubin included a comeback of the videocassette, with a new movie, “Alien: Romulus,” being offered in VHS format in a limited release, genetically-engineered bacteria that can be used as a form of AI in solving a range of problems, the promised availability from Nvidia of a consumer supercomputer for less than $250, and a new satellite constructed entirely from wood.

Looking Forward
The 2026 HPA Tech Retreat will again be held at the Westin Rancho Mirage Golf Resort & Spa. Conference dates are set for Feb. 15-19.

With ATSC 3.0 (aka “NextGen TV) now reaching approximately 75% of U.S. households, emphasis at the 2024 NAB Show will be on refinements and new applications for the advanced broadcast format—the most visible being HDR (high dynamic range).

“We’re expecting broadcasters to begin ‘taking the new car for a drive,’ with the expansion of high dynamic range programming to show viewers one of the key advantages of the new service—exceptional video that is matched with the Dolby audio system,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland.

“We’re calling this ‘the year of HDR’ because a lot of stations have received, or will receive, permission to scale services into High Dynamic Range,” added Dave Folsom, Pearl TV group’s engineering lead. “At least two encoder manufacturers can now do this scaling, and that will make the service better. In most locations it will be provided as a 1080p service.”

Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, also weighed on the addition of high dynamic range.

“HDR is very significant, and one of the promises of the ATSC 3.0 standard is better television for America’s living rooms,” said Aitken. “It was the focus of the ATSC at this year’s CES. CBS’s delivery of the February Super Bowl LVIII in HDR should spur others to add this enhancement to their ATSC 3.0 transmissions and I expect to see announcements from other networks,” said Aitken, noting that HDR is nothing new at Sinclair. “We’ve been broadcasting HDR 24/7 at all of our stations with ATSC 3.0. Some 40 Sinclair stations are on the air with Advanced HDR by Technicolor.”

Seeing is Believing
West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center will host most of the 3.0 exhibitors and perhaps the best first stop for attendees interested in 3.0 is the ATSC booth (W3056).

“We plan to showcase both the NextGen TV sets and also upgrade accessory receivers at the NAB Show to make sure broadcasters are aware of the variety of set-top devices coming for consumers,” said Noland. “Already, consumers have their choice of NextGen TV-certified and security-verified receiving devices from ADTH and Zinwell.”

“There are a lot of standalone devices now available to enable NextGen TV reception with legacy receivers,” added Pearl’s Folsom. “All modern TV sets have HDMI input capability, so when a conversion device is added the user can painlessly switch between ATSC 1.0 and 3.0. This should go a long way to greasing the skids to full adoption.”

Aitken says Sinclair will also have an exhibits-area presence at the show with ATSC, and both an “on-floor suite” not far from  the ATSC booth, and a Wynn suite, both demonstrating ATSC 3.0 datacasting. He also promised some surprise announcements at the show on recent major datacasting developments.

Additional Space for 3.0
Aitken says he hopes there is news from the NAB Show on a date for sunsetting 1.0, giving broadcasters more bandwidth to roll out the full inventory of audio, video and data enhancements that are part of 3.0.

“I believe there’s good progress being made in the Future of Television Initiative [dealing with ATSC 1.0 switch-off and other 3.0 transition issues] within the industry, with the NAB playing a key role and the FCC and other regulatory bodies coming to an understanding of the nature of what has to happen in order to jettison the first stage of this rocket, ignite the second stage, and be securely in orbit,” Aitken added.

Anne Schelle, Pearl TV’s managing director, spotlighted another big NextGen TV development — “Run3 TV—that will be featured at the NAB Show.

“Run 3 is a powerful middleware solution that acts as an abstraction layer, simplifying the complex process of developing and deploying NextGen TV applications across varying operating systems and devices,” said Schelle, adding that it will allow broadcasters to reach wider audiences with more efficiency and less technical overhead.

“At the 2024 NAB show, developers such as Velope, Playanywhere, Gameloop, and Roxi will showcase the innovative applications and capabilities enabled by Run3TV, highlighting the platform’s role in driving the future of interactive TV,” Schelle added.

New NextGen TV Hardware
Along with the new and updated 3.0 applications, manufacturers have been busy developing new products to show on the exhibit floor.

Heading the lineup of new transmitters for ATSC 3.0 is the new E-Compact EC600HP-BB3 series from Hitachi-Comark, optimized for LPTV/MPTV replacements and ATSC 3.0 SFN deployments, according to Joe Turbolski, Hitachi-Comark’s vice president of sales and marketing. 

GatesAir will launch its Maxiva VLXTE-OP, “which essentially rounds out the top end of the Maxiva family for ATSC 3.0 transmission,” said Steve Rossiter, GatesAir TV systems applications engineer.

Although details weren’t fully available at press time, Rohde & Schwarz is also promising a new transmitter launch. “Rhode & Schwarz has developed a new and next-generation ATSC 3.0-native transmitter that embraces the liquid-cooled design and legacy while enabling operators to maximize their efficiency at minimized operational cost,” said Manfred Reitmeier, R&S’s vice president of broadcast and amplifier systems.“

Dielectric President Keith Pelletier says the company will show their latest antenna offerings, including the Powerlite TFU-WB-LP series. “Dielectric has spent the last several years building out its portfolio of ATSC 3.0 solutions,” he said. “We are 95% there in terms of filling out the entire product line, which will essentially allow us to serve any ATSC 3.0 requirements. Dielectric expects to fill in some final gaps with new models at NAB 2024.”

Attendees will also want to check out Harmonic’s XOS media processor and cloud-based VOS 360 Media SaaS offerings. “These feature a unique cloud-native common software foundation and next-gen media processing technology,” said Jing Zhou, Harmonic’s director of broadcast solutions. “They enable broadcasters to deliver ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 services simultaneously and efficiently, with feature enhancements including AI-powered video compression and quality optimization, simplified SDR/HDR conversions, and more.”

Also, look for Sencore’s new AG 2700 for monitoring of both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 OTA signals. It provides ASI and IP outputs signals, and includes SNMP functionality.

These new product offerings only represent a small sampling of NextGen TV technologies that will be on display at the 2024 NAB Show. 

NextGen TV Educational Opportunities
In addition to tire-kicking and networking opportunities at exhibitor’s booths, you’ll also want to take advantage of the large number of presentations being offered on ATSC 3.0 television. These are part of the BEIT (Broadcast Engineering and IT) sessions featured Saturday through Tuesday at the 2024 NAB Show.

Presentations will cover advanced emergency alerting, ATSC 3.0 television translators, use of ATSC 3.0 transmissions for positioning systems, converging ATSC 3.0 and 5G technologies, offloading of video streaming content via NextGen TV and more.

Of particular interest to broadcasters is the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society’s Saturday afternoon presentation, “ATSC 3.0 Business Case and Monetization,” focusing on creating additional revenue streams for stations. According to the session organizers, such topics as the delivery of audio (radio) services via ATSC 3.0, targeted advertising, use of geo-localized datacasting, and delivery of ATSC 3.0 enhancements through the use of virtual (Internet-delivered) channels will all be included.

Paul Shulins, IEEE BTS president and president of the Shulins Solutions consulting firm, terms this session a “must-attend” event. 

“Broadcasters today have many different options to generate revenue besides the traditional advertising dollars,” said Shulins. “Thanks to ATSC 3.0 this session will showcase several new creative concepts for monetizing your data capacity.”

Another session explores a relatively new ATSC 3.0 technology, “core networks,” which will provide delivery of television services and data across multiple TV transmission facilities in multiple markets.

“The ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Core Networks: Serving diverse use-cases across a heterogeneous broadcast and supplier ecosystem,” Tuesday afternoon panel discussion will be moderated by Spectra Rep COO y the chief operating officer at Spectra Rep, John McCoskey.

“Broadcast core networks connect broadcasters, end-user service providers, and virtualized network infrastructure providers and enable data-centric businesses using ATSC 3.0,” McCoskey. “Don’t miss this session if you are interested in learning about the role, value, and importance of broadcast core networks as a critical part of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast ecosystem.”

For a complete listing of BEIT ATSC 3.0-related sessions and times, visit https://nabshow.com/2024/learn/conferences/broadcast-engineering

75 Years Ago – December 1947: Limited connectivity to television network centers in New York continues to hamper the rollout of new U.S. television outlets. (At year’s end, only 18 stations were on the air). And while AT&T Long Lines has committed to constructing coast-to-coast coaxial cable and microwave video circuits, widespread delivery of network programming is still years away. 

As a workaround, Westinghouse announced that early in 1948 it would begin the second phase of an experiment for delivering television over wide areas from airborne broadcasting platforms. This concept—dubbed “Stratovision”—was initially demonstrated in 1946, but that trial uncovered several “bugs.” The company says that these shortcomings have now been addressed and is now ready for a second round of testing. 

Modified military B-29 bombers will be used, with Westinghouse foreseeing as many as 14 of the aircraft in the skies simultaneously for relaying network TV programming received from a terrestrial source to serve other population centers and to also provide network connectivity from coast-to-coast. 

The planes will fly at altitudes between 20,000 and 30,000 feet, allowing reception of ground-based TV transmitters from as far away as 200 miles and retransmission to homes within a 400-mile-wide area beneath each plane. The modified bombers will carry enough fuel to remain in their holding patterns or “orbits” for half a day. TV Ch. 6 (82-88 MHz) has been chosen for the downlink transmissions, allowing set owners to receive them without any special equipment. 

Also in the final month of 1947 comes GE’s announcement of its first “large screen” television receiver—a monster 30-inch model, designated the “901.” As available cathode ray tubes are mostly in the 10-inch or smaller range, GE is using a projection system with a special 5-inch CRT coupled to a Schmidt optical system to achieve the necessary magnification. 

Suggested retail price is $2,250 (antenna and installation extra), which is equal to about $30,000 in 2022 money! Typical of most all early projection sets, the pictures were quite dim, requiring viewing to be done in darkened rooms. However, there was an upside to the GE set—owners needn’t worry about thieves making off with the expensive sets, as the 901 weighed in at nearly 400 pounds!

OTHER NEWS FROM TV’S PAST:

100 Years Ago – December 1922: Television is now starting to progress beyond patents for theoretical systems which may or may not work. The Dec. 2, 1922 New York Times reported that a French inventor, Édouard Belin, had just demonstrated a “Tele-Vision” (or “long-distance sight,” as the Times explained the term for its readers) device at the Paris’s Sorbonne. 

According to the report, Belin, who had previously transmitted still pictures by wire, had moved to a wireless platform and succeeded in capturing (dynamic) “flashes of light” via selenium cell and then sending the resulting electrical impulses via radio to be reproduced as flashes on a mirror. The report, termed the showing a “preliminary experimental demonstration,” but stated that it proved “that the general principle of sending a stationary scene had been solved.”    

50 Years Ago – December 1972: In yet another approach for providing consumers with in-home recorded video entertainment, MCA (Music Corporation of America) offered the first public demonstration of its “Disco-Vision” videodisc player that was under development. The device was intended to complete with the “CED” (capacitance electronic disc) video player system (“SelectaVision”) being developed by RCA. Disco-Vision technology—which utilized a low power laser for recovery of information from optical discs—was viewed as superior to RCA’s player, which relied on a mechanical stylus tracking groves embossed in a disc. 

Both systems eventually went into production, but they were soon eclipsed by Betamax and VHS videocassette machines as neither the MCA nor the RCA products allowed consumers to make their own recordings.)

25 Years Ago – December 1997: Although broadcasters are committed (albeit, some reluctantly) to making the conversion to digital (and high definition), and new DTV studio and transmitter equipment is now becoming more and more available there is still at least one missing link—a means for transporting bitstreams from studio to transmitter. 

Upgrading existing STL microwave systems to handle the 19.39 Mbps compressed DTV signal is pretty much a non-starter, and while microwave manufacturers are aware of the situation and have been developing new models, these are still in their relative infancy (Harris had only showed an initial prototype at the NAB Show that April.) Fiber is not a viable STL option for many either. As an industry writer described the situation: “…stations want to get on with it and transmit ‘real’ HDTV from the studio without having to bicycle tapes to the transmitter.” 

Although the audience was very small, the picture quality poor, and production techniques quite limited, the Sept. 11, 1928 airing of the drama “The Queen’s Messenger” marks the introduction of television as an entertainment medium.     

While test images, static and moving, had previously been transmitted via television, the one-act drama, staged under the auspices of the General Electric Company and its television project leader, Ernst Alexanderson, marked the first-ever broadcast of a television program intended for entertainment.

The 40 minute-long production began at promptly at 1:30 p.m. eastern time, and as it unfolded in one of the research buildings on GE’s Schenectady campus, the action was captured by three fixed flying spot “mechanical” cameras operating at 24 lines and an unspecified frame rate.

The program was transmitted on three transmitters, with images sent at 379.5 and 31.4 meters (798 kHz and 9.55 MHz respectively) and audio on 21.96 meters (13.65 MHz). Due to the shortwave portion of the spectrum used for audio and one of the video transmissions, reports of reception came from as far away as the west coast. Unlike some 21st century television, it was reported that “voice and action came together through space in perfect synchronization.”  

OTHER NEWS FROM TV’S PAST:

90 Years Ago – September 1932 – As the 1930s unfolded, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), under the leadership of David Sarnoff, was doing its best to move television out of the laboratory and into consumers’ homes. Sarnoff anticipated a bright future for the new medium, and was plowing a very substantial amount of Depression-era stockholder money into TV R&D. It seems, though, that one RCA executive somehow hadn’t gotten the message.

Broadcasting magazine (now TV Tech sister brand Broadcasting & Cable), reported in its Sept. 15, 1932 issue that the vice president in charge of RCA’s NBC network Pacific division, Don E. Gilman, had painted a rather dismal picture of television’s future during a “radio day” luncheon address at the recent Western Retailers Conference in San Francisco.

"The best radio sets now on the market will be obsolete before television is ready for general use," said Gilman. "My business obliges me to follow the progress of television closely, but I am personally so little impressed with it except for laboratory experiment that I would not be bothered having a television set in my home. Any radio dealer who is holding [radio] sales ideas in abeyance while awaiting the arrival of television is pursuing a short-sighted policy.”

There was no reporting of Sarnoff’s reaction to Gilman’s address. (For the record, RCA had set up shop in New York City’s Empire State Building the previous year and was busy conducting transmission field tests of the new medium throughout the greater Manhattan area. 

Four years later, in 1936, the BBC began airing scheduled television broadcasts, and was followed by NBC less than three years after that. It is to be imagined that 1932 model radios still had plenty of life left in them then when the “Auntie Beeb” TV service launched, and not all had yet been relegated to the junk pile even at the time of NBC’s television startup.)

71 Years Ago – September 1951: The long-promised coast-to-coast video linkage became a reality on Sept. 4, with AT&T Long Lines opening their transcontinental television service in time for President Truman’s address at the San Francisco Japanese peace treaty conference to be seen live across the nation. 

The 2,750-mile $40 million (almost half–a-billion in today’s money) microwave system required the construction of some 107 relay facilities.

