SBE 17 Meetings and Stories in 2020:
From the SBE Signal, December, 2020:
Engineering Perspective
SBE Chapter 17 member Mark Persons, CPBE, AMD, CBNT
Recipient, 2020 SBE John H. Basttison Award for Lifetime Achievement
[email protected]
Engineering Perspective
SBE Chapter 17 member Mark Persons, CPBE, AMD, CBNT
Recipient, 2020 SBE John H. Basttison Award for Lifetime Achievement
[email protected]
I Never Had a Plan B
It never occurred to me that I would be the recipient of the John H. Battison Award for Lifetime Achievement. Looking back, it all makes sense. I knew John as a wonderful outgoing man. He was a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain defending England from the Germans in World War Two. Many died. I am glad he lived to be a part of this great organization.
It must be in the genes. My father started in radio broadcast engineering in the mid-1920s at age seventeen. I was born into the industry in 1947. At age seven, I was learning Ohm’s Law and turning the knobs on our family’s 250-watt AM transmitter at WELY in Ely, Minnesota. Then at age seventeen, I completely wired KVBR Radio in Brainerd, MN, one of our family’s new stations. There was never a doubt that engineering was my life, not just a job.
The only deviation from broadcast engineering came when I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1966 to complete my obligation to our country. I taught electronics and then was shipped off to Vietnam to do electronic repair.
Back in the civilian life of radio broadcasting, I was at KVBR doing engineering while going out to visit nearby stations to find out how they ran. That led to me being hired as a contractor to solve problems after the FCC deregulated the requirement for stations to have a full-time engineer.
Appearance is important. Showing off individuality in a working environment is not good. I made it a point to shave and bathe daily to be like management in a dress shirt, but without a tie. On an overnight job, I wore different clothes the second day. Looking good helped justify charging more than other engineers.
It seemed I’d be a bachelor forever, but then Paula came along. We were married and she brought legal secretary experience to our business. Working 40+ hours a week, Paula took care of the billing and the books. She worked with clients on the phone and handled orders along with shipping and receiving packages.
I was too busy to think about membership in the SBE and missed the deadline to be grandfathered into the organization. One trip was to the 50 KW powerhouse WCCO Radio in Minneapolis. That’s when I met Chief Engineer Chuck Kunze. He was a wealth of knowledge on how the big boys did engineering. Chuck was a mentor. One thing led to another and he got me into the SBE, then gave me the first exam back in 1983. Moving up the ladder with more exams, it was CPBE, AMD, CBNT and finally Life Membership. The goal was to associate with like-minded people to talk broadcast engineering.
AM radio has always been close to my heart. I built five AM directional systems from the ground up and installed more than forty C-QUAM AM stereo systems.
Participation in SBE or the industry did not stop after we shut down our business when I was 70. We had already been mentoring two radio broadcast engineers before the SBE Mentor/Mentee Program began. Joining that added two more to the list. The National Radio Systems Committee AM Improvement Working Group brought me into their fold. It is volunteer work and feels good to give back to the industry I grew up in.
The closest SBE chapter to my hometown of Brainerd, MN, is 125 miles south in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Attending meetings there took an entire day so it didn’t happen often. One SBE interaction was, and still is, the SBE HAMnet Chapter of the Air, hosted by Hal Hostetler CPBE WA7BGX in Tucson, AZ. It is an amateur radio gathering on 14.205 MHz on the second Sunday of each month at 2400 GMT. That helped with SBE recertification points.
All broadcast engineers had amateur radio licenses in past years. Those who are not hams today may be missing the knowledge of how radio waves propagate across all frequencies. Seeing both sides of the radio frequency communications equation has helped immensely in my career. The ham radio hobby gives answers to otherwise sometimes perplexing questions in commercial work. It all makes sense.
Designing and building gadgets for stations was a fun part of my life’s work. That included everything from digital timers to microphone preamplifiers to headset amplifiers to microphone mute buttons. Some of my designs wound up being manufactured, starting with the Maxi-Tel Remote Broadcast Telephone, which later evolved in the Zercom Max-Z and ZII. I love to tell stories on the Tech Tips section on my http://mwpersons.com website.
Today with the threat of COVID, I attend SBE Twin Cities Chapter 17 monthly meetings via Zoom from my office. That is convenient. To my dismay, the annual chapter summer picnic, at the Shoreview transmitter site, was cancelled this year. I am looking forward to again seeing and talking with engineers in person next summer.
Meanwhile, Radio World is running an article with more detail on this story. Until then, I’ll leave the soldering iron on for you.
It must be in the genes. My father started in radio broadcast engineering in the mid-1920s at age seventeen. I was born into the industry in 1947. At age seven, I was learning Ohm’s Law and turning the knobs on our family’s 250-watt AM transmitter at WELY in Ely, Minnesota. Then at age seventeen, I completely wired KVBR Radio in Brainerd, MN, one of our family’s new stations. There was never a doubt that engineering was my life, not just a job.
