Everything about Chapter 124 is summed up in the monthly
January 2009 Newsletter
(below the list of advertisers)
| Representative | Web site |
Business
card |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Abbott | Belden Electronics Division |  |
| Robert Rogers | Broadcast Tower Services |  |
| Michael Bach WB6FFC |
Kathrein-Scala Division |
|
| Larry Bloomfield KA6UTC |
Larcan |
|
| Al Jason | Harris Broadcast (Radio) | Al
Jason 530-676-0766 Phone 321-726-3296 Fax 530-363-0475 Cell  |
| Tom Franklin | Norcom |  |
| Edward Forke | Shively Labs |  |
| Matt Granard | Westlake Electronic Supply |  |
| Joe Harrington | Harrington Tower Services |  |
| Gray Haertig | Gray Frierson Haertig & Associates |  |
| Michael Johnson | Dielectric |  |
| John Pierce | Tektronix |  |
| Larry Sayer | Rohde & Schwarz |  |
| Bryan Jones | Broadcast Electronics | |
| Bob Trimble N7IYI |
RF Specialties |  |
| Brian Walker | Professional Video & Tape, Inc. |  |
| Michael Troje | Continental Electronics |  |
| Debbie Storz | Econco |  |
Snail mail:
SBE Chapter 124
PO Box 1727
Portland, OR 97207-1727
You may use excerpts if attributed to the original
source and
"Water Cooled Newsletter" SBE Chapter 124, Portland, OR
In order to prevent e-mail addresses from being "mined" and then spammed, there are no longer clickable links to e-mail addresses, or intact e-mail addresses. For the addresses shown, substitute "@" for "at" and "." for "dot." Thanks!
| WHEN: | Tuesday January 13th, Noon | ||
| WHERE: | Buffalo Gap Saloon &
Eatery 6835 SW Macadam (at California) Portland 503-244-7111 |
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| WHAT: |
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The Eugene meeting is usually the day after the Portland meeting.
The Medford meeting is usually two days after the Portland meeting.
The Portland meetings are on the second Tuesday of every month. Everyone is welcome to attend the meetings. When you get to the Buffalo Gap, go in the SW California St. side door, turn left, and go upstairs. We have the whole upper floor, which has its own bathrooms. For more information on Chapter 124 in Portland/Vancouver/Salem, contact Chapter Chair Ev Helm, e-mail chairman at sbe124 dot org, or call him at 503-977-7752. For a map and directions see http://www.sbe124.org/SBE124_maps.html .
The Chapter picked up the tab, and there were serious door prizes for members (membership has its privileges), and stocking stuffers for almost everyone who attended..
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Chairman Ev supervises the drawing. |
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Don McKay of OPB won an HD Radio component tuner |
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But Pat Shearer of KRCW 32 won the grand prize: an HDTV set. |
NEXT MONTH: |
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by Kent Randles K7YXZ CBRE
Senior Engineer, Entercom-Portland
Co-Chair, Portland/Vancouver LAECC
Chapter Secretary/Newsletter Editor
secretary at sbe124 dot org
It was officially a White Christmas in Portland, but the snow storms got old, and the ice storm before Christmas was the worst in years. Many people to whom I have given tours of tower sites in Portland ask "Why such heavy duty ice shields?" Here are some examples from the Stonehenge, Skyline, and Sylvan tower sites.
Stonehenge |
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Gray Haertig bought the house that Harold Singleton built on
Healy Heights and has been rebuilding it. It is right next door to
the self supporting, 620', tubular Stonehenge Tower site that he helped
build. The house is nearly done, but now he has to devise a better ice shield of a roof. Here is one of the chunks that went through his roof! Picture by Gray Haertig |
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A chunk of ice like the one above, falling from 600', goes right through plywood and sheetrock.
Picture by Gray Haertig |
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Now they have to fix the insulation, too.
Picture by Gray Haertig |
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This other chunk scored a direct hit on a light fixture.