50 Years Ago – September 1972: The FCC is hard at work on its latest TV spectrum grab; this time it’s Channels 70 to 83. The NAB has joined the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters in opposing the surrender of TV spectrum for land-mobile radio use, as it would require some 800 TV translators operating in this 800 to 890 MHz region to go dark or relocate. 

In other industry news, ABTO (a partnership between ABC TV and Technical Operations, Inc.) now has its first customer for the technology it developed that allows black and white motion picture film stock to capture events in full color. Metromedia’s NYC outlet, WNEW-TV, announced that by mid-month it would be using the ABTO process—which involves lenticular filter encoding—for filming one-third of its news stories. 

ABTO color had previously been tested at several stations including Boston’s WNAC-TV and New Haven’s WNHC-TV. (The ABTO color-from-B&W scheme did work, but was not a commercial success, as by the time it was “ready for prime time,” most stations had already pumped up their news budgets to include purchase of color film stock and color film processors.) 

25 Years Ago – September 1997: Broadcasters are still reeling from the recent stroke of the pen that set the gears in motion for auctioning off several chunks of the 1,710 to 2,150 microwave band, including 50 MHz of the current BAS (Broadcast Auxiliary Service) spectrum used to relay programming and news from the field to the studio, as well as for long-haul intercity relay. 

The legislation requires the FCC to reallocate 100 MHz of the 410 MHz spectrum chunk, with the existing 120 MHz BAS allocation shrinking to just 70 MHz. In other FCC news, the Commission is considering using its powers to pre-empt local zoning ordinances that are delaying the construction of new towers needed for the on-going digital TV transition. 

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—As a former designer of facilities for creating high-end television productions, I never cease to be amazed by the technological transformation that has overtaken this area of the television ecosystem. Not that long ago, creating such a facility involved much time spent in identifying and purchasing a lot of specialized (and costly) individual pieces of equipment. And once it all arrived, spending more time in mounting and interconnecting the big production switcher, still store, clip store, digital effects unit, outboard keyers, c.g., and monitor wall, and then, likely some additional time in getting everything to play together.

Keeping in line with the now universal trend of “doing more with less,” the creation of good-looking video content has been greatly simplified, moving away from such elaborate and expensive undertakings to small form factor packages with much more affordable price tags, and which can be easily transported right to whatever it is that needs to be televised. And these “teleproduction-centersin-a-box” can be easily driven by a solo operator, rather than the team needed to run the control rooms of yore.

These integrated production systems have become increasingly popular in recent years, enabled by the microprocessor and PC.

“The first integrated production systems became available in the early 2000s, made largely possible by the increase in performance of computers,” said Graham Sharp, chief executive officer of Broadcast Pix in Chelmsford, Mass. “Post-production solutions [had] moved to software running on off-the-shelf computer hardware 10 years before, which was possible because they could operate in non-real time.”

It took a little longer for video processing time to reach a point acceptable for live production.

“As computer power has increased over the last 15 years following Moore’s law, so the performance of [the] IPS has also increased in terms of resolutions and functionality—remember, there was always a minimum [requirement] of producing a video output in real time,” he said.

Rush Beesley, president and founder of RUSHWORKS, a company that’s been providing IPS since 2001, agreed that these Lilliputian production packages owe their existence to today’s supercharged processor and memory chips.

“The dramatic rise in CPU capability, accompanied by the inverse drop in cost for RAM and storage media, have provided the power, speed and reliability for these systems to flourish,” he said.

DEMOCRATIZING VIDEO PRODUCTION

Just as in many other areas, computer technology and IP connectivity have now made it possible for small groups or even individuals to do what once took large buildings, highly skilled teams and large amounts of money to accomplish. The IPS certainly shines brightly here, with these compact, very powerful and feature-laden, video production units allowing production of content virtually indistinguishable from that rolled out by large crews in mega-million-dollar facilities.

It’s also brought affordable broadcast-quality production to markets beyond broadcast as well.

“There is an increasing number of people in educational, corporate, government and religious organizations driven by the constant use of video on social media and mobile devices that want to add video to their storytelling capabilities,” said Matt Allard, product marketing manager of the Vizrt Group, which last year acquired NewTek, another IPS provider. “There are integrated production systems also being used in middle schools. These organizations normally do not have the budget or expertise to implement multiple production components.”

Damon Hawkins, product manager at Grass Valley, whose STRATUS platform places a number of sophisticated production tools in a single application, also observed that such technology is making high-quality video production capability more universal.

“Once reserved for broadcasters and media organizations, professionally produced and packaged content is now leveraged by an ever-more diverse range of organizations as they use compelling storytelling and stunning images to engage their target audience,” he said. “We are seeing an increasing demand from sporting venues, educational institutions, and houses of worship looking for solutions that provide an easy to produce and deliver video content to their consumers.”

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

IPS capabilities have come a long way since the first such units started shipping. (Allard reflected on the great-granddaddy of them, NewTek’s 1990 “Video Toaster,” which later evolved into the company’s “TriCaster.”) He noted that systems now can have as many inputs as large traditional production switchers, allow management of up to eight cameras, and integrate into an IP-based environment through NDI (Network Device Interface) software.

Allard observed that today’s IPS offerings range from “bare-bones” video/audio switching with simple transitions and static graphics, to “extremely comprehensive systems that include IP integration, format flexibility to UHD, multisource video/audio mixing, live streaming output, social media integration, Skype video calling, recording, clip players, replay, chromakeying, virtual sets, automation and custom control.”

Such a plethora of options could overwhelm a first-time purchaser. RUSHWORK’s Beesley suggested that those new to this arena should make a careful assessment of goals and expectations before they step into the IPS pool.

“A prospective adopter should predefine exactly what they want to accomplish with the system,” he said. “No more and no less. Factors include price, configuration and ease-of-use. Then shop according to those criteria.”

Broadcast Pix’s Sharp added that “as a first-time buyer, I would look for a system that is scalable and future-proof, but easy to use and deploy. A well-architected system should be capable of automating complex tasks easily and logically in the setup phase, enabling the user to produce the show with simple, single button pushes.”

THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

Today’s integrated production systems greatly outpace what was expected (or even possible) when they first appeared, and developers are hard at work to make them even more flexible, easy-to-use and reflective of evolving technologies and consumer trends.

“IPS will follow the trends in the industry in terms of acquisition and distribution formats,” said Broadcast Pix’s Sharp. “Smartphones are, and will continue to become, more prevalent acquisition devices and sources of content, particularly with 5G networking almost upon us. With a correctly architected IPS, these advances should present no problems, as the software is scalable, and the introduction of a new file or streaming format should just require some change in file parameters or perhaps a new codec.”

Sharp said that his company is heavily focused on application and ease of use in its products, with a MIDI control interface set to be unveiled at the 2020 NAB Show.

“It enables us to use any MIDI controller to control our IPS software, and we believe will open the market to many younger operators who are used to the various MIDI controllers available.”

NewTek is also keeping pace with the changing video production landscape, recently taking the wraps off a new TriCaster Mini IPS that features all-NDI IP connectivity. There’s also a new camera app that enables an iOS-based device to become an NDI source via Wi-Fi networking.

RUSHWORK’s Beesley says that his company is also taking advantage of NDI technology in its products, with the development of NDI PTZ camera control, as well as integration of a new RUSHPROMPTER for use in remote production. Both will be shown at the NAB Show.

“We’ll also reveal our revolutionary new object tracking capability based on the latest ‘deep learning’ neural network algorithms for identifying and locking onto objects and following them with our PTZ cameras and dolly,” said. Beesley.

Any way you look at it, with its flexibility and resources and capabilities that seem to increase daily, IPS technology seems destined to play an increasingly major role in producing the vast and varied volume of quality content that consumers are demanding.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—If you know me, you know I like to talk, and one of the main topics of discourse is television. While such conversations are no problem with my friends within the television community, I almost always experience a very severe “disconnect” when attempting to communicate on the subject with “lay” people.

Baltimore’s Television Hill
I’m not talking “deep techno” here such as compression or transmission modulation schemes, but rather basic perception about what’s going on in the TV broadcast world. Continuing to amaze me is the total “blank” that’s drawn when I mention ATSC 3.0, as well as the revelation to those mostly in their 40s and younger, that television reception is available “free” for the taking. I have to blame the media for this. Even the recent revelation that the FCC had given the nod to ATSC 3.0 transmissions was either ignored completely by the newspapers or relegated to just a few lines on the business or entertainment page. (I’m not sure that it made the evening news on most TV stations either.)

GETTING THE WORD OUT
Many years ago (50 to be exact), I was a fulltime college student working part-time in broadcasting to help defray some of my educational expenses. One of the operations I worked for then was part of a small group of stations with its corporate offices in Oklahoma City. The owner, who referred to himself as “Big Jack,” had a slogan that was emblazoned on just about everything connected with his stations: news cars, ballpoint pens, giveaway rain ponchos and pocket protectors; you name it. His message was given its greatest visibility at the Oklahoma City studio and transmitter site, where it was spread across two nearly block-long fences surrounding the compound. It read:

“Big Jack says if you want to sell them, you’ve got to tell them!”

The pitch, of course, was to encourage advertisers to place their commercial messages on one or more of his stations.

“Big Jack” is long gone, but his message is as true now as it was half a century ago, and seems very applicable in terms of informing the masses about what’s going on in broadcast television.

A BIG AND POWERFUL DAILY REMINDER
This was brought home recently when I had occasion to visit Baltimore and pass by the city’s “Television Hill.” (For those of you not familiar with Maryland’s largest city, it is the site of the world’s first implementation of a “candelabra” TV antenna installation, with multiple transmitting antennas supported on a platform atop a single tower. Placed into service in 1959, the candelabra is located at the highest point in Baltimore and is used by a number of television stations. [Another tower was later erected on the “Hill” to accommodate additional transmitting installations.])

Although Television Hill is a very visible city landmark and is located adjacent to a major arterial into Baltimore traveled by thousands of vehicles each day, there is no signage to indicate exactly what it is and/or what takes place there. If you ask the man or woman on the street, they would likely tell you that it has something to do with television, but in this age of cable, satellite, and Internet-delivered TV, that’s about it.

It occurred to me that Baltimore’s television broadcasters seem to be missing the boat in terms of promoting “free TV” and heralding the introduction of ATSC 3.0.

What a great location for an outdoor billboard similar to that erected by “Big Jack” in Oklahoma City at his transmitter site! The signage might read:

“Baltimore Broadcasters invest more than $XXX each year at this site to provide you with free television. Learn more about this and what’s coming soon to provide even better viewing experiences. Visit www.xxxyyyxxx for complete information.”

Such exposure need not be confined to Baltimore. There are similar highly visible transmitter sites in other localities as well. Broadcasters should be using these to promote their services and to inform the public about “what’s next” in television. To do otherwise is indeed a big “missed opportunity.”

“If you want to sell them, you’ve got to tell them!”

James O’Neal is the former technology editor for TV Technology. 

My particular rant has been prompted by two almost simultaneous occurrences: (1) I was offered a soldering aid for review for TV Technologyand (2) In connection with the review of a book on the life of TV pioneer Klaus Landsberg for the same publication, I was presented with a number of photos of his early Los Angeles television station. One of the photos was particularly striking—Landsberg is posing with transmitting antennas he apparently constructed for Paramount Pictures’ experimental station, W6XYZ.

This got me to thinking about “the good old days” when the radio or television engineering staff at a broadcast operation was frequently called upon to design and construct equipment for the station. While in some cases, this was a cost-cutting measure and kept otherwise “idle” techs busy (no offense intended); I’m thinking of all the time and talent that could go to waste back in the day when TV transmitters had to have a live “First Phone” operator at their beck and call, and on most days, all he or she needed to do was to turn the thing on at sign-on, take a set of meter readings every half-hour of operation, and then push the “big switch” again at sign-off. There were other similar dull and not-too-demanding personnel assignments too. Fred Baumgartner and Nicholas Grbac in their recent “TV Operations Handbook” really got it right with their characterization of a typical master control operator’s shift as “… fairly boring, punctuated by moments of terror.”

Another, sometimes very strong, reason for “rolling your own” was the unavailability of commercial equipment for the particular application. Either it just didn’t exist, or the lead time for delivery made it an unattractive or impractical proposition to purchase an off-the-shelf unit.

For whatever reason, once upon a time, a lot of people at a lot of stations were involved in building (and designing) equipment for the broadcast plant.

The homebrew visual (upper conical assemblies) and aural (lower split ring dipole) antennas that were used by Los Angeles TV station W6XYZ (now KTLA). It’s seen in this photo on the Paramount Pictures lot, but was later moved to Mt. Wilson as part of the first TV transmitter installation there.
From the John Silva Collection, courtesy of Don Kent

‘WE SHALL MANUFACTURE’
One excellent example of this was the WSM-TV operation. (Tech personnel there once joked that the call sign stood for “We Shall Manufacture.”) The station went on the air with a couple of “homebrew” image orthicon cameras (in addition to the two purchased from RCA), as well as a mostly homebrewed multi-hop intercity microwave linkage to Louisville, Ky., where the station obtained its NBC affiliate feed. (AT&T Long Lines didn’t provide video service to Nashville when the station took to the air.) Not long after the FCC TV “freeze” was lifted in 1952, the staff constructed a linear amplifier to boost the output of their “store-bought” transmitter to the new legal ERP limit of 100 kW. Somewhat later, a full-power VHF transmitter was fabricated on site and saw service for a couple of decades or so before being replaced by a commercial unit. The station also built a lot of its other gear, including transistorized distribution amplifiers. (And from all indications, it appears that the station’s director of engineering, Jack DeWItt, was awarded the first patent for solid-state broadcast equipment gear, a video d.a.)

Other stations and station groups were busy in the workshop also. Back in the early 1970s when Storer owned it, I took a tour of Atlanta’s WAGA-TV and was rather amazed to see the scope of their in-house construction operation, which included production and routing switchers. The station staff was not only constructing gear for WAGA’s use, but also for other Storer operations.

WAGA-TV’s chief engineer at that time, Hugo Bondy, described the scope of his staff’s accomplishments in a “letter to the editor” published in the June 1965 “Journal of the Society of Broadcast Engineers:”

“…we’re building as much of our gear as we possibly can. We can design and build far better gear (in some categories) than we can buy. We can build it for about 20 percent of store costs (assuming that you could buy some of it, which you can’t). It is a good educational project for the crew and sparks up interest and morale.”

Former NBC Television engineering employee Jay Ballard recalled that the “build it yourself” scenario once even extended to network level.

“The guys out at Burbank built a lot of gear for the system—power supplies, d.a.’s, and the like,” said Ballard. “They even used some manufactured modules to construct the audio consoles used in large network productions. Management saw this as a good use of their skills and slack time which might otherwise be spent on personal projects. There was also a financial incentive, as RCA’s broadcast equipment division didn’t offer the network any of the discounts they routinely gave to individual stations and station groups.”