The only deviation from broadcast engineering came when I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1966 to complete my obligation to our country. I taught electronics and then was shipped off to Vietnam to do electronic repair.
Back in the civilian life of radio broadcasting, I was at KVBR doing engineering while going out to visit nearby stations to find out how they ran. That led to me being hired as a contractor to solve problems after the FCC deregulated the requirement for stations to have a full-time engineer.
Appearance is important. Showing off individuality in a working environment is not good. I made it a point to shave and bathe daily to be like management in a dress shirt, but without a tie. On an overnight job, I wore different clothes the second day. Looking good helped justify charging more than other engineers.
It seemed I’d be a bachelor forever, but then Paula came along. We were married and she brought legal secretary experience to our business. Working 40+ hours a week, Paula took care of the billing and the books. She worked with clients on the phone and handled orders along with shipping and receiving packages.
I was too busy to think about membership in the SBE and missed the deadline to be grandfathered into the organization. One trip was to the 50 KW powerhouse WCCO Radio in Minneapolis. That’s when I met Chief Engineer Chuck Kunze. He was a wealth of knowledge on how the big boys did engineering. Chuck was a mentor. One thing led to another and he got me into the SBE, then gave me the first exam back in 1983. Moving up the ladder with more exams, it was CPBE, AMD, CBNT and finally Life Membership. The goal was to associate with like-minded people to talk broadcast engineering.
AM radio has always been close to my heart. I built five AM directional systems from the ground up and installed more than forty C-QUAM AM stereo systems.
Participation in SBE or the industry did not stop after we shut down our business when I was 70. We had already been mentoring two radio broadcast engineers before the SBE Mentor/Mentee Program began. Joining that added two more to the list. The National Radio Systems Committee AM Improvement Working Group brought me into their fold. It is volunteer work and feels good to give back to the industry I grew up in.
The closest SBE chapter to my hometown of Brainerd, MN, is 125 miles south in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Attending meetings there took an entire day so it didn’t happen often. One SBE interaction was, and still is, the SBE HAMnet Chapter of the Air, hosted by Hal Hostetler CPBE WA7BGX in Tucson, AZ. It is an amateur radio gathering on 14.205 MHz on the second Sunday of each month at 2400 GMT. That helped with SBE recertification points.
All broadcast engineers had amateur radio licenses in past years. Those who are not hams today may be missing the knowledge of how radio waves propagate across all frequencies. Seeing both sides of the radio frequency communications equation has helped immensely in my career. The ham radio hobby gives answers to otherwise sometimes perplexing questions in commercial work. It all makes sense.
Designing and building gadgets for stations was a fun part of my life’s work. That included everything from digital timers to microphone preamplifiers to headset amplifiers to microphone mute buttons. Some of my designs wound up being manufactured, starting with the Maxi-Tel Remote Broadcast Telephone, which later evolved in the Zercom Max-Z and ZII. I love to tell stories on the Tech Tips section on my http://mwpersons.com website.
Today with the threat of COVID, I attend SBE Twin Cities Chapter 17 monthly meetings via Zoom from my office. That is convenient. To my dismay, the annual chapter summer picnic, at the Shoreview transmitter site, was cancelled this year. I am looking forward to again seeing and talking with engineers in person next summer.
Meanwhile, Radio World is running an article with more detail on this story. Until then, I’ll leave the soldering iron on for you.
December 10, 2020: There was an online gathering of about 60 SBE members nationwide.
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Chriss Scherer from the Indianapolis office was the host. He was joined by SBE President Wayne Pecina.
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It was a surprise retirement party for John Poray, Executive Director of the Society of Broadcast Engineers for 28 years
He is a member of an SBE musical SBE called Sticks and Bones. They played music at the 2010 National SBE meeting in Madison, WI. John's other hobby is railroading, which he will pursue in retirement.
He is a member of an SBE musical SBE called Sticks and Bones. They played music at the 2010 National SBE meeting in Madison, WI. John's other hobby is railroading, which he will pursue in retirement.
The session lasted a hour and a quarter. All wished John Poray well in his retirement.
October 9, 2020: For those of you who are fans of This Week In Radio Tech (TWiRT), see Kirk Harnack interview Mark Persons, from this chapter, on internet TV. http://thisweekinradiotech.com/twirt-home/2020/10/9/twirt-513-a-lifetime-of-achievement-with-mark-persons.html
November 30, 2020: SBE Chapter 17 online monthly meeting. The usual cast of characters showed up.
All existing SBE 17 officers were reelected to their positions at this meeting.
All existing SBE 17 officers were reelected to their positions at this meeting.
