Well first it
was record setting heat, and now, as I write this, it’s been a bunch of record
setting rainfall. Frankly, I’ll take the rain. Hard to believe that we are in the
latter half of 2007 already!
Lots of news this month – so
here we go –
The headliner this month must be
the changes that are about to be made to the EAS. If you attended a recent SBE meeting, I
gave those in attendance a preview of coming attractions. At some 75 pages, the 04-296
FNPRM is full of information as to what they want to do, but a bit light as to how they
are going to go about it.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-109A1.doc
The SBE EAS Committee is knee
deep in this issue, at this writing, trying to get those answers. Wondering what it
means, the FCC has deferred to FEMA for a lot of these changes. What we do know is
that CAP or Common Alerting Protocol is going to be in our future. Nothing like a
little research to get up to speed on the matter. So here’s your homework
assignment – go to the following site –
http://www.incident.com/cookbook/index.php/Welcome_to_the_CAP_Cookbook
There are a ton of questions
coming out of this, including the big one – Are we going to have to buy new EAS
Equipment? Fasten your seatbelt. Many have been very critical about the EAS,
and many have been listening and the answers and solutions are starting to flow.
Bustos Media is awaiting receipt
of PTA so they can turn on KDDS/99.3 at their newly constructed transmitter site at South
Mountain, West of Shelton. Next up for the site is the construction of KFMY/97.7.
Both of these stations' high powered rim-shots will be operating with 64kw.
On the subject, I have been
listening to KNBQ a bit. Their HD signal does a respectable job from Capital Peak SW of
Olympia.
Sounds like a bit of internal
rumbling at Viacom, this time, involving the daughter of Sumner Redstone.
NewBay Media has purchased IMAS publishing. IMAS is well known in our world as
publisher of TV Technology and Radio World.
Sounding much like the law suits regarding EAS, Rembrandt Technologies has filed a suit
against the major TV networks as well as Harris claiming patent infringement for their use
of the ATSC standard for DTV. Just what we needed right now. Sounds like
something to pad the bank accounts of some lawyers to me.
Remember when Google was thought
of as only a search-engine? Then they started making inroads into Broadcasting.
Now they are waving billions of dollars at the FCC, telling them that they are
prepared to bid on spectrum that will be released as the result of the conversion to DTV
– IF – the FCC will include provisions to let them wholesale or lease spectrum
to others. Obviously players in this arena are not thrilled over this one.
The
big rage now is to reduce your ‘carbon-footprint’. Here’s a couple of
items to ponder as you go around replacing your light bulbs with fluorescents. In
the UK, a study by the Energy Saving Trust has concluded that consumer electronics will
soon overtake kitchen appliances and lighting as the biggest power user in homes.
Flat-screens, computers and other high-tech gadgets that we are apparently addicted
to are taking an every increasing chunk of our ‘carbon footprint’. Ever
turn everything off in your home and them go out and watch the meter continue to turn?
Consider that by 2020, TV sets that are turned off, will consume 1.4% of all
domestic power used. (Remember when off meant – OFF?)
Big changes at Harris. Not only do we have yet another Harris Rep for the PNW but
Harris has established a relationship with SCMS whereby orders for what are called 3rd
party, vendor-items are now handled by SCMS. Apparently they will still be able to
provide these items, but only as a part of an order for Harris made equipment. Chris
Pannell, former Harris Rep in our area has been promoted to Director of North American
Radio Sales. That new Rep is Al Jason who has, in the past, been associated with
other broadcast equipment makers. Someone told me that there are only 99 jobs on the
supply side of this industry, and 101 people….hence the apparent revolving door.
So who is going to end up owning Tribune and Seattle’s Channel 13 and 22? Will
it be Sam Zell? Apparently later this month that decision will be made.
SBE is having great success with
their new Web Based courses on RF Safety with several additional sessions being announced.
Our local Chapter is hoping SBE will have a session in the fall that would enable
more in our area to attend. We are working on it, and will advise. This is
something that everyone will want to attend, who are involved with towers and transmitter
locations as well as ENG facilities.
Citadel has sold their cluster of Radio Stations in Spokane to Mapleton. What caught
my eye on this change was their proposal to down-grade one of the areas historic radio
stations, KGA. All of this so they could increase the signal from a co-owned,
co-channel station in the Bay Area of California. One hates to see this take place,
but it is certainly not history making. Here in the PNW, Entercom did just that so
that they could improve their cluster in Portland. At last report, former Seattle
area Engineer, Dave Ratener, was employed by Citadel in Spokane.
Meanwhile, Citadel has been buying a 5.7% stake in McClatchy, the newspaper company.
