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October Last revision Oct 13, 2020

Next Meeting: We will meet via Zoom in conjunction with KAB Engineering Day, October 21, approx 4:00 PM. KAB will be delivered virtually as well this year, and you need to be registered to participate. There is no cost for Engineers for the Engineering Day. Go to KAB.net an click on Calendar, then on Convention Information. Once there, click on register and fill out the form. Most important - click on the Pay button, even though the total is zero, and registration will be complete! Save the number.

Last Meeting:
Nine members and guests met via Zoom, Tuesday September 08 hosted by KSU administered by Robert Nelson. Our program was given by John Schilberg of Utah Scientific. The meeting was opened by Chairman Robert Nelson at 7:33 PM, and was followed by all participants introducing themselves and telling a bit about their background. Vice Chair John Langer told of future meetings. October 21, 3 PM, Zoom meeting. Contact Robert Nelson (box in lower right of page) for a link, if you are not a member and want to view it. Officer Election occurs! November 10, in Emporia at First Congregational Church, featuring Vmix, a computer production system. December is still open, although we usually do not meet in this month. Notification will be given if we do. Dick Abraham relayed the Treasurer's report, furnished by Robert Locke, who was absent this time. There was no certification activity during the past month, nor were there any requests made for frequency coordination services. Dick Abraham explained how the mail in ballot for the 2020-2021 Officer Election will work. On or before September 21, the SBE National Office will be consulted for a current SBE-3 roster of members. To those persons, Dick will e-mail a mail in ballot, which will contain instructions on the proper way to return the ballot. The ballots will be checked against membership rolls, opened and tallied during the Zoom SBE-3 meeting October 22 after conclusion of KAB Technical sessions in the afternoon. Somewhere in conversation, Rod Rogers potato gun was mentioned, which got the attention of John Schilberg, who asked for an explanation. What fun !!

(L to R, top to bottom), Attendees, Marty Heffner, Robert Nelson, Dick Abraham, John Langer, John Schilberg, Duane Loyd, Rod Rogers, Tracy Gibson, and Bryce LeGrand [in his car, but voice only most of the meeting].

Following the above, John Langer introduced John Schilberg, who gave our program on digital products that are being developed to help implement future mass communications described in the SMPTE 2110 standards. John gave us a bit of background on his entry into broadcast engineering. It began with a school tour of the local Channel 12 in Milwaukee. His teacher, who had admonished him as class clown before entry, queried his good behavior on the way home, and John simply replied he had found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. His high school counselor steered him to a local vocational school who could educate him in his field of choice, and two and a half years later with his First Phone FCC ticket in hand, he got a job in Billings, MT. He did well there and was soon promoted from Transmitter Supervisor to Studio Maintenance Engineer. One day when the CE was out of town, the GM ushered an FCC inspector through the building, and introduced John to the inspector as the Assistant CE. Promotions were coming quickly for the young man. After three years in Billings, he moved to the Texas panhandle as CE of a station in Amarillo and remained there for nearly five years. Then he moved to Houston, TX as an Assistant CE of a station before moving across town to Gaylord TV for the next ten years, then moved again across town to the Houston ABC station. Following that stint he moved into broadcast sales, followed by a move to VP of Technology for the Griffin family in Oklahoma, then back into sales in 2017.

John spoke of the versatility of 4K and 8K video in sports, where the higher resolution camera covers a wide shot of the field, but allows the Director to select or extract a portion of that picture to show, and it retains 1080 or better resolution. I have heard that it can allow one to zoom to the fingers on the ball as the center snaps it. John says the gaming industry really likes this, because they have some of their own skin on the line. If nothing else, this gives you a way to prepare for future trends, and you know how fast things change in this world. John told us of the benefits of SMPTE 2110. It is a forward looking suite of standards that encompasses everything from timing and sync to SDI in about eight parts currently. He also told of Scientific Utah's affiliation with several companies who are developing lines of products specializing in one or more parts of SMPTE 2110 - this to ensure compatibility with future products using data at faster and faster rates. Developers are trying to get to a point where gear plugged into a network immediately broadcasts what it is and does, using an orchestration layer to provide "Plug & Play" over managed networks. They are also working with High Dynamic Range (HDR) signals to increase contrast ratios that are proven to be appealing to the human eye. For example, being able to see out the window of a kitchen scene, and discerning that the sky's clouds look stormy while seeing the whiskers on a person's face in that kitchen. This cannot be done without increasing the dynamic range of the data stream. John Langer commented that conversations on planning for the future and the capacity of data transfer is now including, with increasing frequency, 800 GB/s switches and routers, .

