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CHAPTER 24, Inc., MADISON, WI
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Monthly eNews
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September 2019
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Our Next Meeting:
Thursday, September 26th
The Technology of 5G
by Damian Roth, Madison College
Damian Roth, a Professor in the Information Technology department at Madison College, will take us through the history of "G" from the birth of 1G in 1979 to the current build out of the 5G data delivery platform. How the technology works, the types of hardware needed (network and device), and where the industry is in its progression will be discussed. As will be the costs involved to the carriers to migrate a "city" from 4G to 5G. Professor Roth will also discuss how the use of 5G will dramatically increase the capabilities of the "Internet of Things".
Dinner at 5:30 PM (Dutch Treat)
Karben 4
3698 Kinsman BLVD
Madison, WI
Meeting and Program at 7:00 PM
Madison College, Truax Campus
1705 Hoffman Street
(Third floor of the Health and IT Building)
Madison, WI
Visitors and guests are welcome!
Map
Last Meeting's Minutes
Submitted by Russ Awe, Secretary
The August meeting of Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 24 was held on Wednesday, August 28, 2019. Wisconsin Public Broadcasting (ECB) in Madison was the location for the monthly gathering. There were six members present with five members being certified.
Chapter Chair Britny Williams began the meeting at 7:02pm. The secretary's report of the July meeting minutes was then amended with a correction of frequency coordination for the CrossFit Games and not the Xgames as published on the August eNews website. A motion was made by Tom Smith and seconded by Jim Hermanson to approve the amended minutes. The motion passed.
Newsletter chair Leonard Charles reported that because of the Holiday weekend, the deadline for articles for the September eNews letter is pushed back to the close of business on Tuesday September 3rd. Please forward any article of interest to the members of Chapter 24 to Lcharles@sbe.org. If you are not receiving the eNews letter and want it, send an email addressed to Lcharles@sbe.org to be added to the distribution list.
Britny Williams reported from National that we have lost three members and gained two members with Chapter 24 having 48 current members.
Sustaining Membership chair Fred Sperry submitted a report that Full Compass Systems and Resonant Results have recently renewed their support. The chapter currently has 13 sustaining members. Mike Norton will deliver the checks to Roy Henn this week.
Certification chair Jim Hermanson noted the next exams will be in New York at the AES convention on October 18th. The deadline to submit an application to the SBE National office is September 10th. The next local exam session is November 1st thru November 11th with a deadline to register of October 24th.
Frequency Coordinator Tom Smith had not received any recent requests.
With the SBE National report, Leonard Charles reported that The SBE National Meeting is coming to Madison and the Broadcasters Clinic, October 15-16. They encourage everyone to attend the SBE Annual Membership Meeting from 3 to 4 pm on the 16th. It will be webcast live, thanks in no small part to Wisconsin Public TV, Wisconsin Public Radio and others for their production support. The SBE National Awards Reception and Dinner is also the 16th, beginning at 5 pm. Tickets are just $16 and can be purchased on line at the SBE website; http://www.sbe.org/. Click on the National Meeting icon on the homepage to get to the registration page. Among this year's award winners are Bill Hubbard of Fox Valley - Chapter 80 with the James C. Wulliman SBE Educator of the Year Award and the 2018 Broadcasters Clinic for Best Regional Educational Event. (Note: The Chapter 24 October meeting is the National Membership Meeting on the 16th)
- The "SBE polls" are closed. The results of the Board election will be released by mid-day or so tomorrow the 29th, once all of the candidates have been notified of the results. Four "Wisconsinites" could be elected to National office.
- The next SBE webinar is Thursday, September 19 at 1 pm CDT. The topic is FM Filters and Combiners, presented by Tom Silliman, President of ERI. It's part of the SBE Advanced RF webinar series. Register on line at the SBE website. It's free for SBE MemberPlus members.
- Britney Williams also reported that Chapter 24 will be receiving an additional National SBE award for the Most Certified Chapter (Class B) at the National meeting in October. Congratulations Chapter 24!
There was no old or new business brought forward.
Program Committee chair Britny Williams announced the Thursday, September 26th program will be presented by Professor Damian Roth at the Madison College, Truax Campus. The program will give the history of "G" and discuss the hardware and finances needed to migrate a "city" from 4G to 5G. A Dutch Treat dinner is planned at Karben 4 at 5:30pm. Britny then reviewed the upcoming programs, with the SBE Membership Meeting at the Broadcasters Clinic in October, and a Candelabra Channel Change Project (hopefully) in November. The annual holiday party will be Wednesday, December 11th at the Maple Tree. 2020 meeting dates are posted on the Chapter 24 web site.