Picture by Gray Haertig |
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This truck, parked between Gray's house and the tower was
just about at ground zero.
Picture by Gray Haertig |
Skyline |
|
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Here's one for you to guess: from what are these pieces? Picture by Carl Sundberg |
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This is my favorite ice storm story from Carl Sundberg N4ATC: "I'm a contract engineer for Qualcomm's MediaFLO. It's the nation wide channel 55 television frequency used by A T & T and Verizon for their FLO television on cell phones. Our site in Portland is at the OPB tower. If it's referred to as something else, I don't know what others call it. I do regular trips to the site for PM and repairs and I had scheduled a trip for yesterday to meet with an HVAC tech who was assigned to the site for an annual PM of that system. Upon arrival, I found damage to an ice bridge over a transmission line and severe damage to an ice bridge over a dish. In addition to that, I also found damage to a door light and dents in an air-conditioner, but the most interesting thing of all was something most odd. Upon entering the facility, the normal 72 degree's we keep our facilities was at 82. The HVAC tech found a shutoff switch in the "OFF" position. After wondering who turned it off and why, the answer came in a most peculiar way. The knob on the switch was broken and the pieces were on the ground. Apparently a chunk of ice hit it and turned it off. "God did it!" Picture by Carl Sundberg |
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I think this is the ice bridge into the MediaFlo building.
The ice gets a better chance of moving faster at Skyline, dropping from up to 1000'. Photo by Carl Sundberg |
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Here's a closer look at another ice shield.
Photo by Carl Sundberg |
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Satellite dishes are hard to protect from ice, and make such
easy targets.
Carl says Photo by Carl Sundberg |
Sylvan |
|
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But, the most spectacular series of ice- storm-spawned
events happened over at Sylvan.
Those are martyred 2" thick concrete "pavers" on the roof of the "new" Sylvan transmitter building. That was a very big and heavy piece of ice. It made the roof leak, but not on any equipment. Photo by Radio Tower Company, courtesy of Sylvan Tower Co. |
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After the ice melted, a guy cable on the "old"
1000' tower, attached to the east leg at the second level down from the
top, broke in the middle near an insulator.
Due to the co-located 2-tower AM station, the guy cables of the other three towers at the Sylvan site are segmented into non-resonant sections by insulators. Eventually Seacom Erectors of Seattle spliced it back together, but not before the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office blocked off the streets around the site and urged folks living nearby to voluntarily evacuate their homes. Photo by David Bird, courtesy of Sylvan Tower Co. |
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Collateral damage.
When the cable broke, the half attched to the tower fell against the tower and apparently wrapped around to the west side and whacked one of the 6 1/8" feedlines for the CBS-Portland panel antenna at about the 400' level. It came to rest against the east leg, trashing the backup antenna for KBVM(FM). Photo by Seacomm Erectors, courtesy of Sylvan Tower Co. |
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A closeup of the damage.
This produced a VSWR problem. Photo by Seacomm Erectors, courtesy of Sylvan Tower Co. |
Clay Freinwald K7CR sent some pictures taken by Jim Dalke. Clay says "Here are some selected pictures of South Mountain taken a couple of weeks ago - They should help tell the tale of winter in the mountains. Some facts on the location:
South Mountain (named for the southern most in the Olympics
Location - Generally West of Shelton
Elevations - Ground - 3076, Tower 400 ft.
Tower - 4 foot face, ERI
Stations at the site - KDDS/99.3, KFMY/97.7
2 additional stations have applications at the Commish to move there.
A rim-shot site for the Puget Sound Basin.
Views from there -
SSE - Mt St Helens (Have not seen Hood yet)
SW - Long Beach, Willapa Bay, Ocean
W - Ocean
N - Olympic Mts
NE - Downtown Seattle
Annual Precip - Approx 100 inches
Amount of snow there - (I was standing on 8 feet Christmas '07)."