KTLA’s chief engineer, John Silva, designed and built the world’s first “frameaccurate” videotape editor a decade before the advent of timecode. It used four special Hughes Corp. storage CRT units to freeze a pre-determined series of images from the tape, allowing an editor to precisely select in/out-points. It was dubbed the TV-ola and Silva received a patent for his invention. Silva also pioneered airborne TV reporting with his invention of the “Telecopter.”
From the John Silva Collection, courtesy of Don Kent

AN EDUCATION NOT AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE
Bondy was certainly right about the educational aspects of building equipment in house. I was once tasked with constructing a “wipe effects generator” for the production switcher at a TV station where I was once employed. This forced me to do a lot of homework on video switcher and video special effects principles, knowledge that came in very handy later on. Ditto a “split-field” mod for an existing color bar generator, a variable frequency capstan motor power amplifier for an Ampex tape transport, and a number of others. All of these projects proved invaluable in preparing me for what was to come later in my career. (This was especially true in connection with the wipe generator— when I was leaving the station a few years later for a better job, the senior supervisor confided that everyone else on the engineering staff had declined to take on the project before I came along. I was a new hire and went into it with the attitude that it was something I had to do to keep my job! So, in addition to a deep dive into switchers, I received an early lesson in politics.)

HOMEBREW DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN UGLY
I have to point out that the homebrew gear I saw at WAGA, and other TV operations did not have the appearance of electronic hobbyist or “ham shack” gear. It was almost always well-constructed and attractively packaged and labeled, as witnessed by the accompanying photo of the WSM-TV transmitter.

The homebrew WLW 50 kW “Cathanode” transmitter. Its audio performance bested that from any commercial rig.
Clyde Haehnle

I can’t speak for the TV side of things, but Cincinnati radio giant, WLW, used to fabricate a lot of their gear, even microphones. The 50 kW AM rig designed and constructed by the station’s R. J. Rockwell—though no longer in use—is still a part of the operation’s Mason, Ohio transmitter site and its appearance rivals contemporary commercial gear. (When put into service in the late 1950s, the Rockwell transmitter had better specs than those of most FM stations, allowing WLW to claim that it was “the nation’s highest fidelity station.”

Ballard recalled that the homebrew gear turned out by the NBC Burbank techs consistently performed well and did not look “homemade” in the slightest.

Trade publications, especially Broadcast Engineering, frequently published circuits and construction articles from readers. (The April 1968 BE featured an article on constructing a transistorized sync generator; this was not an “April Fool’s” joke either.)

This surviving example illustrates the quality of workmanship turned out by NB C Burbank technicians. The frame contains d.a.s and a chroma keyer. Date of manufacture is roughly established by the network logo at the top left of each module. It was used between 1959 and the mid-70s.
Jay Ballard

As I mentioned, homebrewing was fun and, at least to me, deeply satisfying. I hold in my own humble way, that there is something vaguely therapeutic in soldering a large number of connections. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons that our industry is having trouble attracting “new blood.” Removing gear from boxes, racking it up and screwing on connectors just isn’t the same as laying out and punching a chassis, or designing a printed circuit board. Granted, the level of sophistication in today’s television infrastructure—as well as the availability of relatively inexpensive off-the-shelf devices—makes in-house design and construction largely impractical. (Any takers on providing a circuit or construction article for a hardware HEVC compression unit, or maybe a UHD camera?)

I have to admit that “store-bought” is undoubtedly the best way to go for most of today’s broadcast equipment, but there are still areas open in the broadcast plant open to “homemade.” And remember, constructing a piece of gear need not be a complete “foundation to rooftop” project where each and every diode, capacitor, i.c. and wire is assembled on your workbench. Marconi’s first radio system was merely a conglomeration of other inventor’s boxes; however, he was the first to string them together and produce a wireless communication system.

I’d really like to hear from you if you’ve been involved in homebrewing gear for your TV station, production house or remote truck. I think many of our readers would be interested too.

James E. O’Neal is TV Technology’s technology advisor, and is a retired television broadcast engineer with some 37 years of experience. He may be contacted atjonealnb@aol.com.

If you’re not familiar with Lee Tingler’s “SolderBuddy” products, they are a family of rather inexpensive devices designed to assist in the installation of solder-type audio connectors. I’m no stranger to the SolderBuddy, having reviewed Tingler’s first such product in the Oct. 1, 2008 TV Technology,and another slightly different model in the Dec. 21, 2011 issue.

The SolderBuddy ACS-V allows XLR and other connectors to be secured in the horizontal plane for easier soldering.

Tingler has recently added a new SolderBuddy to his growing lineup of soldering aids, the ACS-V. It was designed as a replacement for the previous SolderBuddy ACS and ))SPK(( models, which have now been discontinued. Tingler is always open to feedback from users of his products and based on such information, reworked the ACS to incorporate some of these. The result is the new ACS-V.

FEATURES

Just like earlier SolderBuddy products, the new ACS-V is constructed from a solid block of hardwood (European beech) with “labels” precisely created via laser engraving. When fully closed, it’s approximately 4x4x1/2-inches. The block is divided into two sections, a 3-inch front with precisely drilled openings for 1/4-inch phone plugs, RCA phono plugs and a 3.5mm male connector. There’s also a 5/8-inch “well” with a screw cap for small screws, solder lugs and the like. The rear-most 1-inch section of the ACS-V is equipped with a long thumbscrew and pair of guide pins that allow it to move away from the front section to create a “vise” for accommodating XLR, Speakon, D-sub or other large connector bodies (there are three “diamond” cutouts for such items; two on the top surface and one on the left side). When fully extended, the opening between the front and rear sections is about 1.5-inches.

The ACS-V is also equipped with holes to accommodate the alligator clips affixed to long posts that Tingler calls “Post N Clips.” These are used to keep cables in place while soldering operations are going on. Two of these are included with the ACS-V and additional “Post N Clips” can be purchased if needed. There’s also an insulation stripping gauge engraved into the rear section.

IN USE

Given the intuitive nature of the device (and having put two other “Solder-Buddies” through their paces), I really didn’t need specialized instructions for using the ACS-V. Actually, this new unit is very similar to the discontinued ))SPK(( model, with the biggest difference being the previously described “diamond” female XLR connector bodies. I chucked one in to begin my trial and immediately found that positioning such a connector in the horizontal plane makes it easier to do a neat soldering job, as there are no worries about the molten metal flowing by gravity to the bottom of the connector’s metal recesses and clumping there. I’m sure that most of us, when soldering XLRs without a vise or other holding aid, have kept the barrel parallel to the bench or whatever surface was handy, rather than trying to perform the operation with the connector “standing up.”

The XLR wiring was easily accomplished and I decided to try out the ACS-V for adding a 1/4-inch TRS plug to the other end of the cable now attached to the XLR. When setting things up for this operation, I noticed something that had escaped me previously; there was a very small horizontal opening in both halves of the SolderBuddy’s right-side surfaces. I was all set to insert the tip of the 1/4-inch plug in the labeled opening and bring in the solder and heated iron, but instead chucked the connector’s tip in the slot, thus placing it in a horizontal plane. As with the XLR, I found that soldering the 1/4-inch phone plug while it was held “sideways” was more natural than when attempting the operation when it was pointed downwards. I went back and read the instruction sheet provided with the ACS-V and found that the right-side slot was “borrowed” from the SolderBuddy RC (a model that I have not reviewed), and was provided in the ACS-V for securing Din, male XLR bodies, 3.5-mm “minnies,” and other connectors.

SUMMARY

Like the previous SolderBuddy units I’ve reviewed, the new ACS-V is well made and will serve the user for many years; provided he or she doesn’t accidentally use it for a soldering iron “rest;” then all bets are off. However, if you’re careless enough to put a hot iron on a piece of wood, you really shouldn’t be soldering.

The hardwood block that makes up the ACS-V is nice and dense and stayed put on my scuffed-up Masonite-topped workbench. However, you might want to think about adding an accessory—the NSB-A “non-slip base”—or perhaps some stick-on rubber feet if you’re going to be using it on slipperier surfaces such as Formica or metal. As mentioned in one of my earlier reviews, I find the SolderBuddy soldering aids easier to use than a much more expensive portable metal vise unit I purchased for this purpose a long time before Tingler started his SolderBuddy business. If you’re like me, the ACS-V will be seeing a lot of use while the expensive pivoting metal vise continues to collect dust. I could have bought a lot of solder for what I paid for that vise.

FAST FACTS:

Application: Wherever a “third hand” could be useful in the installation of solder-type audio connectors

Key Features: Versatile, accommodates a variety of connectors, attractive hardwood construction, compact size, and inexpensive

List Price: $46.95 (shipping included); a non-slip base, the NSB-A, is available for $4.75.

Contact: SolderBuddy
770-476-5337
www.solderbuddy.com

James O’Neal is a retired broadcast engineer and served asTV Technology’s technology editor for 10 years.

In my review of Joel Tator’s “Los Angeles Television” in the Feb. 25, 2015 issue of TV Technology, I praised the author for including information about Klaus Landsberg, the genius behind the second television station in Los Angeles, W6XYZ/KTLA. I noted in that review that neither Landsberg nor his many achievements during television’s early years are especially well known outside of the Southern California TV community.

Landsberg’s first wife, Evelyn DeWolfe, along with veteran NBC television journalist George Lewis have teamed to do something about this by co-authoring a new Landsberg biography. The new book fills in some of the blanks surrounding the life and meteoric career of this west coast television pioneer. (Landsberg died at the age of 40 of complications from malignant melanoma. He worked in the nascent television industry for just over two decades, yet accomplished more than many do in twice that time.)

While “Line of Site” bears the name of the two authors, it appears to be primarily the work of DeWolfe, with Lewis more or less a silent partner; he would have been a teenager at the time of Landsberg’s death in 1956. On the other hand, DeWolfe, nee Ashlin, met Landsberg in late 1943 and married him in 1945. “Line of Site” (which is a reference of Landsberg’s explanation of VHF television propagation to DeWolfe when he took her to Mt. Wilson and the very top of W6XYZ’s tower; tt was there that he asked for her hand in marriage) is told through her eyes, tracing Landsberg’s story from his birth in Germany in 1916 to his untimely end.

Thanks to DeWolfe’s self-admitted “packrat” nature, many letters and other documents were preserved that help provide detail about her relationship with Landsberg and the Los Angeles television station he launched.

GETTING IN ON TELEVISION’S GROUND FLOOR

Landsberg, like many young people of his generation, became infatuated with radio, and this led to a technical education (he received dual engineering degrees from the Czech Technical University in Prague). His first immersion in television occurred when Nazi Germany decided to televise the 1936 Olympic Games played in Berlin. Young Landsberg, despite his Jewish heritage, was selected to help with the TV coverage. According to DeWolfe, his escape from the Hitler regime a year later was expedited by work he’d independently done on developing an aircraft instrument navigation system, something the German military needed, and something that young Landsberg used to advantage to obtain a U.S. entry visa. DeWolfe traces his career in the “New World” as beginning with Philo Farnsworth’s pioneering Philadelphia television station and laboratory, and from there to RCA to help prepare that company’s television exhibit for the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair. His next stint was with yet another television pioneer, Allen B. DuMont. It was while working for DuMont that Landsberg was hired to build a TV station for Paramount Pictures Corp., an investor in DuMont’s television empire.

Despite wartime shortages, Landsberg succeeded in launching Los Angeles’ second television station, W6XYZ, in late 1942, and remained with that station and its commercial successor, KTLA, for the balance of his career.

Landsberg acted as a “one man band,” serving as the station’s chief engineer, producer and director of programs, talent scout, and operations manager. Even after the station went commercial in 1947 and greatly expanded its operating schedule, Landsberg still played a dual role as engineer and director, and this “engineers rule” philosophy continued at the station for some time after his death.

LANDSBERG’S TELEVISION “FIRSTS”

“Line of Site” traces a number of Landsberg’s accomplishments, which include the first continuing television live coverage of breaking news events (a massive explosion at an L.A. business, and rescue attempts to save an 18-month-old girl trapped underground); the first live telecast of a nuclear weapons test (with such an impossibly short lead-time for linking the Nevada test with KTLA that AT&T Long Lines refused to take it on, forcing Landsberg to contrive his own methodology for spanning the 275 miles of desert); establishing the first television transmitter site on Mt. Wilson; developing programming ideas; identifying and hiring the large stable of on-air talent (KTLA’s “Dream Team”) necessary to provide programming as the station kept expanding its hours of operation; transitioning experimental W6XYZ to become the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi; and more.

Landsberg typically worked very long hours at the TV station he’d created, such was his infatuation and interest in grooming the new medium. Unfortunately, this preoccupation with television was ultimately responsible for his divorce (DeWolfe refers to TV as the “mistress” that ruined their marriage). However, the former couple’s young son kept the two in fairly close contact until the time of Landsberg’s death, so DeWolfe is able to give a comprehensive accounting of the TV pioneer’s association with the Paramount station.

While the authors do a very thorough and creditable job of documenting Landsberg’s career from the time he entered DeWolfe’s life (and also his early years in Germany from Landsberg’s parents who became part of DeWolfe’s extended family), there is precious little detailedinformation about Landsberg’s career track prior to his Paramount employment. As someone very much interested in early television’s history, I would love to know more about what he did in German television, what his instrument navigation system entailed, what his responsibilities were with Farnsworth’s television operation and how long he was employed there, and exactly what his role was in RCA’s World’s Fair television showcase. However, this information apparently died with Landsberg, and doesn’t seem to have been shared with DeWolfe or others. This omission does not detract greatly from the story, but having such information would help readers develop a more complete picture of Landsberg’s technical persona.

Also, while “Line of Sight” is quite readable and well organized, I do need to call attention to some failings in its editing (or perhaps proof reading), at least in my review copy. There are several instances where a thought ends abruptly in mid-sentence, only to reappear a paragraph or so later in its complete form, along with repeated material. This is a minor fault though, and will hopefully be corrected in a future edition. (Editor's note: The author has confirmed that the errors have been corrected in the final version now available.) 

I also have a problem with the artwork that’s intermingled with the text. While some of the photos are quite interesting, they are on the small side, making it difficult to pick out detail (the fact that the book is printed on rough stock doesn’t help either). An example of this is the reproduction of the early W6XYZ program schedule on page seven. It’s so tiny and lacking in contrast that it really takes a magnifying lens to decipher some of the lines. This shortcoming could perhaps be remedied next time ‘round by relegating such artwork and photos to a separate section printed on higher quality paper.

Readers with an interest in early television history, and the people who made it happen, will find “Line of Sight” to be a valuable addition to their libraries. I read the book in two sittings, and think that others with a desire to learn more about television’s infancy will find it equally difficult to put down. 

“Line of Sight” is available at such booksellers as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at DeWolfe’s website, www.readevelyn.com/books.

James E. O’Neal is a retired television engineer and served as TV Technology’s technology editor for nearly 10 years. He still contributes articles to the publication on a regular basis and serves as its technical advisor.

KILGORE, TEXAS—Until fairly recently, repositories for cast-off broadcast gear—aside from landfills and scrap metal dealers—didn’t really exist. That has changed, with a number of private institutions opening up around the country. The newest of these, the Texas Museum of Broadcasting & Communications, opened its doors in this east Texas town of 15,000 for the first time in mid-September, and there’s plenty of vintage eye-candy for those who enjoy viewing how television (and radio) was done long before digital and IP.