The meeting adjourned at 7:14pm, and was followed with a Skype presentation by Alex Harman detailing The Looking Glass/MPX Tool by Modulation Arts. The FM analysis tool can monitor up to 30 frequencies simultaneously.
2019 Broadcasters Clinic
hosts the SBE National Meeting
The SBE National meeting will be held in conjunction with this year's Broadcasters Clinic. All members are invited to attend the SBE Membership Meeting at 3pm CDT on Wednesday October 16th. At 5pm that same afternoon the SBE will host a reception and awards dinner at the Marriott. The fee to attend is $16. Registration and admission for the awards dinner and reception is not included with Clinic registration but is located here.
Check out the 2019 Clinic session agenda. On line registration is available here.
HOTEL INFORMATION: The 2019 Broadcasters Clinic sessions will be held in the Superior Room at the newly renovated Madison Marriott West Hotel, located at 1313 John Q. Hammons Drive in Middleton. If you need to make room reservations, please contact the hotel at 888-745-2032 and mention WI Broadcasters Clinic to receive the $134 discounted rate. The hotel deadline is September 23, 2019. If you have any issues making a hotel reservation, please let Linda Baun know immediately.
SBE National Awards
SBE Chapter 24 attained two national awards recently announced by the SBE.
Most Certified Chapter (Class B) is a reflection of the relentless efforts of the Chapter's long time Certification Chair Jim Hermanson (26 years) to make sure the membership is aware of all the certification classifications available, the application deadlines, and arranging the test sites as well as proctoring the exams. THANK YOU JIM!
Best Regional Educational Event was awarded to all of the Wisconsin SBE Chapters for the 2018 Broadcasters Clinic. The Broadcasters Clinic is underwritten by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association with session planning shared by members of SBE Chapters 80 (Fox Valley), 28 (Milwaukee), 24 (Madison), and 112 (Western Wisconsin). Congratulations to them all!
Wisconsin's own Bill Hubbard (SBE Chapter 80, Fox Valley) was selected as the 2019 SBE Educator of the Year. The award reflects Bill's many years of mentoring during his broadcast engineering career, his certification initiative work in his home Chapter 80, his work on the annual Broadcasters Clinic Program Committee, and his many year involvement with the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association's Media Technology Institute. Congratulations Bill!
For more on these and other awards click here. The Awards will be given out at the annual SBE Awards Banquet in conjunction with the SBE National Meetings held this year at the Broadcasters Clinic in Madison, Wisconsin October 16th.
Wisconsin Does Well in National Elections
The Badger State is well represented at the national SBE following this year's elections. Kevin Trueblood, a former Wisconsinite and Chapter 24 Chair now living in Florida, was elected Secretary of the Society. Elected to the SBE Board of Directors was Chris Tarr of Chapter 28 in Milwaukee. Serving the remaining second year of his first term as a director is Steve Brown of Chapter 80, Fox Valley.
The induction of all the newly elected officers and directors will take place at the annual SBE Membership Meeting on October 16th at the Broadcasters Clinic in Madison Wisconsin. Click Here for all SBE 2019 Election Results.
Amateur Radio News
Compiled by Tom Weeden, WJ9H
The waiting game for Hurricane Dorian, the dangerous Category 3 storm, continues in the US Southeast. Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) teams in the ARRL South Florida Section are reported fully activated, and more than 20 evacuation shelters have been opened. Northern Florida is at a Level 3 status - monitoring the situation, and West Central Florida (WCF) has opened shelters in several counties and is at a Level 2 alert. ARES organizations in all three ARRL Florida Sections convened via conference call on Monday to continue coordination of preparedness activities for Amateur Radio emergency communication.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) indicated at 1200 UTC today (September 3) that the eye of Dorian was "beginning to inch northwestward," while the southern eyewall "continues to pound Grand Bahama Island." A Storm Surge Warning is in effect from Lantana, Florida, to the Savannah River. A Hurricane Warning continues in effect for Grand Bahama and the Abacos Islands in the northwestern Bahamas, and for Jupiter Inlet to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
The NHC reports: "The hurricane will then move dangerously close to the Florida east coast late today (Tuesday) through Wednesday evening, very near the Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday night and Thursday, and near or over the North Carolina coast late Thursday."