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The deicers had quit.
Photo by Jim Dalke. |
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Clay says "We may have to re-think the use of open-grid STL antennas at this location." Photo by Jim Dalke |
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Clay says "After the heaters were turned on, the ice
began to fall. Both of these top two antennas are DA's, hence all the other ice-catchers." Photo by Jim Dalke |
Chris Weiss, Director of Engineering, Clear Channel-Portland had this story about the KEX/KPOJ transmitter site: "Our only major issues due to the recent storms didn’t occur until Friday morning (Jan. 2nd). The field at the KEX/KPOJ transmitter site was completely submerged by about 6 inches of water at best guess. The center and west tower base buildings had about 6 inches of water in them. Unfortunately, the center tower ATU control circuits are mounted at exactly that same height! We melted down 2 Harris Slave Relay boards that provide control and status for the 2 contactors in that ATU. KEX was on and off the air for a couple of hours while the water lapped across the boards and we struggled with the remote control. Curt got to the site and bypassed the controls before we went into morning drive. We were able to get spare parts from the KHHO/KJR diplexed system in Tacoma, and had everything running normally by 11pm Friday night. We’ve added pumps to the tower base buildings."
Got some pictures just tonight (Thursday 1/8) of KHHO, Tacoma from Ken Broeffle, Director of Engineering, Clear Channel-Seattle.
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This appears to be from the Puyallup River.
Ken says Photo by Ken Broeffle |
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Ken says "Second pix is to the east and my standing on top of the truck. Note the satellite dish on the south east corner of the TX building. Water hasn't crested yet so hanging on for the night. Our site entrance made the morning and evening news. Lots of homes flooded and people evacuated from area." Photo by Ken Broeffle |
Stephen S. Lockwood, P.E. of Hatfield & Dawson Consulting Engineers sent this PDF of what 140 MPH winds did to the protective dome of the National Weather Service Weather Radar antenna in Reno, NV.
The Society of Broadcast Engineers has
announced the opening of the SBE University; a series of on-line, on-demand
courses designed to bring expert instruction on a variety of technical
radio and television topics to broadcast engineers at an affordable price.
Beat the recession with these all-new, affordable "nuts and bolts" courses available to take anytime at your convenience. No travel, hotel or other costs to eat up your limited training budget, these courses are developed by experts for the SBE. The first course offered by the SBE University is AM Antenna Modeling and enrollment is now open.
Two more courses, FM Transmission Systems and Matching Networks and Phasing will open for enrollment on January 9. Courses on technical television topics and additional radio courses will be announced soon.
Bryan Jones, former Director of Engineering for CBS Radio-Portland is now the Western Regional Sales Manager for Broadcast Electronics, working out of his house in Vancouver. Bryan worked for B.E. in Quincy, IL before moving to the Northwest. Bryan replaces Ellis Terry who is now covering similar territory for Nautel. Ellis will be next month's meeting presenter.
In a move sure to make life interesting in Portland radio, CBS Radio traded stations in Seattle, Portland, and Sacramento for Clear Channel stations in Houston. The Portland stations are 106.7 KLTH, and 107.5 KXJM.
Salem had a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Entercom, and had been programming 910 KTRO as a conservative talk station for a while. KTRO is now simulcasting Country 99.5 KWJJ.
To paraphrase what they used to promote on 970 The Beat when I worked there in the '90s: "Country music the way it was meant to be heard: squeezed down and blasted through some crappy AM radio!"
There are 12 FM HD signals (nine with HD2) and four AM HD signals on the air in the Portland market. Go here for a complete list.
There are now over 100 HD Radios to choose from. See http://www.hdradio.com/buyers_guide.php.
You probably know by now that many new EAS event codes got added about 6 years ago, the most popular being "Child Abduction Emergency" CAE better known as an Amber Alert.