The “crown jewel” of the new museum is this gleaming and immaculately restored 1949 DuMont Telecruiser. It was part of the equipment package of Texas’s first TV station, KBTV (now WFAA), and came with a purchase price of $94,000 (nearly $1 million in today’s money). It was about to be converted into an RV when museum founder Chuck Conrad learned of its existence and intervened. The restoration took more than 10 years.

It’s the handiwork of radio station owner—and inveterate collector—Chuck Conrad, who has been giving a home to discarded radio/TV devices for just about as long as he can remember. The collection grew over the years to the point that Conrad decided to go public with it and purchased a vacant 19,000-square foot former automobile dealership building in this one-time oil field boomtown to allow it to be put on display. (He said the “tipping point” was reached after he purchased and restored a 30-foot long 1940s TV remote broadcast “bus”)

Conrad’s endeavor now swells Kilgore’s museum count to three, and it’s within easy walking distance of the East Texas Oil Museum and the RangeretteShowcase and Museum for visitors who wish to make a full day of connecting with the past.

While the museum comprises both consumer and broadcast-type radio/TV equipment, it’s especially “heavy” with vintage television cameras.

Visitors to the new facility soon find themselves navigating a maze of broadcast cameras. There are some 70 cameras in the collection, with 40 on display. A couple of later-model color versions are “hot” and trained on a news set which includes a greenscreen for demonstrating the magic of chromakey.

“There are about 70 TV cameras of various descriptions in the collection, with about 40 currently on display,” said Conrad. “There are also numerous videotape recorders, telecine equipment, switchers, video monitors, waveform monitors, distribution amps, camera support equipment, lighting and ancillary equipment, with the count running way into the hundreds of items.”

And this doesn’t include the microphones, audio consoles, monitor speakers, audio tape recorders, turntables and processing equipment gear, as well as a complete radio transmitter and early radio automation system that all found their way into Conrad’s collection.

“I'm sure there are at least 200 examples,” he said, “many of which are connected up and working. Then, there are the radios and TVs. We've never really counted them, but there are a lot, with many more in storage, just waiting their turn to go on display.”

A LONG AND EXPENSIVE PROJECT

This 1950s-vintage GE PE-25 camera is another of the more interesting items in the collection, as it has a strong tie to events that changed the world during the weekend of Nov. 22-24 in Dallas. The camera was part of the gear being used by CBS affiliate KRLD-TV (now KDFW) to provide live network coverage of the transfer of alleged presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald from Dallas police headquarters to a county jail when he was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Launching the museum project and taking it to completion took more than two years, according to Conrad.

“Finding a home was the first hurdle,” he said. “We were initially looking at an abandoned TV station in nearby Longview, Texas, but it was simply out of reach. The Kilgore City Manager suggested our current building, and the family that owned it was very amenable to the idea of turning it into a museum and really helped to make it happen.

Kilgore area residents once purchased their new and used Chevrolets from this downtown location. It’s now home to the newest broadcast museum in the county.

“However, updating an old building to modern standards was a huge undertaking,” Conrad continued. “We had to remodel the existing restrooms and add two new ADA-compliant restrooms, install a very elaborate fire sprinkler system, along with a fire alarm system and second-floor fire escape, as well as change all the exit doors and do a lot of other things. All of these were very expensive and quite time consuming.” 

Conrad acknowledges that the results were worth it, though, as he’s now able to show off some of the gems of his decades-long collecting quest.

Kilgore is located just a few minutes from the stretch of I-20 running between Dallas and Shreveport, and if you’re the least bit interested in yesteryear broadcast equipment, it’s well worth a stopover.

In Part I, we looked at how the definition of broadcast quality has evolved over the decades and the FCC’s attempts to enforce standards. In Part II, we look at several more past examples and examine how broadcast quality is determined in the digital age.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—What really defines “broadcast quality” and has such a thing ever really existed?

Even though television gear has become a lot more reliable over the years, on-air slippages in performance do occur. If this happens during peak viewing hours and there's no backup equipment, the only choices are to shut down and make immediate repairs, or limp along with a somewhat less than "broadcast quality" signal until signoff (or in the case of today's 24-hour operations, a time when viewership is low) and then fix the problem. Such a decision has never been difficult, as "the show must go on" philosophy almost always trumps degraded signal quality.

Let me give you an example involving a 1950s low-budget small-market TV station in a southwestern state. It was described as really a “shoestring” operation by its former owner (the person who related the story to me). One evening the station got a call from a viewer who was very excited about a particular program being transmitted. It seems that individual had won a color TV (a big-ticket item then) in a raffle and the network show the station was carrying was the first time the set had displayed color (1950s network offerings were mostly monochrome). The station’s then-owner and chief engineer was also excited, admitting to me that he didn’t know that his rather antique Dumont transmitter could even pass color. When I asked if he couldn’t see off-air burst and chroma information on a waveform monitor, he replied, “at that time we didn’t even own one.”

Strike another blow for maintaining “broadcast quality.”

There’s also the story from a couple of decades earlier involving a network affiliated radio station in a medium-sized market. The station was getting complaints about a “squeal” in the audio on network programs. However, as the audio sounded fine in the control room, station engineering chalked it up to listeners’ set problems or maybe some sort of interference in their neighborhoods. Finally, the number of complaints increased to the point that it was apparent something just might be wrong with their signal. The problem was eventually traced to an oscillating amplifier used by the local phone company to deliver the network audio. It seems that the speaker used for control room monitoring had such poor high frequency response that operators couldn’t hear the “squeal.” “Broadcast quality” I have to wonder?

‘RELAXED’ QC MONITORING

Fast forward to the 21st century. I visit quite a few broadcast facilities, and during the past few years have observed that more and more master control rooms are now monitoring everything on consumer-grade large screen displays driven by multiviewers. In other areas (graphics production) I also no longer see the broadcast grade “critical” and expensive CRT monitors, but rather garden-variety computer displays.

The same sort of “relaxed” QC monitoring is also happening in camera control rooms. Yes, there are plenty of “critical” monitors available (Dolby Labs, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Plura, and a number of others all come to mind), but I don’t see nearly as many “broadcast quality” monitors deployed where color and overall image quality assessment is taking place as I did when the CRT was king. And speaking of monitoring, how about the multichannel “surround” sound that we can transmit now that we’ve gone to digital—5.1 and maybe even 7.1-channel audio? Come on—show of hands—how many of you have created a 5.1 or 7.1 listening environment in your master control room so that operators can ascertain that the correct audio is where it ought to be? (I thought so.)

What I see in my visits is most often a control room display indicating presence and relative amplitudes of various channels. Also, the monitor speakers, however many or few, are usually potted down; and in some cases there’s no one there to listen to or look at a surround display. I even visited one new major market facility that was constructed without a master control at all. Everything was running on automatic pilot and MC operations (such as they were—transmitter remote control point/logging and news microwave monitors) were contained in an alcove at the end of the newsroom.

CONTENT TRUMPS QUALITY

So back to my original rhetorical question: was there ever really such a thing as “broadcast quality?”

Yes, when I was moving through the professional TV ranks in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and even a few years into the new millennium, we certainly had plenty of paper with ink on it describing how things ought to be done. And we tried really hard to keep reasonably good looking (and sounding) signals on the air. However, if you worked during this period you might recall that there were also three stock “excuses” when things didn’t go exactly by the book: (1) It looks good leaving here, (2) We can live with it, and (3) The trouble must be “west of Denver” or “east of Denver” depending on where you were and whether New York or L.A. was feeding the network. (For those of you not old enough to remember, Denver was the location of a major AT&T Long Lines switching center).

We tried to keep a “broadcast quality” signal on the air; honest to Pete we did, but sometimes things slipped a little bit (or even a lot). However, content always trumps quality and as long as we had the ball game or soap opera or whatever up at its scheduled time, the phone didn’t ring much, even if the quality slipped a little.

I recently asked the chief engineer of a modern-day TV station about consumer complaints and he responded without hesitation that the few received dealt almost entirely with aspect ratio and loudness issues, and in working with the complainants, in virtually every case the problems were traced to consumers having monkeyed around with their remote controls. (“It looks good leaving here!”) He added that complaints about color, resolution (even when SD was intercut with HD), and other video attributes were almost non-existent.

So, back to my questions: (1) what is “broadcast quality” and (2) did it ever exist?

Based on my nearly 50 years of involvement in broadcasting, I would have to answer that (1) no one is really 100 percent sure and (2) no, I don’t think it ever really did. However, we always tried to put out a quality signal and I hope that broadcasters always will!

James O'Neal is a retired broadcast engineer who worked in that field for some 37 years before joiningRadio World’ssister publication,TV Technology, where he served as technology editor for nearly a decade. He is a regular contributor to both publications, as well as a number of others. He can be reached via TV Technology.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—If you were at the Hollywood SMPTE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition last October, you might have sat in on a paper authored by the CMO and co-founder of Archmedia Technology, Josef Marc. The paper (“What Does ‘Broadcast Quality’ Mean Now?) examined changes in the industry during the past decade or so, especially the impact of UHD, HDR, expanded color gamut and the like, and described how evaluation of imagery can be highly subjective (“color-challenged people may be more sensitive to compression artifacts than people with normal color sensitivity, memory seems to improve image quality, etc.”). Marc noted that this also carries over into evaluation of audio.

This off-air photograph of a 1940s station test pattern was included in its FCC “proof-of-performance” documentation. Under careful examination, a number of defects and shortcomings are evident including telecine camera tube shading issues, less than perfect scan linearity and sweep adjustments and a slide that’s quite dirty. However, the station obviously prided itself as offering a “broadcast quality” signal to viewers.

After hearing the presentation, I’ve been pondering the paper’s implications, especially the statement in its abstract that “‘broadcast quality’ used to be a meaningful standard for communicating a quality level sufficient to satisfy the broadest range of requirements.”

Now I’ve been involved in the broadcasting business one way or another since I was a teenager (a long time ago), and the term “broadcast quality” was one of the first things (if not the first) that I tucked away in my ever-growing list of “buzz words.” It was drilled into me by upper management, as I’m sure it was you, that our product always had to be of “broadcast quality.” (And no, this wasn’t a reference to bleeping any of George Carlin’s forbidden words.)

NICE BUT VAGUE

So what really defines “broadcast quality” and has such a thing ever really existed?

Well, when you think it over, it’s right up there with such terms as “ample” or “adequate.” They sound nice, but are vague and their meaning can vary with circumstances. Yes, the FCC had its set of rules and regulations governing TV and radio station technical quality, transporters of network signals such as AT&T. Long Lines had their own system operating standards, and I recall (not so fondly) more than once conducting the lengthy SSOG (Satellite Systems Operating Guide) satellite path “proof of performance” to ensure that everything met spec. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against standards and specifications. No industry could exist without them. However, as evidenced by lots of practical experience, nothing is really set in stone.

In the 1960s, if you asked a radio station listener about “broadcast quality,” he or she might tell you that the station’s music sounded better than their phonograph records at home. There was probably a measure of truth here, as larger stations obtain multiple copies of the “top hits” from record pluggers and promptly replaced any disks that were beginning to sound worn or had gotten scratched. (Also the station may have added just a little “processing” in their audio chain.) However, if you asked the owner of some expensive “hi-fi” gear (something of a status symbol in the 60s), that person would likely have an entirely different (and not particularly flattering) definition of “broadcast quality.” They would likely point out that the limited audio passband, turntable rumble, and residual noise and distortion in the transmission process resulted in audio that was inferior to what their upper-end home hi-fi systems could deliver.

Ditto video. When affordable video cameras and home recording finally became available, folks were thrilled that they could preserve their children’s christenings, birthday parties, graduation ceremonies and the like for posterity, or record their favorite network television shows for future viewing. To hear owners of this technology talk, the video quality delivered by these devices was really wonderful, and curiously (or maybe not), the majority of consumers bought into the format that produced the poorest-quality video. On the other hand, we smug broadcasters looked down our nose disdainfully at the so-called “VHS quality.” We had “broadcast quality” quad and 1-inch video recorders. Anything else was, well, not worthy of consideration. We didn’t really talk much about 3/ 4-inch U-matic video recording, with 300-line or so resolution and really horrible color performance (remember those “plastic faces” that you saw on just about every newscast?) However, U-matic machines were sold as “broadcast” VTRs by several companies and were used by most broadcasters for ENG until something better came along.

A REALISTIC AND UNDERSTANDING FCC

Some of us may remember too the FCC’s crackdown on stations for violating established blanking intervals when U-matic machines began to be deployed in large numbers as the ENG movement took off in the 1970s. (It wasn’t exactly “broadcast quality” according to FCC regs, but there were few viewer complaints).

After handing out a lot of “pink slips,” the Commission finally backed off, saying “we are persuaded that the strict enforcement of our blanking interval standards tends to work a severe hardship on station licenses and, to some extent, deprives the public of some otherwise valuable programming.”

Translated, this meant that “even though you’re supposed to be maintaining ‘broadcast quality’ signals, we’ll look the other way, as it’s more important to get local news video on the air than to quibble about a line or two of vertical blanking or a few microseconds of horizontal.”

It’s true; neither stations nor the Commission caught any flack for airing slightly-less-than “broadcast quality signals.”

In the final part of this two-part series, we’ll look at how new and emerging monitoring technologies have altered the meaning of “broadcast quality” in the 21st century.

James O'Neal is a retired broadcast engineer who worked in that field for some 37 years before joiningRadio World’ssister publication,TV Technology, where he served as technology editor for nearly a decade. He is a regular contributor to both publications, as well as a number of others. He can be reached via TV Technology.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—The U.S. incentive auctioning of television broadcast spectrum has been shrouded in uncertainty ever since it got underway, with broadcasters and others expressing a growing list of concerns. However, there is one item that hasn’t received a lot of attention—the potential of RF interference to both repacked TV operators and wireless broadband operations from Canadian and Mexican television stations.

Can U.S. DTV and wireless broadband co-exist with transborder broadcasters in a repacked world? PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Starke, American Tower Corp.

Although the FCC developed software for modeling repacking scenarios on a market-by-market basis (including potential for both TV station interference and impairment to blocks of 600 MHz spectrum cleared for auction), and contends that the potential for interference is very low in border markets, there are skeptics.

“It would be nice if Canada and Mexico would fall in line with the repack in a timely way,” said Chares W. (Charlie) Rhodes, long-time TV Technology columnist and a recognized industry expert in interference issues. “However, the last thing that either country would stand is for the United States to dictate TV coverage in their countries, especially if there is no ‘quid pro quo,’ and right now there isn’t any. Memorandums of understanding between countries don’t mention compensation, and it’s not the usual practice in situations like this to give without taking.

“This is one of the items that I think may be unresolved in this auction,” Rhodes continued. “The FCC is being very close-mouthed about it and the Department of State has said nothing. There are a whole bunch of issues, any one of which could delay the availability of spectrum for stations along the border to shift frequencies.”

NO INCENTIVE
Rhodes’ concerns were echoed by Bill Meintel, senior partner at the RF consulting firm, Meintel, Sgrignoli, and Wallace.

“There’s no incentive for the Mexican and Canadian stations to move unless their governments force them to, but I doubt if this would happen,” said Meintel. “On the other hand, it could come down to the wireless carriers putting up money for such moves.”