The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) has been in continuous operation since Saturday and will remain so until further notice, HWN Manager Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, said Monday evening. "This morning, we had hoped to hear stations on Abacos Island and perhaps some stations on Grand Bahamas Island. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans."
In Georgia, "it's just kinda wait and see," Section Manager David Benoist, AG4ZR, told ARRL on Monday evening. He said the state emergency management agency is fully activated. A statewide D-Star network is in place for passing emergency traffic, should it be needed.
ARES operators have been deployed to two Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) sites. GEMA will monitor 3.975, 5.335, 7.287, and 3.583 MHz (MT-63 1K), as well as D-Star, and the *Georgia* EchoLink conference node 4544. Coastal counties in Georgia are under evacuation orders, and highways have been reconfigured for one-way traffic to move inland away from the coast.
The South Carolina Emergency Management Agency has issued a civil emergency message due to the potential threat from Hurricane Dorian, and mandatory evacuations have been ordered in several counties.
September 1 marked the 160th anniversary of the Carrington Event, the strongest geomagnetic storm known to have hit Earth since at least the 14th century. The event was named for British astronomer Richard Carrington, who first viewed and sketched the huge sunspot complex on the sun from which a gigantic solar flare -- a coronal mass ejection -- erupted, as he watched. Within hours, Earth was virtually enveloped by an aurora borealis that was visible even at lower latitudes and into the tropics. It was a truly spectacular light show that in some places, turned night into day. When the flare interacted with Earth's magnetosphere, however, it was another story.
This was the Victorian age, when practical wireless was still a few decades off, but the "auroral phenomena," as it was called then, had "a remarkable manifestation of magnetic influence" on telegraph wires -- the internet of the day, as it were. So considerable was the effect that The New York Times reported telegraph operators were able to disconnect the batteries that normally operated the system and were "working by the atmospheric current entirely!" Although the operators subsequently were able to reconnect their batteries, the storm continued to affect the lines. A telegraph manager in Pittsburgh reported "streams of fire" emitted from the circuits. In Washington, DC, telegraph operator Frederick W. Royce was severely shocked as his forehead grazed a ground wire. A witness said an arc of fire jumped from Royce's head to the telegraphic equipment.
The Times account quoted an operator in Worcester, Massachusetts, who said, "During ten years' experience in telegraphing, I have frequently observed the effect of the Aurora Borealis on the wires, but never before have I seen it so grand and appalling."
Operators said that at times the polarity of the battery power supply would become reversed. "One moment the batteries would begin to boil over, and we would have so strong a circuit that the armature would not come away from the magnet; the next moment, there would be no current at all," a report from Quebec recounted.
Based on examinations of ice samples, scientists believe that geomagnetic storms two and three times stronger occurred prior to the 14th century.
After the Carrington Event, scientists began paying a lot more attention to solar phenomena and sunspots. -- Thanks to Frank Donovan, W3LPL
(Excerpts from the American Radio Relay League's arrl.org web site)
FCC NEWS
compiled by Tom Smith
LPFM RULES CHANGES PROPOSED
On July 30th, the FCC proposed a number of rule changes for LPFM Stations. The proposed rule changes (FCC-19-74A1) involved translators and booster stations for LPFM stations, minor change applications, the use of directional antennas and TV channel six protection.
The proposed rule changes concerning booster stations for LPFM stations would allow for an transmitter to be located up to 10 miles from the main LPFM transmitter in urban areas within the top 50 markets and up to 20 miles from the main transmitter in rural areas. The 60 dbu signal contours must overlap and remain within the 60 dbu contour of the primary LPFM transmitter. A booster station is a transmitter that rebroadcasts the stations programming on the same frequency. As the 60 dbu contour of a LPFM station is normally around 3.5 miles, the increased distances for the booster stations transmitter sites are for stations with unusually difficult terrain such as mountain locations where the height above average terrain and transmitter location is high above the area to be served and allows an increase on coverage above the normal coverage for that class of station. The translators which are already allowed for LPFM stations will follow the same separation limits.
The FCC is proposing that a minor application is a change of transmitter site as long as the 60 dbu contours overlap or a move to the same site as the transmitter of a station that shares frequency under a shared time agreement and amendments to those agreements, changes in channel to the 1st, 2nd or 3rd adjacent channel or the 53rd or 54th IF channels (10.7 MHz) and moving either to the same or a nearby location of a 3rd adjacent station.
The FCC is proposing that LPFM stations be able to use a directional antenna when the station is used for transportation or safety use (Travelers Information Service), for protection of a station on the second adjacent channel, and for LPFM stations needing to protect stations in Mexico and Canada.
