Newsletter
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http://www.sbe124.org
SBE Chapter 124
PO Box 1727
Portland, OR 97207-1727
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"Water Cooled Newsletter" SBE Chapter 124, Portland, OR
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| WHEN: | Tuesday June 12th, Noon. |
| WHERE: | Buffalo Gap Saloon & Eatery 6835 SW Macadam (at California) Portland 503-244-7111 |
| WHAT: | Ravi Sinha of Solar Ki will discuss solar electric backup power options for Television & Radio transmitter facilities. See http://www.solarki.com/ . |
Details below.
Ravi Sinha of Solar Ki will discuss solar electric backup power options for Television & Radio transmitter facilities. See http://www.solarki.com/ .
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. 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 see http://www.sbe124.org/SBE124_maps.html .
Dave Grant WA7TOM of Manon Engineering will speak about Narda Safety Test Systems for RF energy safety compliance. See http://www.narda-sts.us/ .
Sennheiser audio products: Microphones, headphones, headsets, and wireless systems. See http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf .
by Kent Randles K7YXZ CBRE
Senior Engineer, Entercom-Portland
Co-Chair, Portland/Vancouver LAECC
Chapter Secretary/Newsletter Editor
secretary at sbe124 dot org
To help with the annual SBE Membership Drive, Chapter 124 is going to have two drawings. One will be for members who bring new members into the chapter, and another for the new members. We'll do this at the July 10th meeting. The prizes will be two HD Radios.
There are currently 12 FM HD signals (nine with HD2, and one with HD3) and two AM HD signals on the air in the Portland market.
HD Radio multicasting is now in the top 100 radio markets.
91.5 KOPB-FM realigned the bandwidths of their HD Radio subchannels. HD1 was 49.00 KHz and is now 48.01 KHz, HD2 was 32.00 KHz and is now 32.03 KHz, and HD3 was 15.00 KHz and is now 16.01 KHz. They discovered that HD Radio treats any subchannel under 32 kHz as mono, so their HD2 (which is a music format) can now be heard in stereo. Thanks to OPB Engineer David Switzer for the information.
The FCC has issued the text of their rules on digital audio broadcasting. See http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-33A1.doc . The effective date of the new rules is still 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
When the rules take effect, the biggest item will be AM HD at night. 1190 KEX Engineer Shawn Cupples says they are ready to do HD in the 3-tower directional night mode. 1330 KKPZ is a DA-1, so they'll just leave their HD on.
The next biggest item will be FM HD in the extended hybrid mode which gives more digital bandwidth. I am eager to experiment with this.
Technically, all the radio stations that Paul Allen owns are licensed to Rose City Radio (RSR), not just 750 KXL & 95.5 KXJM in Portland. RSR has sold 620 WSNR New York and 1510 WWZN Boston to Blackstrap Broadcasting. RSR still owns 1540 KMPC in Los Angeles, and recently rebuilt the site, let the day pattern out a little, and got a nighttime power increase.
Jeff McGinley has joined Entercom-Portland as an Engineer.
The Skyline Tower Amateur Radio Club is going to do the ARRL Field Day contest on June 23rd and June 24th at the Lazy H Ranch in Mulino after taking last year off. We tend to do a low-key, well-fed, kids-and-pets-OK kind of operation. E-mail me at k7yxz at arrl dot net if you are interested. For pictures of former years, see http://www.w7dtv.us .
Got questions about the DTV transition? Visit http://www.dtvanswers.com/ , the official Web site of the National Association of Broadcasters' digital television (DTV) transition campaign. Launched in January 2007, the DTV campaign's mission is to ensure that no consumer is left unprepared, due to lack of information, for the Feb. 17, 2009, federally mandated transition from analog to digital broadcasting. The site features a countdown clock.
by Chris Murray
Co-Chair, Oregon EAS (SECC)
Director of Engineering
McKenzie River Broadcasting, Eugene
ichabod at kknu dot fm
(See http://www.broadcast.net/mailman/listinfo/eas-or)
The Oregon Association of Broadcasters board of directors voted at their meeting on April 30th to approve a budget of $34,776.75 to fund the creation of local relay networks across Oregon. Sites will include wide-area repeaters at: Prairie Peak for the central Willamette valley, King mountain for southern Oregon, and Aubrey butte in Bend. Small repeaters for Hood River/The Dalles and Klamath Falls, and some additional equipment for Portland and Coos Bay. Also, a major upgrade for the Salem Oregon Office of Emergency Management. These repeaters will be licensed to Oregon Public Broadcasting and act as UHF and VHF OPB translators with the ability for local counties to access the network and light up EAS decoders in their area. The concepts provide several advantages.
1. The units (other than Salem) operate 24/7 providing constant audio. When not broadcasting emergency messages or tests, they will be transmitting either OPB's Golden Hour programming or their FM feeds. This way the levels can be constantly checked and well-located silent sensors will alert us to a problem.
2. Once operational, we can begin to talk about using the EAS relay networks for extended uses. Using the ADR code, public safety can deliver audio to all stations, important news information, and have it stored on our EAS decoders.
3. With the repeaters in place, it is up to the counties to provide links to the repeaters and we will assist licensing their courthouse transmitters.