Meintel said that he had television clients in border areas that could be impacted, but it was too soon to know if they might face interference problems.

Bill Meintel

“You’re not going to know what the situation will be until you know what channel they’re going to land on,” he said. “My understanding is that the FCC is going to use the scheme in the 2014 Report and Order to determine if they can use particular channels. They’re going to look at a station’s existing service in 2012 as the baseline. There has to be a reasonable effort to maintain this coverage. They will look at the points where service exists now that’s not impacted and then look at how much interference this new entry will cause, and they’ll allow up to one-half of a percent new interference. I think there is potential for additional interference, because each evaluation is one-on-one.

“My concern is that if they start having problems trying to make this work in getting the amount of spectrum they want, they may renege on this half-percent interference,” Meintel continued. “They could claim that it’s in the public interest to allow more interference so there can be more spectrum for wireless broadband. We’ll see how this all goes, but I’m skeptical.”

NAB SEES POSSIBLE CHALLENGES
Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of communications for the National Association of Broadcasters, was asked to share his thoughts on possible cross-border interference issues.

“Throughout all of the [spectrum auction] discussions, all stakeholders have identified border areas as areas of complexity,” said Wharton. “There is no mechanism in place for funding moves in [Canada and Mexico] and no timeline. We can’t predict when this will happen. We really have no position on this, other than it could potentially pose challenges, but it is up to broadcasters in those countries to move.”

Wharton praised the FCC for their work in obtaining the agreements for cooperation that are now in place and noted that the NAB had worked with the FCC in setting up methodologies for predicting interference cases and reiterated the commission’s pledge to U.S. broadcasters.

“The FCC adopted a zero interference policy for broadcasters; they can’t be interfered with.”

WIRELESS BROADBAND INTERESTS FACE PROBLEMS
It’s not just U.S. broadcasters who harbor concerns; telcos could face some thorny issues too.

“The broadband people have told the FCC that there are problems, but the FCC said ‘no, our computer modeling says otherwise,’” said Rhodes, noting that he’s measured interference thresholds to wireless broadband services from television stations and it’s far from zero, and that such warnings have been published in ITU proceedings, but ignored by the FCC.

Rhodes observed that wireless networks would likely have coverage holes if Canadian and Mexican broadcasters don’t follow suit with those in the U.S. in repacking.

“Who is going to want a mobile phone that doesn’t play anywhere and anytime?” Rhodes mused. “This doesn’t happen now, but the situation will be quite different when interference sources are megawatt ERP TV transmitters. However, the FCC continues to push forward with a ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude.

“I believe that the broadband interests are going to be very hesitant about committing money for spectrum if they don’t know when they’re going to get to use it,” Rhodes continued. “The FCC needs to resolve this before the auction. Telco managements will need to know when the spectrum will be available.”

In accordance with spectrum auction confidentiality, wireless broadband service providers are not allowed to comment publically about the auction; however, some are voicing concerns about unresolved interference issues. One member of the wireless industry, speaking under conditions of anonymity, stated that while there were agreements in place between respective governments, “the challenge is that there is currently no timeline, nor any reimbursement funds for TV station moves in Canada and Mexico,” and noting additionally that Mexico’s refusal to adopt the U.S. band plan will further complicate matters.

“If Canada and Mexico do not timely move, border markets will remain impaired, so we anticipate that there will be continuing challenges at the border,” the source said.

IS THERE A WORKAROUND?
Meintel related that an interference “solution of sorts” was achieved following a wireless carrier’s purchase of TV Channel 52 spectrum and the recognition of potential interference issues with Channel 51 broadcasters.

“The concern was not so much that they would be interfering with TV stations, but that TV stations would be interfering with them,” said Meintel. “Technically, they had to protect the television station’s service contour, which meant they couldn’t operate inside it and the market they wanted to cover was the same as the TV station’s. The only way they could operate was to get stations to accept the interference potential. This happened in a number of situations. The stations figured that they were reaching enough people on cable and were OK with the interference potential if the wireless broadband company was willing to write a check.

“On the other hand, there were stations who not only said no, but ‘hell no!’”

LAS VEGAS—In an exclusive interview at the NAB Show, Jae-You Choi, vice minister of Science, Information & Communications Technology and Future Planning for Korea, discussed the country’s plan to transition to UHD television broadcasting and also for providing 4K coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games to be held in Pyeongchang. He disclosed that experimental broadcastsare already underway, and that regular UHD transmissions would begin early next year in Seoul and these will be expanded to other regions of the nation at a fairly rapid pace.

Vice Minister Jae-You Choi

“We are preparing to launch the world’s first terrestrial UHD service in February 2017,” said Choi, speaking through an interpreter. “We will start service in the Seoul metropolitan area and the surrounding areas and then expand that service into [cities near] the Olympic venues, and in 2021 we will launch a nationwide service. The plan is to provide coverage to 77 percent of the country by the end of 2017.”

ATSC 3.0 USED IN DEMOS, BUT NO OFFICIAL DECISION YET

Choi noted that UHD has been available in Korea since 2014 via cable, IPTV and satellite distribution services, and that, while no government decision has been made to adopt a particular transmission standard, ATSC 3.0 is currently being used for these demonstrations. (Korea launched its current DTV service in 2001 with the ATSC 1.0 transmission standard.)

Choi pointed to the demos that took place at the Korean Pavilion at the NAB Show that will show how UHD will look over ATSC 3.0. “In June this year, after reviewing all the overall circumstances in the domestic situation, we are going to decide the terrestrial broadcast standards for UHD television,” he said.

Asked about plans for getting the Korean public used to the idea of 4K TV service, Choi said that there is already a campaign in place to do this with announcements about the launch of ultra high-definition service being made by television broadcasters.

“In Korea there has been established a group or association of electronics makers and broadcasters called ‘DTV Korea,’ to launch a full-scale publicity campaign,” he said.

The Vice Minister added that he expected the government will set up a program to help existing HDTV owners transition from the ATSC 1.0 transmissions now used to the new broadcast standard via set-top boxes or similar devices.

“When we were transitioning to digital TV in 2012, the government provided set-top boxes for viewers who did not have digital receivers,” said Choi. “As for the UHD transition, while we haven’t set up any detailed plans yet, I believe there is the possibility of a similar situation. There may be a special law enacted to support the transition in this way.”

When asked about a cut-off date for conventional high-definition broadcasting, the Vice Minister said this will likely happen in 10 years or so, but a complete timeline is not in place yet.

“In December of 2015 the government set up the launch plan for UHD, but we haven’t gotten into the details of a termination for regular HD service,” said Choi. “We are going to set up measures to prevent any kind of discrimination against regular HD viewers. We are planning to end regular broadcasts in about 10 years, but no firm date has been established.”

MAJOR COMMITMENT TO KOREA’S UHD FUTURE

Choi observed that the move to UHD is being heavily supported both by the government and private broadcasters.

“As for the Korean government, our policy direction is that UHD is a very important part of our next-generation broadcast industry,” he said. “We believe that the most important part is to have quality content in UHD and we set up public-private partnership funding to support the creation of content and also to implement policies for UHD technology. We do not yet have any plans or mandates in place that would force broadcasters to create UHD content or air it, but we do have a kind of consultation body with various stakeholders to set policy for UHD, so we are talking about this. And from the Korean terrestrial broadcasters’ side, they have already made commitments to the Korean government that they will invest about (U.S.) $5.9 billion to create UHD content and improve facilities to make UHD programing available.”

READYING FOR THE OLYMPICS

When asked about the number of Korean homes that will be watching the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games in UHD, the Vice Minister stated that this should be significant, citing a report from a study group that predicted some 180 million UHDTV sets in homes globally by the end of 2018, with more than 10 percent of these in Korea.

“In Korea it is predicted that there will be 1.91 million UHDTV sets in homes; this is significantly higher than the global average,” he said.

Choi noted that in connection with the Winter Games 4K telecasts, the Korean government will suggest to the host broadcaster, OBS (Olympic Broadcasting System), to create UHD programs with popular events to be shown in real-time. A special “UHD Broadcasting Equipment Experience Studio” will also be open to allow broadcasters visiting from other countries to learn more about what is involved in getting ready for 4K broadcasting.

“I hope that you will have the chance to come to Korea and experience this,” said Choi.

See also:

TV Technology’s ATSC3 silo.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Recently I reported about the Museum of Broadcast Technology (MBT) in Woonsocket, R.I. that specializes in displaying broadcasting “big iron”—early VTRs and cameras replete with scores of glowing vacuum tubes and supersized AC power cords. One of their biggest attractions is what may be the last surviving first-generation videotape recorder of its kind that still works. I learned the museum had high hopes of transporting this great granddad VTR to this year’s NAB Show, as 2016 marks the 60th anniversary of the VTR’s debut at that show (it was the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, or NARTB, back then). At the time the unveiling was swathed in secrecy, with no one outside of Ampex and some top CBS engineering executives aware of what was about to take place at a CBS affiliates engineering meeting held concurrently with the Chicago show.

This Ampex Mark IV was the star of the 1956 NARTB Show. Here Phil Gundy, Ampex vice president, (far left) looks on as VTR design team members, (L-R) Shelby Henderson, Alex Maxey, Fred Pfost, Ray Dolby, Charlie Ginsburg and Charlie Anderson admire their creation. (PHOTO CRDIT: Fred Pfost)

The rollout of this new television time-shifting technology took the CBS group by storm and the enthusiasm was infectious, spreading to virtually everyone there at the Conrad Hilton Hotel which hosted the NARTB that year. (RCA had planned to make a big splash with some new color TV products, but their exhibit really didn’t get much foot traffic, as almost everyone was hovering over Ampex’s newest electronic wonder.)

SOME DISAPPOINTING NEWS

Let us now fast-forward 60 years and return to the story about sending this rare example of American technology and know-how to Las Vegas this month. I got word from one of the Museum’s co-founders, Paul Beck, a few days ago that, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.

Paul Beck

“We received a number of donations, but there wasn’t enough to cover the anticipated expenses,” said Beck.

(As I mentioned in my original story, the MBT folks had initially been hoping for a funding grant to provide the estimated $25,000 to transport the heavy, bulky, and fragile machine to the NAB Show, but the grant didn’t materialize. I suggested in my story that readers who would like to see the VR-1000B make the trip to Las Vegas should donate as generously as they were able. Several readers did, but as observed by Beck, the amount raised wasn’t sufficient to “pay the freight.”)

BACKUP PLAN

While Beck and the MBT’s other co-founder, Tom Sprague, had been hopeful that their sexagenarian VTR’s ticket to Las Vegas would get punched, they are ready with a “backup of sorts” so visitors to their exhibit space will at least get some exposure to what video recording technology was once like.

“We will be bringing our two Ampex VR-3000s (backpack-sized 2-inch quadruplex machines) and we’ll be playing back some footage recorded on a portable machine from a schooner back in the mid-70s,” said Beck. “We’ll also be bringing along three operational RCA TKP-45 and a TKP-46 ‘minicams’ from the same period to show our visitors what portable color cameras looked like 40 years ago.” (Beck noted that the video on the demonstration tape they’ll be playing was captured with a TKP-45.)

“Also, there’ll be a high-def recording showing our VR-1000B in action,” said Beck. “This will be shown on a big screen to demonstrate the operation of the Ampex machine.”

While this will give show-goers a taste of what NARTB attendees witnessed 60 years ago, both Beck and Sprague admit that there’s nothing like the real thing and they’re disappointed that their machine won’t be making the trip to Vegas. 

However, not all may be lost!

In my follow-up communication with Beck, he pointed out quite correctly that while the Ampex recorder did make its first appearance 60 years ago, what the NARTB crowd saw was basically an engineering prototype, the company’s “Mark IV.” (A slightly earlier version, the Mark III, remained behind at the Ampex Redwood City, Calif. plant where one of the design team members, Ray Dolby, hosted a press conference to show off the new technology to local newspaper and wire service reporters at the same time the curtain was being raised in Chicago.)

Anyway, Beck’s point was that the machine shown in Chicago 60 years ago was not the VTR that ultimately rolled off the Ampex production line. The VR-1000 didn’t happen until the following year.

(When I interviewed Ray Dolby back in 2006 in connection with my TV Technology story about the VTR’s 1956 launch, he remarked that with the successful showing of video recording and its acceptance at the Chicago NARTB, as soon as the show ended, the team’s next project was to figure out how to set up a production line for assembling the recorders in large quantities. [After all, some 75 or so sales orders had been written at the show and these had to be filled ASAP!] Dolby said that the team spent several months developing assembly line production techniques and it was not until 1957 that the first VR-1000s began to ship.)

SHOOTING FOR ANOTHER IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY

“Next year’s NAB Show will mark 60 years since the VR-1000 was first shown,” said Beck. “Taking our machine to the 2017 NAB Show is probably more appropriate. And this gives us a year to raise funds and work out a detailed plan for getting the recorder to Las Vegas.

“We’re still very excited about the possibility of showing the machine and the extra 12 months will give us more time to plan the ‘hows’ of crating the machine and getting it out of our museum building and transported to Las Vegas safely,” he continued. “It will clearly have to go with some sort of ‘white glove’ service. The additional year will give us more time to work out the details.”

Tom Sprague

Beck and Sprague have estimated that it will require upwards of $25,000 to safely transport the Ampex recorder to and from Las Vegas. They remind those interested in making donations for the 2017 effort that the MBT is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and that donations made may be tax deductible. And just as in the original fund raiser, if the amount raised is insufficient to cover shipping and handling costs for the VR-1000, they will either apply donations received to cover other museum expenses or refund them depending on the donor’s wishes. If you’d like to help in this effort, please contact Tom Sprague at maindesk@wmbt.org.

Let’s see if we can’t make this plan a reality at next year’s NAB Show. Please donate as generously as you can!

WHERE IS THAT ‘OLDEST’ QUAD MACHINE?

I mentioned in my previous article that the first production VTR went to CBS, which had been in on the “surprise” NARTB unveiling. I also speculated that the whereabouts of that machine, if it still existed at all, was unknown. I decided to see if one of the real VTR history experts—Peter Hammar—might know what happened to serial number “0001.”

Pete Hammar

Hammar was the founder and curator of the Ampex Museum of Magnetic Recording and in this position was able to pull together a lot of the company’s history.

He stated that Ampex did deliver a few videotape recorders in 1956. However, these were the model VRX-1000, a sort of “go-between” that bridged the gap between the Mark IV demonstrated in Chicago and the VR-1000 that premiered in 1957. According to Hammar, 16 of these intermediate machines were manufactured.

“The VRX-1000 was the pre-production model for the VR-1000,” said Hammar. “These were hand-wired, and the first three machines were kept at the factory to serve as test ‘mules.’”

Hammar noted that some very necessary modifications to the Mark IV were made in the VRX-1000s, including a reduction in the depth of the machine. “The overall form factor was the same, but at 38-inches deep, the Mark IV couldn’t fit through most doorways.” he said, explaining that early on, the team had planned to include all of the support electronics in the base of the VTR, hence the 38-inch depth. He added that the first three “mule” machines had been disposed of long ago.