The last proposal would sunset the requirement that all stations in the 88.1 to 91.9 MHz reserved band would no longer have to protect TV stations on Channel 6 from reception interference after July 13, 2021. Due to the reserved FM band being adjacent to channel 6 there were interference issues from reserved band FM stations which no longer is an issue because of digital TV transmission and the limited number of stations operating on channel 6.
There will be a 30 day comment period followed by a 15 day reply period after the notice is published in the Federal Register.
CHILDRENS TV RULES COMMENT DATES
On August 16th, the FCC published in the Federal Register the summary of the rulemaking on the proposed Children TV Rules. The 30 day comment period started with that publication and ends on September 16th with replies due on October 15th. The FCC notice of the comment dates can be found at (DA-19-794A1) and the rulemaking at (FCC-19-67A1).
Certification and Education
compiled by Jim Hermanson
The Open 2019 - 2020 Exam Schedule
| Exam Dates |
Location |
Application Deadline
(to SBE National Office) |
| October 18, 2019 |
AES Convention in NYC |
September 10, 2019 |
| November 1-11, 2019 |
Local Chapters (Madison Area) |
September 24, 2019 |
| February 7-17, 2020 |
Local Chapters (Madison Area) |
December 31, 2019 |
| April 21, 2020 |
NAB Show in Las Vegas |
March 9, 2020 |
| June 5-15, 2020 |
Local Chapters (Madison Area) |
April 17, 2020 |
| August 7-17, 2020 |
Local Chapters (Madison Area) |
June 12, 2020 |
| November 6-16, 2020 |
Local Chapters (Madison Area) |
September 21, 2020 |
What certifications am I eligible for? Click here
A reminder that each year, account balance permitting, Chapter 24 will reimburse half the application fee to any member of Chapter 24 in good standing who successfully obtains any SBE certification level not previously held by that member.
When you are ready to take an SBE exam, please fill out the appropriate application and send it into the SBE National office (see address below). You will be notified once your application has been approved. Approximately 3 weeks before the exam time, your local certification chairman will receive a list of applicants in his/her area. He/she will then contact those applicants to schedule a date, time and place for the exams. The exams will be mailed back to the National office for grading. The pass/fail grades will then be mailed directly to the applicants.
You may mail, email or fax your applications to:
Megan E. Clappe
Certification Director
9102 N. Meridian St.
Suite 150
Indianapolis, IN 46260
317-846-9120 Fax
mclappe@sbe.org
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September Webinars
Thursday, September 19, 2019
RF 201: Module 7: FM Filters and FM Combiners
FM stations sharing common infrastructure, towers and antennas, have challenges to overcome in order to be compliant with the FCC's 47 CFR Part 73 rules, 80 dB suppression from the carrier amplitude, regarding out of licensed channel emissions. Coupled energy between transmitters can cause unwanted intermodulation products that exceed those rules. FM filters have been designed to eliminate the creation of those products in both small and large systems. Design aspects of filters will be discussed including the use of loops, iris and direct couplings. Join us for this webinar co-presented by Tom Silliman, President of Electronics Research, Inc. and Nicholas Paulin, Engineer ERI, who will cover the types of filters used such as notch and bandpass filtering. They will also address the use of commonly used technologies for emissions control and channel combining for shared antenna systems. Custom filter solutions will be covered that isolate FM signals from AM towers and combine analog FM and digital IBOC when transmitter technologies are not used.
Members $59, MemberPlus Members FREE and Non Members $89. Register Here.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Fundamentals of SNMP: Part 1
The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) was created as a means to monitor and control devices in an Internet Protocol (IP) network. SNMP is widely used in Information Technology (IT) environments and is becoming popular in broadcast equipment. Wayne Pecena, CPBE, 8-VSB, AMD, DRB, CBNE presents this webinar that will provide a familiarity with SNMP fundamentals beginning with consideration to a Network Management System (NMS) architecture and system components. Part 2 will look at implementation of SNMP in the broadcast environment to provide a robust monitoring and notification alerting environment from IT equipment to the transmitter.
Members $59, MemberPlus Members FREE and Non Members $89. Register Here.
Several On-Demand Webinars are available at https://www.sbe.org/sections/edu_seminars.php.
Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), its officers, or its members. SBE Chapter 24, Inc. regrets, but is not liable for, any omissions or errors. Articles of interest to Chapter 24 members are accepted up to the close of business the 1st day of each month. Send your article to lcharles@sbe.org .
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