RF Shorts – Jan. 6, 2011

By Doug Lung
published

  • •Hans van de Groenendaal describes his experiences with Mobile DTV in South Africa in the article The pleasant surprise of mobile TV. He writes, "I must admit that I have always been of the opinion that the concept of mobile TV is crazy. Who wants to watch TV on a small screen? I do now. It is great to log onto the news channel and have it sitting at the bottom of a notebook screen. At home I have it running on a larger LCD monitor. The greatest thing is that it does not chew up the bandwidth for which I still have to fork out a considerable amount each month."
  • •The idea of using a parabolic or spherical portion of an inflated object as an antenna sounds obvious once you hear it, but as you can imagine, getting the antenna to work well enough to meet FCC antenna pattern performance requirements wasn't easy. NASA has worked with two companies developing and building the antennas for use in space and on the ground. For more information and pictures see NASA's Spinoff 2010 web page.
  • •ArsTechnica writer Matthew Lasar writes White spaces could expand beyond unused TV spectrum. The article refers to the FCC Notice of Inquiry on Promoting More Efficient Use of Spectrum Through Dynamic Spectrum Use Technologies. He begins, "Amidst all the hubbub over net neutrality, [cell phone] bill shock rules, and other high profile controversies, the Federal Communications Commission has quietly released a Notice of Inquiry full of proposals that could radically transform who gets to use the radio spectrum bands and how. Among the ideas being considered is an expansion of the FCC's white space device service from the television bands to other license regions as well."
Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.