So what about the next VRX-1000 produced—serial number four?

Ampex VTR development team leader Charlie Ginburg poses with one of the 16 VXR-1000 machines assembled. (PHOTO CRDIT: Fred Pfost)

Hammar said it went to CBS’s Hollywood “Television City” facility where it was pressed into service to time-shift New York programming three hours for airing on the West Coast.

I’d remarked in my March story that whereabouts of this CBS machine was unknown—probably long since MIA—and asked Hammar if he could shed a little light on what became of this very early and historic VTR.

“Yes, I can,” he said. “This VRX-1000—serial number four—was in the Ampex Museum until the early 1990s. Then it went into storage in a San Carlos [Calif.] warehouse. Later it was sent to the Ampex facility in Colorado Springs, and finally went to Stanford University where it’s still in storage.”

Mystery solved!

And while it’s good to know that this important relic is still around, Hammar is unsure as to whether the machine is complete any more or could even be displayed, so it looks as if the Museum of Broadcast Technology still has the claim to the earliest complete and operable Ampex quadruplex VTR.

I’ll see you at the Museum of Broadcast Technology’s booth!

ARLINGTON, VA.—During my first year with TV TechnologyI had the pleasure of writing a story commemorating the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the videotape recorder at what is now the NAB Show. It’s hard to believe that we’ve traveled around the sun another 10 times since I was interviewing members of the Ampex team that created the machine and scrounging up photographs to go with the story. Time moves way too fast when you’re having fun.

MBT Museum co-founder Tom Sprague puts the six-decade Ampex VTR through its paces.

THE VR-1000 LIVES ON!
I had some more VTR-related fun a few weeks ago in traveling to Woonsocket, R.I. and spending an afternoon at the Museum of Broadcast Technology there. In case you’re not familiar with this organization, it has to be the world’s largest repository and display space exclusively devoted to professional broadcast equipment. There are scores of TV cameras, some dating back to the 1940s; a tube-type sync generator filling a full rack, and videotape machines—many, many tape machines.

One of the crown jewels of this assemblage of broadcast heavy metal is an Ampex VR-1000, the company’s first production VTR. It went into production just months after a prototype was unveiled to a stunned audience comprised of CBS TV-affiliate station engineers. To fully appreciate my usage of the adjective “stunned,” you would have had to have been there. (I wasn’t, being only nine years old at the time, but in speaking with some of those who were it was truly an historical occasion, with applause, whistling, back slapping, climbing on chairs, and the like which lasted for upwards of 10 minutes.) Several companies and organizations had been working on developing a videotape recorder, but Ampex was the first to arrive in that new world, instantly stopping all other R&D work and moving television into a totally new direction.

No, the VR-1000 in Woonsocket is not serial number 00001 or even a machine close to that seminal unit. The first machine shipped went to CBS, and after nearly 60 years its whereabouts is unknown, if it exists at all. However, the MBT machine (it’s a VR-1000B) is one of the very, very few surviving 1000’s that is still completely operational, having been restored to functionality by a lot of TLC from Museum volunteers. It still has all of its vacuum tube signal and servo circuitry intact (two racks full) and as an added “plum,” has been equipped with time base correction and chroma stabilizing units, allowing it to play back recordings in color (something that the original machine couldn’t do.)

TAKING THE VTR TO LAS VEGAS FOR A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
In speaking with Museum volunteer Jay Ballard, I learned that some planning had taken place last year for transporting this VR-1000B to the April 2016 NAB Show as a special treat for showgoers—many of whom have never seen a VTR that uses two-inch-wide tape, requires two separate 30-Amp power feeds, includes a vacuum pump and is driven by scores of glowing vacuum tubes. Unfortunately, the plan was derailed when a funding grant request fell through.

In digging a little deeper, I spoke with one of the Museum’s founders, Tom Sprague—someone who may be familiar to NAB Show attendees, as he and the other founder, Paul Beck, have brought working examples of yesteryear broadcast technology to the show for the past several years; none as large or impressive as a VR-1000B, though. Sprague told me that the heavy, bulky and somewhat fragile machine would have to be moved by a group that specializes in transport of electronic gear; something that doesn’t come cheap.

“If the machine were to go to NAB, it would have to have special handling—something like the ‘air ride’ vans you see on the highway,” said Sprague. “The equipment racks are seven feet tall. Just getting it out of the Museum’s front door would require special handling.”

Due to the fragility and physical size of the great-grandad recorder, special handling would also be needed at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Paul Beck “It could not be hand carried,” said Sprague. “It would have to he handled by union personnel there,” said Sprague, noting that while the LVCC freight handlers do a wonderful job in getting gear in and out of the halls, they are expensive. Also, as the machine requires 60-Amp electrical service, this would add to the expense.

Nevertheless, if the money could be made available for the move and setup, Sprague and Beck would be willing to let the machine make the 2,700-mile road trip, and have volunteered to head to Vegas early to make sure that it’s operational by show time.

Asked if he had any estimate of how much funding would take to make the VR-1000 available for all to see (and hear) at the NAB Show, Sprague wasn’t hesitant in naming a figure.

“All in all, we estimate that it would cost $25,000. This is more than the entire annual operating budget of the Museum.”

So, what to do?

A fallback plan is to produce a video that shows the machine in operation in its Woonsocket location.

“It would be a short tour of the machine, highlighting the new ‘advanced’ features of the ‘B’ version and would include video output taken directly from the machine’s proc amp,” said Sprague.

Jubilation over the introduction of the world’s first VTR at the 1956 Chicago NARTB (National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters) Show

However, looking at a recording of this dinosaur VTR just doesn’t have the impact of seeing and hearing such a device operate “in person.” (Actually, there are some quad machine videos posted on YouTube, including one from the MBT.) If you’ve never been up close to a quad, you really haven’t experienced what it’s like to hear the head assembly spin up to some 14,400 RPM (that’s 240 revolutions per second), hear the tape guide “shoe” snap into place after the head revs up, and then hear the heads literally biting into the moving tape.

The only way to really experience this is to stand beside such a machine as the “play” switch is punched and then watch for the video to appear on the monitor (it takes around 10 seconds; no “instant” pictures 60 years ago). And it seems only fitting and proper that such a machine should grace the NAB Show floor on this important anniversary.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED
Yes, upwards of $25,000 is not exactly pocket change for most of us, but when you consider what the big broadcast equipment manufacturers spend for floor space and shipping of their exhibits, this sum begins to move down towards the noise level. And what if there were multiple donors? Ten entities pledging $2,500 each would do the trick, or 25 commitments of just $1,000.

I have to ask too, if it can’t happen this time, what are the chances of getting an operational “model T” VTR to the 2026 or 2031 NAB Shows (70thor 75th anniversaries)? Not too likely, as the small cadre of engineers who can keep these things running is getting quite long in tooth, and replacement parts (such as head assemblies) are becoming more and more difficult to obtain.

This really has to happen this year if it’s going to happen at all!

The Museum is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible. If you’d like to help send this working example of 60-year-old broadcast technology to Las Vegas, now is the time to do it. Please donate as generously as you can. Let’s see if we can’t give show attendees something to talk about for a long time. You can contact Tom Sprague at maindesk@wmbt.org.

At any rate, we’ll see you at the MBT booth in Central Hall!

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—As described in the initial installment of this article on the movement by radio amateurs or “hams” to digital video transmission, hams have been experimenting with television since the 1920s, and as a group are acutely aware of technological developments in this area, as many are employed in the TV broadcasting, R&D and manufacturing sectors. Through the years, hams have always been quick to try out new technologies including microwave, satellite, digital communications, and most recently, high-definition television.

Mike Collis, WA6SVT

Mike Collis is one of those HD adopters. He’s a California ham (station call sign WA6SVT) who’s been involved in amateur TV since 1976 during his high school days, and recently ventured into high definition. (He’s also transmitter supervisor at a commercial television operation.)

“I moved into high definition about two years ago,” Collis said. “The incentive was the higher clarity pictures.”

Collis is in a fairly unique position in terms of keeping track of the segment of the amateur operators involved in television, as he’s co-publisher of Amateur Television Quarterly, a niche publication dedicated to news of amateur TV experimentation that’s read by more than 400 hams. It was a report of HDTV experimentation by a fellow ham that led Collis to make the shift to high definition.

“I was inspired by Jim Andrews who was doing HD with a Drake 64-QAM cable TV modulator,” Collis said. “I purchased a Drake unit [and went on-the-air with this].”

Collis can’t say for sure how many of his readers are testing the high-definition waters, but is aware of amateur HDTV activity in various parts of the United States, including both northern and southern California, Ohio, Kentucky and Arizona.

One of the most active of these is the aforementioned Jim Andrews (station call sign KH6HTV). He’s a retired electrical engineer and spends his time just about equally in Maui, Hawaii and Boulder, Colo. His experimentation with analog television on the ham bands (amateurs are allocated several chunks of RF spectrum real estate in the UHF and higher frequency bands) also goes back to the 1970s. However, the DTV bug eventually bit, with Andrews making his initial move about five years ago.

Jim Andrews, KH6HTV
FIRST STEPS IN THE REAL OF ZEROS AND ONES TV
“I’d always had an interest in TV,” Andrews said. “And as the whole industry was transitioning to digital [back in the 1990s], I knew that amateurs needed to keep up with what was going on.

His first move was to evaluate the least complicated path to DTV.

“I consider myself an analog engineer with a microwave background and knew there was no way I was going to design my own circuits to do the digital processing. So I became an ‘appliance operator’ [in ham jargon, someone who elects to purchase ready-made equipment, rather than fabricate their own]. I decided to identify available digital [modulation] equipment and then add RF amplification of my own design to get on the air.”

Initially Andrews investigated the commercial ATSC encoding gear that U.S. television stations were installing, but quickly experienced sticker shock.

“All I found was the really expensive stuff made by Harris and others,” Andrews said. “They were all way too expensive. I was really frustrated by the prices; I wanted something down in the $1,000 price range. In 2011, I discovered a digital modulator made by Drake, a company that supplies equipment for cable system head-ends. This was the DFE 24 which sold for about $1,200. It provided 64-QAM and wasn’t intended for over-the-air, but I decided to try it. I soon discovered that QAM didn’t really work well with multipath as it was intended for a really perfect transmission path. There was no correction circuitry to accommodate a poor transmission channel.”

Despite this limitation, Andrews took to the air on the amateur 70 centimeter band (420 to 450 MHz) by adding a 10 Watt RF amplifier of his own design and an antenna that provided an EIRP of about 100 Watts. With this simple system he was ultimately able to achieve a transmission range of some 75 miles (He’s quick to offer that the ham operator on the receiving end of the link was using an antenna with some 27 dB of gain and that the path between the stations was “true line-of-sight”).

Andrews continued to experiment with 64-QAM DTV transmission, but recently discovered encoding gear more suitable for over-the-air applications.

“In the spring of 2014, I saw an article in Amateur TV Quarterly about some U.S. hams using some DVB-T gear made by a Taiwanese company, HiDes,” said Andrews. “They were reporting distances of up to 175 miles. I bought the gear described and ran a lot of field propagation tests which showed that it was far superior to my CATV modulator. This was the way to go!” 

With the improved performance of the DVB-T unit, Andrews soon made the step to high definition.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT EXPERIMENTATION
So besides propagation and distance experimentation, what else has Andrews done with his DTV transmission capability? As service to the community is one of the tenets upon which amateur radio service was founded, it wasn’t long before he and other Boulder-area hams made their digital capability available to area law enforcement operations. 

“We have a really active ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) group in the Boulder,” said Andrews. “We’ve been providing our services to the Sheriff’s Department since 1990, covering public protests, large fires and the like. We’ve also gone out on SWAT calls to provide video coverage to the sheriff’s command center. They don’t have their own coverage capability, and there is no [law enforcement] RF allocation for this either. They turn to the ham radio community for this.” (He noted that several hams were employed in the Sheriff’s Department communications unit.)

“And after I’d gotten into the DVB-T stuff and found out how well it worked, we did a demo for the University of Colorado Police Department in connection with their home games,” said Andrews. “It really outperformed the analog system we’d been using. The police chief was pretty well blown away with the high-definition images. They allocated $10,000 to make a transition to digital HD.”

Andrews explained that the department relies on volunteer assistance from the ham community to staff camera positions and operate the new HD gear. The money went for purchase of additional DVB-T modulators, receivers and RF linear amplifiers, as the hams were able to provide four independent transmission channels for the law enforcement operation. He noted that high-definition coverage had expanded to other University events too.

The Boulder, Colo., ARES group has been providing video linkage for local law enforcement groups for some time. Here a member sends back HD images to assist with crowd control efforts.

“We assisted with a 10K footrace last Spring,” said Andrews. “And most recently we helped with the presidential candidate debate held there.”

He added that the area emergency operations center had been activated for this event, with FBI and Secret Service agents involved.

“We heard that the commanders in the ops center were glued to the pictures provided by our group as they were far superior to the images being generated by the FBI team. This was a real pat on the back for us!”

A GROWING AMATEUR HDTV COMMUNITY
Andrews says that it’s now fairly easy to get on the air with HDTV, with a complete equipment package running in the neighborhood of $1,000.

“That’s exclusive of cameras, but HD camcorders are dirt cheap now,” he said. “Modulators are down in the $300 range and an RF amplifier with a 50 dB gain and 3 W output runs about $375. You can get a suitable antenna for between $50 and $100. A receiver can be purchased for about $150, but a lot of people are using $10 DVB-T ‘dongles,’ basically software-defined radios which do the decoding and spit the data out to a computer.” 

This price point has made HDTV readily accessible to the ham community, with the number of HD-enabled operators continuing to increase.

“In the Boulder area we now have at least a dozen hams that are very active,” said Andrews. “All use DVB-T. The real ‘hotbed of amateur TV’ is in southern California. They have actually created a network of repeaters on mountain tops that extends into Nevada and Arizona.”

HAM DIGITAL STANDARDS
Andrews noted that the push to DTV via the DVB standard in amateur radio circles was originally centered in western Europe and in Australia, explaining that the DVB-S (satellite) standard was favored due to the availability of inexpensive DTV satellite receivers. According to Andrews there’s no clear consensus as to whether DVB-S or DVB-T is best suited for amateur work; both systems continue to be used. 

He noted that his introduction to DVB-T was essentially painless with the HiDes gear purchased.

“No mods were necessary at all. I used it right out of the box,” he said. “It’s frequency synthesized to address a really broad market. It’s also not channelized—not on standard channels. Channelization is programmable via a USB computer connection.

“You can set the bandwidth from 2 to 8 MHz, he said, noting that the company had responded to ham requests to provide the 2 MHz (and narrower) options. “You can’t do HD at this bandwidth though. It actually supports operation down into the hundreds of kilohertz.”

The ARES group stays busy in volunteering their services to campus police at the University of Colorado. Members are seen here checking out one of the antennas installed on a University building.

When asked about trying out ATSC DTV, Andrews stated that he had finally discovered a modulator selling for less than $1,000.

“I probably would have gone this way if it had been available when I started,” he said. “However, in the meantime, I have a lot of information about the superiority of DVB.”