Interesting twist I’d say. McClatchy owns the Tacoma News Tribune and
49% of the Seattle Times.
From the FCC’s fine department comes this jewel, perhaps a Darwin award candidate,
Donald Winton of Corpus Christi, Texas will be contributing $7,000 to the treasury.
Seems Mr. Winton was broadcasting a local AM station on CB Channel 19 and he would
not let the FCC inspect his CB Station. He turned off the CB rig when he was asked
to do so by an FCC agent.
KZIZ
in Sumner has been having grief with their new array just south of Auburn on 1560 trying
to get their directional antenna to perform correctly, apparently due to power line
re-rad.….The result, less power at night than they wanted.
Word is that the Covington Radio
station promoters have filed an application to move to Cougar Mountain with an ERP in the
vicinity of 8Kw. Considering the fact that the present Cougar FM’s operate with
either 50 or 100Kw ERP, this will certainly be a low powered operation. Looking at
their proposed contours, it will, however cover the Seattle area quite nicely. One
only needs to look at the success of KUOW, the only market FM not on either Cougar or West
Tiger with substantially less coverage than that afforded by the higher sites. To
answer the question, is it worth it? The question is now whether a major player will
invest in this facility. The price based on dollars per kilowatt of ERP could be
surprising.
Stephan Lockwood, of Hatfield and Dawson fame, has recently created a Remailer for those
who deal with high powered HF SW transmitters. For more info, contact him at lockwood@hatdaw.com.
There is still a lot of fur
flying over the proposed merger of XM and Sirius, with the proposal causing many to
declare their support or opposition.
The second audio channel of HD
Radio commonly called HD2 is finding a number of willing program sources. In some
cases these may have been previously interested in being on an FM sub-carrier. In
some cases, NCE Broadcasters are using their HD2’s carrying what was previously on a
carrier current system or a 10 watt operation. Niche programming is finding that
these HD channels are just perfect for their needs. The good news is that it takes
the pressure off those who have been demanding LPFM licenses.
Locally,
Fisher has expanded in the on-line world with the acquisition of Pegasus News.
It’s fascinating to watch the traditional Broadcasters come to understand that
they must evolve into being content providers wherever possible. Just streaming your
existing programming is not enough in today’s world.
The KKOL battle rages on.
Thanks to Jim Dalke, we have a ring-side seat. We have long known how
difficult it would be to erect new transmission facilities, witness KRKO in Everett, but
hardly anyone would have predicted the calls to remove one after construction.
I love the story about KNCR in Fortuna, California. eems they were evicted at their
old transmitter site, so they put up a tower at the studio 2-miles away, under the rules
that permit an emergency antenna. One little problem, they neglected to include the
FCC in the change. The dollar amount - $3200.
The Fairness Doctrine has been back in the news. Efforts to restore the
critter appear to have failed.
Local firm, Symetrix, has appointed Tim Murray to the position of western regional sales
manager.
One media news item you,
thankfully, don’t hear about very often is the murder of a radio talk-show host.
Mike Webb, formally with KIRO Radio was killed back in April and recently his
admitted killer was arrested in Seattle.
Could it be something we will see in this area? Comcast recently added more HD
Channels and in the process moved a number of channels out of its expanded basic analog
tier. As consumers continue to purchase DTV sets at an every increasing rate, those
channels that are not running DT are going to find themselves on the short end of the
stick. Speaking of which, have you noticed the number of HD sets that are now
available for under a Grand. A recent visit to my local Costco was cool in that
there are a number of new sets with nice big 1080 signs on them. The question is how
low will prices go? For stingy/tight holdouts like me, I just know that I will buy a new
set and the next day find that the price dropped a bunch. Reminds me of when I
bought that new calculator at the University Bookstore just to learn that that a week
later the price dropped. Oh well.
Something that you hate to report
on, the death of tower workers. This time near Lawrence Kansas. Two workers
fell some 300 feet as they were installing a new ENG system on a tower.
Found in a recent Frys add in the paper…an ad for a Channel Master HDTV Antenna.
Takes me back to the days when providers of antennas were out selling antennas for
color…as if it took a special model to receive NTSC! The one at Frys is for
UHF. Is there someone that’s going to stay on VHF around here? The fact
is that research is showing that there is a huge percentage of folks that don’t know
a thing about the switch to digital. Perhaps not until Opra tells them about it?
Well
that time has come to end this session, but before I conclude, this little gem…a
description of a computer programmer. He is someone who solves a problem you
didn’t know you had in a way that you don’t understand.
Have a great summer, what’s left of it.
Clay, CPBE, K7CR |
