Broadcast television engineering related tech topics, rants and motorcycles!
Here is a project I am justifiably proud of. Our corporate engineering management had determined that we were to use a Harris Flexicoder as the core of our HDTV encoding, but outside of that we were to determine what we needed to best integrate it into our facility. Initially, I was not pleased with the [...]
A few grainy images of the Andrew side-mounted antenna we ordered for the KHBS DTV transmitter in Poteau, Oklahoma (which serves the Fort Smith, Arkansas market).
Because there was simply no room on the existing tower to place a DTV antenna that would be even marginally effective, I was successful in convincing the company of the need to build the tower and locate the new antenna on it.
I’d love to take all the credit for this project, but who would believe me?!?! This required the experience and assistance of not only our station’s engineering department, but also the combined efforts of contracted electricians, transmitter installers, HVAC installers, a local construction company and tower riggers.
Prior to installing the coming DTV transmitters there had to be a manner in which to get the HD signal to the transmitter. Since we would ultimately have two high-power DTV transmitter sites and they are a considerable distance from the studios, the only practical solution would be to encode the HD signal at the [...]
Here is a project that we desperately need to do for some time! Programming and monitoring for two stations was absolutely awful and inefficient from the old area that the MCO worked at. It was made from mostly plywood into a custom cabinet years prior with no room for expansion or thought regarding future possibilities [...]
What follows is a blow-by-blow retelling by Larry Friddle (my Asst. Chief Engineer at the time) on 10 JAN 2001 of a very difficult and stressful couple of weeks where everything seemed to be going wrong and the weather was definitely set against us… My name is Larry Friddle. I am the Assistant Chief Engineer [...]
When I arrived to the KHBS/KHOG TV market in 1998 the tertiary station KHOG in Fayetteville was running its locally sold spots by manually breaking away from the programming they were receiving from KHBS. The Master Control Operator on duty would change a crosspoint on their router and then manually trigger a series of spots [...]