The guest presenter was Caroline Hynes from Rosco, a company that specializes in lighting for film and TV. They are Atlanta, Georgia, based and employ about 80 people world-wide. She told the group about the company going from film gels in set lighting to LED lighting of today. The company has installations in many foreign countries. One of the products is a polarized covering for windows that can control light from the outside to the point of making a window black during daylight. Used properly it can make a television or movie scene look perfectly natural, even under intense sunlight. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNC118w9XgM There are scrims which control light. They have products to put just the right light on a subject.
Caroline said she likes the "chocolate" setting to give great skin tone. Our thanks to Rosco for this informative look into lighting.
Caroline said she likes the "chocolate" setting to give great skin tone. Our thanks to Rosco for this informative look into lighting.
October 30, 2020: Chapter 17 online meeting. Tim Hyde of the Minnesota Broadcasters Association told about online their meetings, which even non-members can attend.
Then Tim Paley of Wheatstone gave a talk on the latest equipment, which you "would have seen" at the 2019 spring NAB show. They are proud of their inexpensive headset amplifiers. Then he told about the latest versions of their audio blades. My how radio has changed going from analog to digital!
Tuesday, September 15, 2020, SBE Chapter 17 online meeting: We heard from Avateq https://www.avateq.com via webinar. Avateq manufactures RF Layer Monitoring Receivers and Signal Analyzers. Hundreds of AVQ1020s are currently monitoring TV transmitters and HD radio transmitters. Furthermore, the AVQ1022 RF Signal Analyzer is used by RF consultants and transmitter field engineers for proof of performance at the transmitter sites. The units will email an alarm if a problem is detected.
Tuesday, August, 4, 2020, SBE Chapter 17 online meeting: We heard from broadcast industry legend Bob Orban https://www.orban.com/ .
This was a GoToMeeting webinar. Mr. Orban is seen in the top center of the above screen shot.
On the right is Joyn Lynch, salesman from Broadcast Supply West explaining listener results. The presentation covered Orban’s approach to automatic, CALM-Act-compliant loudness control as embodied in the Optimod-TV 8685 Surround Loudness Controller. Orban combines the CBS Technology Center and ITU-R BS.1770 approaches to obtain the advantages of both. Covered were the concept of “genre” in the context of BS.1770, as first introduced in a 2015 AES Recommendation, and how taking genre into account can reduce some of the practical objections that have been raised as a result of experience with normalizing all program material to the same BS.1770 target loudness.
This was a GoToMeeting webinar. Mr. Orban is seen in the top center of the above screen shot.
On the right is Joyn Lynch, salesman from Broadcast Supply West explaining listener results. The presentation covered Orban’s approach to automatic, CALM-Act-compliant loudness control as embodied in the Optimod-TV 8685 Surround Loudness Controller. Orban combines the CBS Technology Center and ITU-R BS.1770 approaches to obtain the advantages of both. Covered were the concept of “genre” in the context of BS.1770, as first introduced in a 2015 AES Recommendation, and how taking genre into account can reduce some of the practical objections that have been raised as a result of experience with normalizing all program material to the same BS.1770 target loudness.
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Mr. Orban said that the human ear is still the best judge of loudness. He is working to make processors better at judging loudness. Understanding loudness is not easy. Our Thanks to Bob Orban for explaining the loudness standards and measures to implement them.
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Thursday, July 9, 2020: SBE Chapter 17 met via WebEX. There were 16 online that day. Speakers were Kyle Jarrell and Alois Kuril from Eaton https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us.html. The firm's speciality is UPS manufacturing and other data center equipment. They focused on several recent station installs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfgus6fOGts.
Then there were the batteries. Traditional lead-acid batteries are being replaced by lithium. The cost was five to seven times, but now Lithium is about 1.5 times the cost. Charging batteries is different so batteries can't just be substituted without changes in the charging software. Eaton does monitoring monthly and notifies customers when there is a problem.
Then there were the batteries. Traditional lead-acid batteries are being replaced by lithium. The cost was five to seven times, but now Lithium is about 1.5 times the cost. Charging batteries is different so batteries can't just be substituted without changes in the charging software. Eaton does monitoring monthly and notifies customers when there is a problem.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020: SBE Chapter 17 met via Zoom. There were 24 online that Day.
http://www.cmnradio.org/DocumentCenter/View/465/Mn-Public-Officials-Brief-v11-003---What-is-FirstNet?bidId=/ Some of you might have heard about FirstNet https://www.firstnet.com/, which has gotten some headlines for expanding cellular capacity https://www.wdio.com/news/cell-tower-/5631574/ in hard-to-reach locales. Our featured speaker was Edward Czarnecki, Senior Director of Strategy and Government Affairs with Digital Alert Systems https://www.digitalalertsystems.com/. AT&T received federal money to create another cellular network nationwide for emergency purposes.