So what about the movement to 4K and the developing ATSC 3.0 digital standard?

Andrews says that some of the Boulder area hams have expressed interest in UHD and have already purchased 4K receivers.

“I’m sure that the amateur TV community will move in that direction. However, I think cost will be the limiting factor. $1,000 is probably the ‘magic’ threshold for most ham budgets. They will not start experimenting with 4K until the price of modulators drops to the vicinity of $1,000, and as for ATSC 3.0, I haven’t really been keeping up with the developments.”

James O'Neal is the technical advisor to TV Technology. 

ARLINGTON, VA.—“It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way….”

As we near the end of 2015, these words penned by Charles Dickens in 1859 seem oddly prescient in light of the impending incentive spectrum auction and repacking. All that’s missing is “nothing was certain but uncertainty itself!”

No matter how much broadcasters wish it would go away, the auction clock is ticking. However, it’s probably not the auction so much as it is the subsequent period for channel “repacking” to clear blocks of spectrum for the wireless broadband “victors” that’s keeping a lot of people awake at night.

In most TV markets, there’s going to be a lot of churn as broadcasters decide to either: (a) take the money and pull the big switch for the last time, or (b) keep operating, but with a high probability of having to change transmitting facilities.

While there can be no absolutes, given the complicated nature of “who stays and who goes” in a particular market, there are some things that the broadcasters should be thinking about right now. These include timelines and deadlines for filing for facility changes; obtaining construction permits; timelines for constructing new facilities; securing funding for facility changes; purchase of a new transmitter, antenna or both; temporary operating facilities; and operational contingency plans. Even if you’re in the former category, you need to think about legally winding down operations.

Joe Davis

WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN
To help station operators better prepare for what lies ahead I asked consulting engineer Joseph Davis, president of Chesapeake RF Consultants in Yorktown, Va., to share information about operator responsibilities and the various FCC-mandated post-auction deadlines.

Davis lists three categories of stations, excluding those electing to relinquish their spectrum, once the auction dust settles: (1) those staying on their current channel, (2) stations repacked to another channel within the same band and (3) band changers (broadcasters moving from UHF to VHF, or possibly from high-band V to low).

He noted that it’s not only stations that don’t participate in the auction that may be required to relocate to another channel, but also those offering up spectrum initially, but later dropping out of the auction due to insufficient bids or other reasons.

“If you don’t participle in the auction, but you’re a UHF Channel 48 or 49 you can expect to be repacked,” said Davis. “It’s important to know too that if you’re on Channel 20 you can also be repacked to make room for the guy in the next city. The FCC will try to keep stations on their current channel, but that’s not necessarily going to be the case. In some situations, a station might be assigned to a higher channel, but in most situations they will go down.”

INITIAL POST-AUCTION ACTIONS
So, what’s the first step operators must take once the auction ends?

 “If stations are relinquishing their spectrum, they have three months to wrap up operations and go off the air,” Davis said. “Stations that have elected to channel-share can stay on the air on this basis, but they have to cease operation on their old channel within six months. This may catch some operators by surprise. They need to have plans for executing channel-sharing arrangements very quickly.”

The FCC has made a provision to extend this deadline by six months in some special cases, but has stated that it will not entertain requests for any further extensions.

“The first deadline occurs three months after the FCC makes post-auction channel reassignments public,” Davis said. “Repacked stations have to file for construction permits and provide an estimate of their construction costs.”

Given the uncertainty of what post-auction operating frequencies may be available in a given television market, it may be time to explore antenna/transmitter options that might remain after the 2009 digital transition. Here a side-mount UHF antenna and top-mount VHF radiator still share a tower.

There will be $1.75 billion in funding set aside to help repacking stations defray construction costs. However, Davis noted that operators electing to move from a U to a V frequency will not be eligible to tap this fund. They must pay any reconstruction costs out of revenue gained from selling their UHF spectrum.

“After this initial three-month period, the 36-month ‘broadcast construction’ period begins, so there’s a total of 39 months,” Davis said. “The FCC stated that they will issue construction permits as fast as they can and that they are also going to establish varying construction deadlines. This means that FCC will review station location, weather conditions, and other factors in making a construction period determination, and some stations will have less than 36 months.

“At the same time, the FCC will be reviewing the cost estimates submitted and set aside up to 80 percent of the estimated costs for commercial stations and up to 90 percent for non-commercial stations. Stations can draw on these funds through electronic bank accounts with the submission of expense invoices to the FCC for review.”

VERY IMPORTANT DEADLINES
“You must cease operation on your old channel within 39 months after the date of the reassignment public notice,” Davis said. “There is no flexibility there at all. The FCC said they would entertain requests for a six-month extension of the construction deadline, but this does not extend the deadline for ceasing operation on the old channel.

“Worst case, a station might have to go dark if the construction takes too long. If you’re dark for 12 months, statutorily your license is cancelled. They’ve said there is a procedure for reinstating it in some cases, but that’s not too reassuring.

“What’s going to happen are ‘interim operations.’ We cannot expect that all stations will construct full and final facilities within 39 months. That’s just not practical. We’re going to see loads and loads of ‘interim operations.’ Maybe a transmitter and antenna for the new channel can be set up temporarily and operated at reduced power. A side-mount antenna might be used until a top-mount model can be installed. There’s also the possibility of setting up a “temporary” channel; it might be possible to ‘camp out’ on spectrum already relinquished by a station using that station’s former facility until more permanent facilities can be built.”

Davis observed that in order to accomplish repack, broadcasters would have to be given some leeway from hard and fast policies and rules.

“The FCC is going to have to give us some flexibility under STAs for interim operations just as they did in the last transition.”

A clean, well-lighted transmitter plant — does yours look like this? (photo credit, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC)

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — As related in the first part of this article, there was a time when radio and TV transmitting facilities were a station’s pride and joy and continuously staffed. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Transmitting plants are now for the most part “out of sight, out of mind” until something “bad” happens (translation: going off the air unexpectedly).

However, with a little of that due diligence we’re always hearing about, there’s really no excuse for a facility to suffer downtime. Part one examined transmitting towers and this installment goes inside the buildings located beneath those lofty structures.

MAKE TIME TO SAVE TIME

Just as with periodic tower inspections, regular preventative maintenance can keep you on the air without interruptions. With fewer and fewer resources available and always more and more to do, it’s tempting to place transmitter PM on the bottom of the list and address the “fun stuff” first, but don’t. Create an inspection schedule/checklist and stay with it. If the facility is remotely located, that’s all the more reason for regular visits to see if something may be going out of kilter from normal wear and tear, or perhaps has had a little help from outside forces.

Building security should be foremost on the list. Hopefully, you’ve got some sort of remote surveillance system or service in place to notify you of an opened door or HVAC failure. However, remote telemetry doesn’t always catch less obvious items, such as locks or outside electrical gear and grounding systems that have been tampered with. It’s a good idea to do a complete walkabout to check for signs that someone has tampered with gear so as to make it unreliable or unusable when it’s really needed.

‘CRITTERS’ NOT WELCOME

Humans aren’t the only intruders you need to worry about. Transmitters and equipment racks work best in comfortable temperatures and humidity levels. Small animals enjoy these conditions too and will go out of their way to seek them, especially when someone else is paying the bills.

Flying and crawling insects somehow have a sixth sense when it comes to accessing protected enclosures. While they mean no harm, wasps, bees and ants can cause damage when they set up shop in power panels, generator control boxes, ductwork, or other out-of-the-way places. It’s a good idea to pull panel covers and access plates on a regular basis to check for squatters. Caution is advised, though, as some of these species don’t like to be disturbed. If colonies are discovered, do your best to identify how access was gained and seal off these “ports-of-entry.”

Critters a bit higher on the evolutionary scale—birds, reptiles, and mice (especially the latter) can be. If “Mickey and Minnie” do take up abode you’ll soon find out how destructive they can be. In addition to unauthorized document shredding, they’re not too meticulous when it comes to bathroom habits, instantly ruining items or setting the stage for eventual ruination by corrosion. They love warmth for themselves and their offspring, and tend to seek out heat-producing gear, sometimes building secret and elaborate nests under a chassis or deck. OSHA safety regs don’t apply to mice and in many cases they manage to connect with a voltage source and zap themselves. This can either cause an immediate equipment failure or create a more subtle and difficult to diagnose condition involving decomposition.

If you notice evidence of a rodent invasion, it’s probably best to bring in professional help. In addition to extermination they also know where to look for ingress ports and know how to make a facility mouse/rat-unfriendly.

Reptiles—snakes in particular—also seem drawn to transmitter buildings, and can enter through very small openings. They can either scare the dickens out of you when you unsuspectingly discover and disturb them, or cause equipment failure.

James Gott, senior maintenance engineer at Paducah, Kentucky’s WPSD-TV, related a transmitter issue triggered by a curious reptile.

After remotely observing that one of the station’s dual Harris TV-30L transmitters had dropped off line, he made the 30 minute drive to the transmitter site and tried resetting the failed transmitter’s high voltage supply several times without success.

It just kept tripping off,” said Gott. “I removed the back panel to get to the high voltage parts…and noticed that a big greenish-brown snake had crawled into the cabinet and had gotten across one of the caps.”

Gott reported that he removed the snake and then cleaned up the capacitor with denatured alcohol. The rig came back up, but the snake turned out to be a total loss.

“I was not gonna try ‘mouth-to-mouth’ with a snake,” quipped Gott.

IF IT CAN HAPPEN, IT WILL!

Transmitter meters are isolated from human contact by a protective glass or plastic cover for good reason. Never remove such covers.

Another area that needs scrutiny—especially if you’re new to a legacy transmitting facility—are undocumented changes made by former employees. Never assume anything!

Fred Krampits, a customer service engineer at Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC, relates an incident in which a newly hired engineer received a very severe electric shock while checking out a transmitter problem. The cause was a high voltage interlock that had been bypassed by someone in the past and never documented. Fortunately, the victim had followed the rule of never doing transmitter maintenance alone and his co-worker was able to administer CPR and call in emergency medical personnel.

In addition to checking for compromised interlocks, Krampits also strongly suggests investigating the condition of other interlocks and safeguards which might have failed of their own accord, and which in addition to posing safety issues could lead to expensive repairs.

“It’s very easy to quickly destroy a $40,000 IOT if a loss-of-coolant interlock isn’t working properly,” said Krampits.

MAKE TIME TO CHECK THAT DOCUMENTATION

If you’re new to a facility, it also might make good sense to dust off the manufacturer’s installation manuals to see if everything was done properly when the transmitter was first installed. There’s the case of an installation in the good ole NTSC days where the manufacturer’s equipment floor plan was ignored, as the licensee wanted to save some money and had the building contractor shave a few feet off the structure’s suggested dimensions. This necessitated rearranging some of the larger gear once it was delivered. Despite a somewhat cramped layout, everything did go together and all was well until about a year when the visual transmitter’s heat exchanger suffered a massive core leak. Unfortunately, what could have been perhaps a single day’s outage turned into a real nightmare. To gain access to the visual heat exchanger’s core, both the aural transmitter and its heat exchanger had to be disconnected and moved out of the way, killing any notion of staying on the air by multiplexing signals through the aural amplifier. Three days of operations were lost and a very large overtime bill racked up. Need I mention that this outage occurred during a rating sweeps period!

The same sort of “gotcha” can happen when older facilities are modified or original equipment is replaced with newer gear. It’s time well spent to study the relationship of transmitter power supplies, amplifier cubicles, HVAC equipment and other items within your transmitter building to see if easy access to repair/remove/replace an item has been made difficult by placement of other gear. This includes access to outside doorways, which may once have in the clear but is now impeded by added equipment or interior construction. Even if access doesn’t appear to be a problem, try and imagine worse case scenarios regarding large item failures and develop a plan if the unthinkable does happen. Such homework may prove to be very valuable.

Speaking of documentation, do you have a complete set of manuals covering everything at the transmitter facility? Krampits noted that it’s not uncommon for customers to call his company’s help desk for assistance in getting a transmitter back on the air; however, when the troubleshooting steps are suggested it’s learned that the equipment manuals and diagrams are back at the studio, or have just plain “gone missing.”

“It’s awfully hard to try and take someone through transmitter wiring when there’s no schematic available,” Krampits said.

Is your transmitter plant ready for “the big one?” This AM facility was constructed with flooding from a nearby river in mind. Everything is located above a worse-case waterline.

Joe Turbolski, director of sales at Hitachi Kokusai Comark, observed that in today’s world, there’s really no excuse for not having service information available where it’s needed, as his company and others have been issuing such information on CD ROM and memory sticks. Also, in many cases, manuals are available for downloading from the manufacturer’s website. It’s fine if you want to keep transmitter equipment documentation in your office at the studio, but be sure you’ve printed out duplicate information for use at the transmitter site, and do this way ahead of the game. Don’t count on a rarely-used compute or printer at the transmitter to be working when it’s crunch time.

WHEN IN DOUBT, CALL IN AN EXPERT

In today’s environment, on-site transmitter engineers and station employees who did nothing but RF work really don’t exist anymore, so perhaps when some really serious transmitter maintenance is needed it may be better to bring in someone with a thorough background in this area than trying to do it yourself. The potential for personal harm and very expensive consequences can be very high if your skill set isn’t what it should be.

One such specialist is Mark Hills, principal engineer at s2one Inc. He’s been involved in RF work for more than three decades, and a few years ago decided to launch a business to assist those in need of RF expertise.

“A lack of qualified RF people was the reason I started my company,” said Hills. “With the transition to ATSC, I saw a huge volume of transmitters and a shortage of station employees with RF experience. People with transmitter experience have mostly retired.”

Hills visits some 75-80 television transmitter installations in the course of a year, with customers including everyone from mom-and-pop operations to major groups.

When asked about some of the problems he’s seen associated with lack of RF training, he was quick to recall a visit to a major market facility with an IOT transmitter.

“The meters were supposed to be behind a Plexiglas screen, but it had been removed by the operator,” said Hills. “He said that he was fed up with having to remove it to change lamps. He wasn’t aware that there was 36 kilovolts there.”

In another case, Hills related performing an inspection on a station recently purchased by a group owner. He observed that the transmission line flanges were assembled with only about half of the bolts required and that the line was held in place with ordinary rope.

At another site, Hills found the ATSC transmitter grossly mistuned.

“It made a picture, but things were very far out,” he said. “Nobody checked to see if the ‘shoulders’ were in spec. You can do nothing for a while, but it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later.

“Fortunately, there are still some broadcasters who want to do things right. That’s where I can be of assistance. Chief engineers send studio people up to the transmitter to work with me and try and learn something. I always make a point of going through safety issues.”

Hills remarks were echoed by Roz Clark who is director of technical operations with Cox Media Group’s Tampa and Orlando, Fla. radio properties and oversees management of 13 radio stations in those markets.

“There is no such thing as a transmitter ‘guy’ who’s at the transmitter every day,” said Clark. “Those days are long over. Some station operators have gone to a mode of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t worry about it—just take care of things when they break.’ That’s a risk that some companies take.”

Clark advocates a strict schedule of routine maintenance, with a visit to transmitter sites on a weekly basis.