Robert Nelson commented on the need to bring up to 120 IP cameras scattered across campus back to a central router. Being able to do so will reduce the cost of labor, but there is a problem with compatibility, since not all IP is the same between those cameras. John suggested making use of the fiber optic cables to bring as many as possible back, then convert to a common compatible format, perhaps to SDI from MP-4 or even baseband, then encode and route as required. It does point out the need for adherence to standards when planning for the future. Sometimes you are ahead of the curve if the standards aren't fully developed. Guess what? Utah Scientific also produces fiber optic distribution products.

Bryce LeGrand asked John if he had been involved in the construction of Channel 6 in Tulsa somewhere in the 2010-2013 time slot, which included a huge geothermal project that handled HVAC needs for the entire building. John had indeed been there, but said the rack room and studio were kept on separate HVAC systems from the rest of the building. The geothermal part included 80 casings drilled to a depth of 405 feet each in the parking lot behind the building, using the earth as a giant heat sink. He also told of his insistence on LED lighting for the studio, and was soon backed up in the group planning sessions, when the architects and their contractors said with the reduced BTU load, they would not need such large ductwork for delivery of HVAC, followed by the architects saying they could then lower the height of the studio ceilings and make the foundations smaller because of the smaller HVAC requirements.

Overall, the costs were reduced by about one million dollars, even though it was early in the LED development and their cost was relatively high! His suggestion to move a wall further reduced costs and allowed the eventual consolidation of radio stations purchased later by the company, to be included into the space that was created. There are not many engineers who have the privilege to design a television studio and engineering department from the ground up. John was fortunate to be part of a team of production, engineering, and IT people who were entrusted to do just that. John's experience, background, and dedication to his profession made that event have a very positive outcome - a result of good engineering! Our Zoom session ended at 9:08 PM, and our meeting stood adjourned. John's business card is included on our sponsor page [next to last page], should you want to contact him. Our thanks to Utah Scientific, and to John Schilberg for a great evening packed full of good information and great visiting !

The Society of Broadcast Engineers announces a new Executive Director. In January of this year, the SBE announced that Executive Director John Poray would retire at the end of 2020. John has been the society's executive director for 28 years. In March, the process began to find a candidate to fill the position, with Joe Snelson, SBE Past President heading up the Selection
Committee. . After receiving and reviewing multiple applications, the selection committee narrowed the field to three people. From those, James Ragsdale, of Anderson, Indiana was recommended to the SBE Board of Directors, and selected by them September 22 to officially begin work on Jan. 1, 2021. Ragsdale was most recently, the Vice President of finance at Anderson University, where he completed his undergraduate degree. In that role, he managed the operational budget for the private, liberal arts education institution, participated as a member of the university president's leadership team, and oversaw the business office , human resources, physical plant, police and security, and auxiliary services. Prior to his position with Anderson U., James was the senior financial analyst at Ascension Technologies, where he managed the operational and capital budgets for Indiana Market and St. Vincent Health system. Other career work includes treasurer and controller at Church of God Ministries and practice administrator at Anderson Family Practice Associates. Ragsdale earned his BA in business management and public affairs at (then) Anderson College, and his MBA in finance from Indiana University. We look forward to working with him, and wish John Poray many happy years as he retires.

Lloyd Ballhagen, the Kansas newspaper executive who joined Harris Enterprises in 1958 and advanced to become the company's president and chairman, died early Monday, Sept. 28, in Hutchinson. He was 89. Ballhagen joined the Harris Group in 1958, later becoming an editor and publisher. He was named president in 1978 and later became chairman of the Hutchinson -based company. At its peak in the 1980s, the Harris Group operated 12 newspapers and a dozen radio stations in Kansas and five other states. (The Group sold in 2016.) Ballhagen retired in 1998. John Marshall, a former editor, and publisher with the Harris Group said: "In the 27 years I worked for him I never heard him raise his voice. He had the knack of a lion tamer, the touch of a father." That last sentence is not a bad epitaph.