Recently, the Portland/Vancouver Emergency Communications Committee, with members from Emergency Management, the National Weather Service, and local radio and TV stations, agreed to add some important EAS event codes to the list all stations in the Portland/Vancouver EAS Operational Area should forward. If your station's City of License is in one of the following counties, your "Local Area" should include: Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, and Washington Counties in Oregon, and Clark County in Washington.
You should have these codes programmed in addition to the required National events and the RMT:
CAE Child Abduction Emergency (Amber Alert)
CEM Civil Emergency Message
EVI Evacuation Immediate
FFW Flash Flood Warning (Levee break, etc.)
FLW Flood Warning (Major flood category only, a change
since 1997)
SVR Severe Thunderstorm Warning
TOE 911 Telephone Outage Emergency (Who ya gonna call?)
TOR Tornado Warning
TSW Tsunami Warning (For viewers and listeners on the
coast and along the Columbia River)
HWW High Wind Warning (Remember the Columbus
Day Storm?)
The folks in the Capitol Operational Area (Salem) have been urged to have this list programmed also.
The Society of Broadcast Engineers offers numerous levels and types of certifications for broadcast technicians and engineers.
Operator Level Certifications
Broadcast Networking Certification
Engineering Level Certifications
Specialist Certifications
Exams are given several times a year locally, and annually at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas.
Exam schedule:
| Dates | Location | Application Deadline |
| April 21 | NAB | April 1 , 2009 |
| June 5-15 | Local Chapters | April 17, 2009 |
| August 7-17 | Local Chapters | June 5, 2009 |
| November 6-16 | Local Chapters | September 18, 2009 |
For information, e-mail our Chapter Certification Chair, Eric Margeson at certification at sbe124 dot org.
From Jack Roland KEØVH
The net meets on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month (except in August) at 10 AM Pacific Time. In Denver on the WA2YZT repeater, on 146.805 and 447.175 with a pl of 186.2. AND, through the Internet Radio Linking Project on the Denver Reflector Node #9615.
To find a node in your area you can go to the www.irlp.net website, click on the "Node Info" on the left, then click on the "List of nodes and frequencies" in the middle of the page. In a moment a full list of node numbers, cities, countries and the like will appear and do a page search for you city. When the node is highlighted click on the node number and that repeater information will appear, usually with contact information of the trustee/repeater owner. When you have done this and are able to access your node (usually at 4 digit code on the local repeater unless it is a closed club system), you will want to connect to the Denver Reflector Node #9615. . See also www.wa2yzt.com
If you need further help contact me at KEØVH at qsl dot net .
[The participating Portland node is 3420, N7PIR at 440.450 with a PL of 103.5 Hz, located on the Stonehenge Tower. Our own Mike Steiner KD6LVP is the trustee. See http://www.qsl.net/n7pir .]
For southwestern Washington and ALL of Oregon: >1 GHz call Everett "Ed" Helm W7EEH at 503-977-7752, fax 503 293-4877, or e-mail microwave at sbe124.org; <1 GHz call Mike Steiner KD6LVP at 503-235-8517, fax 503-231-4624, or e-mail under1gig at sbe124.org.
You can browse the database at http://www.sbe124.org/part_74/.
If you are not IN the database, you are NOT coordinated.
At noon on the second Tuesday of every month, broadcast engineers in Portland meet at The Buffalo Gap Saloon & Eatery, 6835 SW Macadam (at SW California), 503-244-7111. Enter on the California side, take the first left, and go up the stairs. We have the entire 2nd floor and our own bathrooms. Get there early, because after the Gap's lot fills up, you'll be searching the narrow streets for blocks around to find a place to park. For more information on the restaurant see http://www.thebuffalogap.com . For directions, go to http://www.sbe124.org/SBE124_maps.html. For chapter information call Chapter 124 Chair Everett "Ed" Helm at 503-977-7752, or e-mail chairman at sbe124 dot org. As usual, anyone, member or not, is welcome to attend.