MAKE SURE IT’S GOING TO WORK BEFORE THE EMERGENCY OCCURS

“The operating condition of everything on line should be noted,” said Clark. “And also the things that are not on-line at that time at the time of inspection such as backup power systems, generator power, alternate transmitters and other systems.”

He stressed that too much emphasis can’t be placed on keeping backup power sources ready to operate.

While locating a backup generator in a transmitter building’s basement may seem like a good idea, there can be some downsides.

“Generators need to be started at least once a month and a check made to be sure everything is operating normally,” said Clark. “And don’t neglect fuel supplies; diesel fuel isn’t what it used to be—shelf life is much shorter due to biofuel and a lack of sulfur. It can break down and grow bacteria and all kinds of things. At least yearly, you should bring in someone who specializes in fuel treatment to filter and purify your fuel. They pump from the bottom of the tank and filter until the fuel is at a specified clarity. They also take samples and send these to a lab for further analysis to determine the fuel’s combustibility and other qualities, and will recommend if any additives are needed to extend the fuel’s life.”

He also pointed out that reliance on in-line diesel fuel filters is not enough.

“Your filter will capture these contaminates, but they will eventually clog it and your generator will not run.”

The physical location of a backup generator and its associated fuel tank is sometimes taken for granted, but this can spell success or failure in times of an emergency. At transmitter buildings with basements, it’s tempting to install the generator down there. However, there are downsides. A big takeaway from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor disaster is that backup generators don’t work very well when they’re under water. It’s best to place them on high ground—a pad or other support well above a worse-case flooding scenario.

Inside placement of fuel tanks is also problematic. There’s always the possibility of a leak that could go unnoticed long enough for the tank to completely empty its contents in the enclosed space. In addition to the safety hazard, cleanup is going to be involved and costly. An outside location with a basin large enough to contain a leak is the only way to go.

Electrical power panels at transmitter sites need periodic attention too.

“Best practice is to get a thermal imaging report on all electrical systems,” said Clark. “This is where someone comes in with an infrared camera and can spot areas that are heating. This will help you cure problems before they become a crisis.”

DON’T PUT IT OFF ANY LONGER

We’re all busy in this world of multitasking, however, a little time spent in periodically checking things at your transmitter site and planning for contingencies can pay big rewards. Perhaps pioneer superpower radio broadcaster and quack physician Dr. John R. Brinkley said it best in his appeal to his radio audience to seek his services:

“Don’t wait until it’s everlastingly too late!”

James O’Neal is a retired broadcast engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the field. For the past 10 years he has served as technology editor at TV Technology magazine.

A tall tower is a very good invitation for lightning strikes. (PHOTO CREDIT: James E. O’Neal)

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—In the first installment of this series, we focused on broadcasting facility problems caused by AC power line surges or spikes and learned that some 92 percent of these damaging transients were manmade in origin. However, just because storm-induced glitches are statistically less likely, this doesn’t mean that they can be ignored.

“The broadcast industry, in general, operates with some of the tallest man-made structures on earth,” said Kevin Turner, an AC power specialist with Smiths Power. “These are prone to lighting strikes, and the associated facilities involve networks that have to be highly reliable. People rely on the broadcasting industry for critical safety information and these networks really can’t be allowed to go down.”

Broadcast transmitting towers are ideal targets for lightning strikes, with some being struck on a regular basis.

“Broadcasters get it from both ends,” said Roz Clark, director of technical operations for a number of Cox Media Group broadcast properties located in Florida—a state known for frequent thunderstorm activity and its low open terrain. “They have to deal with power line strikes and also lighting hits at transmitter sites. A tall tower stands out like a sore thumb.”

So what can a broadcaster do to protect his or her very expensive equipment from nature’s electrical wraith?

SURGE PROTECTORS CAN WORK WONDERS

A good place to start is with the installation of surge protection devices. Jeff Welton, Nautel’s regional sales manager for the central United States and former customer support technician,highly recommends the use of MOV “shunt-type” protectors at all transmitter sites.

“You want to place the MOVs close to your ground point,” said Welton. “If you get a surge on your tower, it couples through your transmission line coax and hits the point where this is grounded at its entrance to the building. That ground potential spikes high—up to multiple thousands of volts.If you have a bi-directional MOV surge protector going back to your AC entrance (connected with the shortest, heaviest gauge wires possible for least inductance), and connect to that ground point with a low inductance ground strap, the MOV will decouple the spike to the AC line, and power companies graciously provide thousands of miles of lines to dissipate the surge. A MOV-type surge protector is not just an AC power line protection device. It can protect you in both directions if you’ve got good low inductance feeds to it.”

THOSE WONDERFUL ‘DOUGHNUTS’

A very simple and easy way to soften the blow from a lightning strike to your antenna or tower is to install large ferrite “rings” [toroids] over the transmission line close to the transmitter output flange. (PHOTO CREDIT: Nautel)

Another very good defense against lightning problems are ferrite toroids—just like the ferrite beads sometimes used on equipment power cords, but much bigger. 

“Install ferrite toroids on the coax between that ground point and the transmitter. The toroids reject common mode surges,” said Welton. “If you get a surge on the center conductor—which isn’t very likely—or on the shield when there’s a tower strike the ferrite will saturate and attempt to induce an equal surge on the opposite conductor so the potential stays the same. This is because of the magnetic field of the ferrite.”

Welton noted that Nautel ships ferrite toroids with every transmitter the company sells. He also wanted to inform readers about a lightning protection white paper available on Nautel’s website. While it was written for radio station operators, it provides many useful pointers for television plants too. It’s available here.

HOMESPUN LIGHTNING REMEDY

Cox Media Group’s Roz Clark offered another transmitter site lightning protection tip that readers might want to adopt for smaller diameter coax cables entering the building, such as those from STLs, two-way radio antennas and the like.

“This is nothing that you can buy off the shelf, but it is fairly easy to construct” said Clark. “We simply form the coax cables into loops [around a piece of large diameter PVC tubing] to create a high impedance path to a strike. We’ve found that this offers a good degree of protection.”

This homebrew “wrap” methodology may help ward off lightning damage to gear connected with smaller coax cables. (PHOTO CREDIT: Roz Clark)

ELIMINATE LIGHTNING BEFORE IT CAN STRIKE!

Paul Shulins, director of technical operations for Greater Media Boston, also sees value in the installation of lightning “dissipation” devices, also known as lightning spurs, static dissipators, streamer-delaying air terminals and a host of other names. These are metallic devices constructed with a large numbers of “points” or “fingers”. They tend to reduce the electrical voltage between a storm cell and the antenna or tower by transferring charge to nearby ionizing air molecules. This controlled charge leakage reduces the chance of a lighting strike to a tower or antenna. The desired effect is to prevent a lightning strike to the structure, but even if the accumulation rate exceeds the dissipation rate, the devices will divert the strike away from equipment toward a safer path to ground,one that’s defined by the original ground system.

“In my experience, lightning dissipation devices seem to work well,” said Shulins. “They’re installed on the master radio and TV antenna at the Prudential Building here in Boston and it’s never sustained any lightning damage over the past 25 years or so.”

He noted that no technology is perfect, and damaging strikes do happen from time to time; however, the dissipation devices, along with other protective measures, seem to greatly decrease potential for damage.

‘BE PREPARED’

The flower-like devices atop this tower are not there for decoration! They are known as “dissipators” and can help reduce the severity of lightning strikes, or in some cases ward them off completely. (PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Shulins)

It seems as if the television engineering community is busier than ever due to the constantly changing technology updates; however, you really need to make time to give careful study to your transmission facility to see if it’s adequately protected from the ravages of atmospheric electricity.

Greg Best, a Kansas City, Mo.-based telecommunications consultant and owner of the Greg Best Consulting firm, stressed that good grounding practices are absolutely essential in keeping a transmitter plant safe.

“If you don’t have a good ground system, you’re living on borrowed time,” said Best. “You’re really asking ‘which piece of equipment do you want to replace next?’ Also, just because you’re next door to someone with a 1,000-foot tower and you only have a 200-footer, don’t feel too secure. You never know what lightning is going to do.”

Lightning won’t wait for a convenient time to strike. It could be as near as the next thunderstorm. The Boy Scouts said it best—“Be Prepared!”

(This is the second installment of a multi-part article; the next installment will examine grounding and bonding practices.)

James E. O’Neal is a retired broadcast engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the field. For the past 10 years he has served as technology editor at TV Technology magazine.

ALEXANDRIA, VA—By the time you read this, the summer season and its associated stormy weather will be behind us. If you were lucky—or well prepared—you likely escaped transmitter or studio plant damage from thunderstorm-induced power surges, also known as line glitches, transients and spikes. However, just because the threat of electrical storms is lessened doesn’t mean you can let your guard down when it comes to protecting broadcast gear from power source damage. With today’s microchips and their associated millions of transistors it doesn’t take much to render gear inoperative or unreliable.

So just what is a power surge anyway?

Short-duration surges or spikes can add a tremendous amount of destructive energy to the normally stable power received from your electrical utility company.

A good working definition comes from Kevin Turner, an AC power specialist with Smiths Power, a company that encompasses such power equipment brands as PDI, ONYX, PolyPhaser, Transtector, LEA, and RO Associates.

“A surge is a short-duration (microsecond), high-frequency event typically ranging from 5 kHz to 100 kHz, but which can even reach the GHz level,” said Turner. “It’s a brief overvoltage spike or disturbance on a power waveform that can damage, degrade or destroy electronic equipment.”

On first appearance, it doesn’t seem as if such a short burst of excessive voltage could do appreciable damage. However, as these transients, glitches, surges, spikes—pick your own favorite terminology—can instantaneously rise to thousands of volts, there’s a lot of energy available to turn broadcast gear into “crispy critters” in just the blink of an eye, and the problem seems to have gotten worse over time.

“Surge protection is very critical now,” said Mark Schaefer, director of engineering at WFLA-TV in Tampa, Fla. “So much of the equipment is computerized these days and it doesn’t like any kind of glitching. Dirty power is the enemy of anything that’s computerized or run with a microprocessor.”

Schaefer’s comments were echoed by Roswell “Roz” Clark, who is director of technical operations for a number of Cox Media Group broadcast properties in Florida.

“I think there has been a greater emphasis and awareness on power sources during the past decade or so” said Clark. “This has come about as equipment has become more computerized and solid-state. Back in the ‘good old days’ when you had tube-based equipment and relay logic, broadcast systems could withstand a lot more in the way of surges and other disturbances. Nowadays, the main control systems of pretty much everything rely on components that are very sensitive to tower strikes and power surges.”

SURGES DON’T ALWAYS EMANATE FROM THE SKIES

Actually, in today’s world it’s not only electrical storms that can cause power line surges and glitches. The switching on and off of large motors—think big machinery and HVAC units—with their reactive nature can add some really big spikes to that sinusoidal energy that your power company delivers to your buildings.

In fact, according to Turner, only a very small amount of power line trouble comes from “natural” causes.

“People view damage from surges as primarily from lightning,” he said. “In reality, only eight percent are due to lightning; 92 percent are manmade—utilities switching power sources or from your air conditioning system cycling. Today’s electronic equipment requires more sensitive and sophisticated protection. Surge protection has changed a lot over the past few years; electronic gear now demands a much lower turn-on voltage threshold in order to be protected.”

When a high-level transient came down the line, this surge suppression system did what it was designed to do by sacrificing itself and thus preventing damage to expensive station equipment. (Photo credit: Smiths Power)

TURNING BACK THE ENEMY

Fortunately, most new broadcast facilities include well engineered and protected power distribution systems. However, if you have a “legacy” operation,one that’s been around for more than a decade or so, it’s a good idea to perform an audit to see if surge protection is up to par, or even exists. To do this, it’s probably best to bring in a power specialist who can make recommendations as to what’s necessary to protect your pricey transmitter and studio equipment. Without such protection you are indeed operating on borrowed time.

“Surge protection is vital and key,” said Clark. “If you don’t properly surge-protect, your plant will be vulnerable and you’ll be spending a lot of time doing what I call ‘fire drills’ and recovery work. However, protecting surges is not difficult if you know what to do.

“Proper surge protection at multiple stages is very important. If you have 480 Volt power being delivered to your building, you want to have surge protection there. Then you want to surge protect after the step-down to voltage levels distributed in the building. You also want to have surge protection right at the equipment. The idea is to remove the surge as close to the source as possible, but don’t assume that you’re going to catch it [at the first place in the chain]; try to protect as you get closer and closer to the equipment. Installation of multiple layers of surge protection is a good practice and not that hard to do.”

Clark added that proper grounding and bonding are equally important; without these, surge suppressors are just going to give a false sense of security.

Surge suppressors come in all sizes and power ratings. This 8-Amp, 120-Volt unit from Middle Atlantic is sized to conveniently mount behind a flat panel display or in a wall or ceiling box. (Photo credit: Middle Atlantic)

HOW DOES SURGE SUPPRESSION WORK?

“A common type of surge protection that’s been widely adopted now is the silicon avalanche suppression diode, or ‘SASD,’ a specialized type of zener diode,” said Turner. “Older technologies include gas tubes and MOVs (metal oxide varistors). All of these provide a low impedance path to ground in the event of a surge. In sensitive electronic equipment applications, the SASD is really the device of choice as it turns on so quickly—in nanoseconds—while lightning strokes or manmade transients typically occur in microseconds. And the voltage turn-on threshold for SASDs is much lower, providing additional protection.”

Turner noted that SASDs are sometimes used in tandem with MOVs, as a MOV can withstand higher surges, but degrades over time, while SASDs aren’t that susceptible to gradual degradation. He added that while all state-of-the-art suppression systems handle most surges in stride, they will sacrifice themselves when a really large spike comes along. Modern systems are fitted with user-replaceable “cartridges” that visually announce they’ve made the “ultimate sacrifice,” or can trigger a warning text message or email to maintenance personnel via a contact closure. They’re also designed to allow power to flow after the surge event until someone can reach the site to make repairs.

How good is this sort of protection? WFLA-TV’s Schaefer related that proper surge protection made a really big difference at his station’s analog transmitter facility some years ago.

At the other end of the surge suppressor spectrum is this Apex IMax from Transtector. It’s designed to handle 600 KV 120/208 Volt three-phase loads and tips the scale at 24 pounds. (Photo credit: Smiths Power)

“We had what we figured was a lightning strike to one of the power lines not too far from the facility,” said Schaefer. “We had good-sized LEA Dynatech surge suppressors on the power supply for the transmitters and good solid-steel Hoffman electrical boxes enclosing these suppressors. We got knocked off the air and when we went out [to the transmitter] noticed that not only had the main circuit breaker tripped but also one of the surge suppressors had exploded with such force that it twisted the hinges on the Hoffman box to the point that it couldn’t be opened properly anymore.”

He noted that once the damaged surge suppressor was bypassed and the breaker reset the transmitter came right back up.

“The surge suppressor was worth its weight in gold that day,” said Schaefer. 

This is the first installment of a multi-part article; later installments will examine protection from tower/antenna lightning strikes, and grounding/bonding and power conditioning.

James E. O’Neal is a retired broadcast engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the field. For the past 10 years he has served as technology editor at TV Technology magazine.