4. Those stations that want direct access to the public safety communities will need receivers. There are three options I have available.
a. One is just a scanner, readily available but not that reliable.
b. For about $150.00 plus a mag-mount whip antenna, a Kenwood TK-830 mobile radio used as a receiver with a wall-cube power supply will work.
c. Another option is a data receiver that costs about $285 plus wall-cube and antenna that can deliver the audio. These units are bricks and can only be programmed with a PC so they will be the most reliable.
The goal is to have the Salem, Portland, Prairie Peak, King Mountain, and Bend repeaters all operational by September 30th. The Dalles/Hood River area and Klamath repeaters have a budget but until a local plan is in place we will not know how the equipment line will look.
More to come.
It was a banner day for the FCC, which also moved forward on EAS. The commission adopted an order that requires EAS participants to accept messages using Common Alerting Protocol after FEMA adopts standards.
NAB applauded the efforts "including much-needed outreach with state and local officials to ensure a robust EAS system."
As we’ve reported, CAP involves the transmission of EAS alerts as text, audio and video via broadcast, cable, satellite, and other networks. The FCC says using this will make it easier for the disabled and non-English speakers to receive alerts. The commission seeks comment on how best to deliver EAS alerts as well as broader emergency and public safety information to these groups, and commits to adoption of a final order within six months.
The agency also seeks input on how EAS is (or is not) working and whether additional testing, station certification and assessments of how well the system works after an EAS warning has been triggered.
The agency left open the issues raised in a petition filed by several groups representing non-English speaking persons and directed its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to meet as soon as possible on providing emergency information to non-English speakers.
by Everett E. Helm W7EEH CPBE
Director of RF Engineering
Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland
>1 GHz Frequency Coordinator, Oregon and SW WA
Chapter Chair
chairman at sbe124 dot org
Ev's column will be back next month. He said something about alligators and a swamp.
by Michael D. Brown N7AXC CSRE
Brown Broadcast Services, Inc., Portland
mike at brownbroadcast dot com
Clear Channel is continuing its divestment of smaller market groups, and in Oregon, Bicoastal is the big buyer. The Tiburon, California-based company has agreed to pay about $37 million for CC’s 14 stations in Eugene, Medford, and Albany/Corvallis. Bicoastal currently owns a group in Coos Bay/North Bend, and has agreed to purchase 5 stations in the Gorge from Congressman Greg Walden.
More than ever, last month’s NAB convention was internationally-oriented, with an unprecedented 25% of the 108,000 attendees hailing from 141 foreign countries. We also noticed a growing presence from a number of offshore companies on the exhibit floors - many for the first time - particularly from China and Latin America. There was also a lot of buzz about possible "conditional access" (pay-for-play) uses for the HD subchannels, using addressable-receiver technologies currently as currently used in Satellite TV and radio.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited $100 price point for HD radios has been busted, with the Radiosophy HD boombox going for $99 retail, and an additional $40 rebate currently offered until July 3. Yet, with recent studies showing a very low level of consumer awareness and excitement for the technology, there’s still a long road ahead.
The Catalina Island fire was truly a case of things going from bad to worse. By now it’s well established that the fire was started by sparks from the blade of a gas-powered circular saw that tower contractors were using to cut cables at the 740 KBRT Avalon tower site. Transmitter engineer Bill Agresta suffered broken ribs (and a bad case of poison oak) when one of the construction workers ran into him with a tractor during the fire melee. The station lost their STL and commercial power. The emergency generator also subsequently failed due to corroded connections. For several days the station was on and off the air, with CDs being hand-carried to the island to provide the programming. Luckily, the city of Avalon was spared, thanks to a last-minute shift in the wind direction.
With the sunset date of February 2009 for NTSC TV now firmly established, many of us assumed that low-band VHF TV would be fully vacated, right? It’s a lousy frequency range for optimum DTV operation, right? And maybe, just maybe, we might still have a chance to reclaim all or part of TV Channel 6 (82-88 MHz) for an expanded FM band. Well, not so fast. The latest Tentative Channel Selection list still shows that there may be 8 DTV channel 6's (down from 50 NTSC ch. 6 stations currently), and 22 DTVs on channels 2-5. By comparison, I count 302 NTSC stations currently using channels 2-6. Most of these proposed low-band DTV stations have current NTSC stations on the same channels. This is an incredibly inefficient use of spectrum, IMHO. No wonder the purveyors of unlicensed devices have their eyes on using so-called TV "white spaces". With all the clamoring for new spectrum from "first responders" and the like, this spectral inefficiency seems utterly inexcusable. End of rant.
I could not have made this up if I tried. What follows are the first two lines of two entries in a recent FCC Daily Digest. Note the first words of each line.
BUZZ TELECOM CORPORATION. Denied the complaints regarding unauthorized change of subscriber's telecommunications carrier.
LIGHTYEAR NETWORK SOLUTIONS. Denied the complaint regarding unauthorized change of subscriber's telecommunications carrier.
Have a great summer!
From Jack Roland KEØVH
The net meets on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month at 10 AM Pacific Time. Locally 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 .]
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