Kansas State University has begun development of software using artificial intelligence for facial recognition of bovine individuals - yes, cows. They had captive subjects detained in a pen, so they ran them through a chute and made video clips of each cow's head, then uploaded nearly one thousand images to a neural network, which is self learning when it comes to similarities. They learned from this the most critical points of recognition in the facial images. It wasn't long and they could achieve 94% accuracy, with their limited database. The nice thing about neural networks, is the larger the database, the more accurate they become. They had been kicking the idea around since 2009. The incremental cost to most large scale ranchers is next to nothing, but the benefit comes in rapid tracking of individual cattle for disease or in cases of bio-security such as tracking foreign tampering with our food supply. At present, participation is entirely voluntary, but the more the merrier when it comes to enlarging a database. Pressure has been on for some time to develop a national animal disease tracking system. This may be more doable in this fashion than many of the other systems under consideration, including RFID Chips, and at much less cost. Interestingly, K.U. is working on a saliva testing device for CoVid-19, that gives a yes/no answer in as little as 15 minutes! This is something we really need now. How can you contain a disease with test results taking longer than the cycle of contagion? 30

Slate of Nominees for SBE-3 2020-2021 Officers.

Chair: John Langer, CBTE; Broadcast Engineer, Video Production Services, KSU Comm & Mktg

Vice Chair: Robert Nelson, CPBE, CBNT; Director Video/Engineering Services, KSU Comm & Mktg,

Secretary/Treasurer: Robert (Bob) Locke, CPBE, CBNT, SBE Fellow; Retired KPTS CE.

Election by mail in ballot will be Thursday October 22, during the SBE-3 virtual meeting beginning 3:00 PM via Zoom. Ballots will be sent to SBE-3 members by e-mail on or before September 21, and must be USPS postmarked and received by the election committee by 5:00 PM October 21 to be counted in the ballot tally. If you wish to view the meeting and are not a member of SBE-3, contact Robert Nelson for a information.

Kansas Association of Broadcasters 2020 Virtual Meeting Schedule

Tue. October 20, 2020

09:00 - 09:30 AM All: Keynote Address & Welcome ` Gordon Smith Sponsor: Evergy

10:00 - 11:30 AM Sales: I Know Something You Don't Know Paul Weyland

01:00 - 02:30 PM Sales: On the Spot - How to Come Up with Long Term Direct Strategies Paul Weyland

Wed. October 21, 2020

10:00 - 11:30 AM News: Battling Bias: How to Do Your Job When Everybody Hates You Al Tompkins

12:00 - 01:00 PM News: Covering Severe Weather Dan Holiday

01:00 - 02:30 PM News: The Election: Survival Session for Journalists Al Tompkins Sponsor KS Farm Bureau

03:00 - 03:30 PM GM's & Owners only: Annual Meeting

Thu. October 22, 2020

09:00 - 10:00 AM Management: The DC Federal Landscape David Oxenford

10:30 - 11:30 AM Management: Attracting, Hiring, & Retaining a Diverse Staff Laurie Kahn

12:00 - 01:00 PM All: Awards Presentations KS Electric Cooperatives, Inc

02:00 - 02:45 PM Engineering: Tips for the Broadcast Professional Jeff Welton Sponsor Nautel

0 3:00 -04:00 PM Engineering: NAB Technology Update David Layer

Registrants have access to all sessions, unless noted otherwise, until December 31, 2020. SBE-3 Chapter Meeting "the meeting will be on Zoom immediately following the conclusion of the technical sessions. (This is a separate stream. Chapter members will receive a Zoom invitation via email preceding. Contact Robert Nelson (rfnelson@ksu.edu) for a link if you are not a member and want to join us, we'll be announcing officer elections at this meeting and discussing the KAB "Engineering Day" virtual sessions.)

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