It is the data part for first responders and is available to regular cell users, but priority goes to emergencies.
See: https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ecn/programs/wireless-broadband/Pages/default.aspx ATSC 3.0 is a new television standard that is not backward compatible for existing television sets.
New televisions will be manufactured with ATSC 3.0. Existing sets will need a converter.
It was explained that younger people are moving away from large screen TVs in favor of smartphones and other hand-held devices. https://about.att.com/pages/COVID-19/covid19_FN_archive.html
http://www.cmnradio.org/DocumentCenter/View/465/Mn-Public-Officials-Brief-v11-003---What-is-FirstNet?bidId=/ Some of you might have heard about FirstNet https://www.firstnet.com/, which has gotten some headlines for expanding cellular capacity https://www.wdio.com/news/cell-tower-/5631574/ in hard-to-reach locales. Our featured speaker was Edward Czarnecki, Senior Director of Strategy and Government Affairs with Digital Alert Systems https://www.digitalalertsystems.com/. AT&T received federal money to create another cellular network nationwide for emergency purposes.
It is the data part for first responders and is available to regular cell users, but priority goes to emergencies.
See: https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ecn/programs/wireless-broadband/Pages/default.aspx ATSC 3.0 is a new television standard that is not backward compatible for existing television sets.
New televisions will be manufactured with ATSC 3.0. Existing sets will need a converter.
It was explained that younger people are moving away from large screen TVs in favor of smartphones and other hand-held devices. https://about.att.com/pages/COVID-19/covid19_FN_archive.html
May 20, 2020, online SBE Chapter 17 meeting:
All of the usual Twin Cities broadcast engineering suspects showed up.
There were more in the Zoom session than are shown on this screen shot. This webinar was with Hank Landsberg of Henry Engineering , founder of Henry Engineering https://henryeng.com/
For clarification, don't confuse Henry Engineering with Henry Radio, which built amateur radio and FM broadcast transmitters back in the 1970s. Hank gave a show-and-tell of his firm's new offerings.
All of the usual Twin Cities broadcast engineering suspects showed up.
There were more in the Zoom session than are shown on this screen shot. This webinar was with Hank Landsberg of Henry Engineering , founder of Henry Engineering https://henryeng.com/
For clarification, don't confuse Henry Engineering with Henry Radio, which built amateur radio and FM broadcast transmitters back in the 1970s. Hank gave a show-and-tell of his firm's new offerings.
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May 7, 2020: Online SBE Chapter 17 meeting: Executive Director Steve Swazee of SharedGeo https://www.sharedgeo.org/, is trying to reinvigorate http://www.iowapbs.org/mtom/story/36328/advocates-urge-adoption-old-grid-geolocation It is an old plan for purposes of helping today's emergency response personnel. This is a volunteer effort that benefits everyone who uses it.
April 14, 2020: Online SBE Chapter 17 meeting with Kurt Riegelman of Intelsat, the company that is handling satellites and the transition of C-Band satellite program delivery. The bottom 300 MHz (3.7 to 4 GHz) of C-Band is being sold to the cellular industry. The upper 200 MHz is being reorganized. Broadcast stations that have not registered their ground station locations are out of luck when 5G broadband comes to their vicinity. This will happen in three to five years in large metropolitan markets. It will likely take longer in small markets. There will be interference issues for stations receiving programming in the upper 200 MHz if a 5G tower is nearby. Then Bear Poth of LumenServe gave an online talk about tower lighting and how his company offers package deals of hardware and maintenance.
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February 27, 2020, 12:30 pm meeting at the iHeartMedia performance studio, 1600 Utica Avenue South (Suite 500) in St. Louis Park, MN.
We were joined by Doug Hinahara of Actus Digital https://actusdigital.com/, which specializes in "FCC compliance monitoring and recording, archival storage, content repurposing," and more. Lunch was provided.
We were joined by Doug Hinahara of Actus Digital https://actusdigital.com/, which specializes in "FCC compliance monitoring and recording, archival storage, content repurposing," and more. Lunch was provided.
January 28, 2020 meeting: The new year began with bold opportunities. The first of a two-part series on green energy from SolarFM concept.
https://www.bswusa.com/Antennas-Ecreso-SOLAR-FM-P13598.aspx.
Speakers, via teleconference, from WorldCast Systems shared what they know and sponsored the luncheon.
https://www.worldcastsystems.com/en/c118p100/outdoor-broadcast/solar-fm
https://www.bswusa.com/Antennas-Ecreso-SOLAR-FM-P13598.aspx.
Speakers, via teleconference, from WorldCast Systems shared what they know and sponsored the luncheon.
https://www.worldcastsystems.com/en/c118p100/outdoor-broadcast/solar-fm
