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Next Meeting: We meet June 11, 7:30 PM at First United Methodist Church, 612 Poyntz Ave, in downtown Manhattan. We will be hosted by Raun Hamilton of SAV, who will also provide pizza for our supper! Raun provided and installed the video portion and Ron Jones helped with the audio installation. Come see the amazing progress made in pro-sumer quality gear in the last few years. It might even help you update gear in the establishments you frequent. If you want pizza, I would be there no later than 7:00 PM. See you there!

Last Meeting: Twelve members and guests met Tuesday May 14, 7:30 PM, in Wichita at KWCH Studios, hosted by Steve Reiter, KWCH Chief Engineer. Chairman Bob Locke opened the meeting at 7:36 PM. The minutes as published were approved on motion of Don Hogg, seconded by John Langer. The Treasurer's Report was given by Robert Nelson and accepted. Bob Locke gave the Certification Committee Report. No requests for certification testing have been made in the past two months. The next periods of local chapter testing will be August 2-12, with an application deadline of June 3; and November 1-11, with an application deadline of September 24. 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

Robert Nelson brought up a request by Kent Cornish, Exec. Director of KAB on subjects for programs on Engineering Day at KAB in October. Of those presented, grounding techniques and audio editing were most popular. The business meeting was adjourned at 8:06 PM on motion of Dick Abraham, seconded by Steve Reiter, and vote of those in attendance. John Langer, Program Chairman, introduced Don Backus, Acct. Mgr., Radio Xmtrs, for Rohde & Schwarz, with our program. Don told us of the company, which is privately held. Founded more than 80 years ago, they are one of the world's leading manufacturers of IT and communications technology products, which include: RF engineering and applications in test and measurement, radio-communications; broadcasting, and security products. Their emphasis on quality products is backed up by support of their own employees as well as their customers.

Don showed us the simplicity of R&S transmitter construction which adds to its reliability, and that being bolstered with redundant, hot swap-able power supply, amplifier and cooling modules. Their service department is backed up with the ability to ship their third party cooling pods via Amazon, should you need one on a weekend, but even those units have redundant motor/pumps, which should get you through the weekend. But, the point is made. Don gave an easily understood discussion on the cost vs. method of investing in better equipment, using the purchase over a ten year period of incandescent vs. LED light bulbs. Then, using the same points he switched to transmitters using liquid cooled vs. air cooled product. The money saved over a twenty year period equaled the cost of the original purchase ! The cooling lines and outside heat exchanger have no copper in them! Rather, they build them with stainless steel to prevent corrosion. The cooling pods have quick connect connectors, and each transmitter rack has its own cooling pod. R&S also builds whole body scanners for airport and business security. They contain multiple sensors enabling throughput in excess of thirty persons per minute. I was impressed with the commitment to quality offered to its customers by R&S. I believe it exceeds that offered by RCA when I started in broadcasting many years ago. Our thanks for an excellent presentation, to Don Backus, to Rohde & Schwarz, and to KWCH for hosting a fine evening.

 More points on the Rohde & Schwarz program given May 14 at KWCH:

• Liquid cooled transmitters are very quiet. • Cooling temperature deltas are 3º-4º, in/out.
• Mobile cooling pods (1 per rack) handle 40 KW on one motor/pump - (2 per pod).
• The previous allows multiple transmitters per rack - up to 40 the KW limit.
• R&S includes cost of cooling in Xmtr price. Air cooled manufacturers usually do not.
• World Trade Center building has 8 TV Xmtrs at its top - 7 of those are R&S.
• 90% of parts used in R&S Xmtrs are built by R&S, a highly vertically integrated company.
• Parts supported and available typically 15 years after production ceases.
• Xmtr modules are designed using 5 KW Doherty amplifiers - Very efficient.

Again, good information on a fine company.

Have you noticed the increased use of drones during news coverage of recent events covered by news? Their use does seem to allow news organizations better pictures closer to the event, without disturbing first responders than has been possible in the past. Local police units are using drones to obtain quick assessment of activity over a larger scene, contributing to smaller areas being blocked off to the public. That may have been the case in the Notre Dame fire recently occurring in Paris, France. There are new terms in use today that I am having trouble understanding. What is "Internet Radio Host"? When did Internet become radio? Is that all that different from "Internet TV Host", other than one may have a studio camera and the other uses video graphics? I thought I put in enough time on the Internet to know. My wife thinks I spend too much time there already. Is "Internet XXX Host" different from some person's blog on FaceBook? ….so much to learn; so little time. I did see a disturbing page in Wired magazine recently. It was a study on icon recognition by youngsters. None of the melange of icons shown were recognizable to me at all, but then they were using icons from video games and sites highly favored by young people. Of course, each new generation seems to find some way to express themselves that is totally unknown to their immediate elder generation. Perhaps that is the case here. I guess it kind of proves the point made by author Alvin Toffler several years ago in his book, Future Shock, about the rate of change of change in our lives.

An interesting tale was told by Bob Locke at our last meeting. The subject at hand was choosing topics favored for discussion at KAB this fall. Proper grounding was one of those, and Bob told of a time when he was on duty at the KSN transmitter site (prior to remote control). While he was there, a thunderstorm with frequent lightning bolts came up. Out of respect for such power, Bob moved to the middle of the room away from metal as much as he could, since he had witnessed arcing in the exposed metal rafters previously at times when lightning was plentiful in the area. The storm passed, and the time came for Bob to go home, but he found he was locked in! Somehow the U shaped gate lock on the chain link fence surrounding the transmitter building and tower, had become welded to its post. The lightning had left its calling card, requiring Bob to break the weld with a hammer before he could leave the premises !

Another story of the aftermath of lightning and resulting power outages occurred to me recently. The Church Secretary called me (I do the I.T. for the church), with the complaint that she could not print to the USB connected printer, nor access the Internet nor e-mail. Once there, I found I could access the Internet by connecting the computer directly to the telephone/Internet modem, which pretty much pointed to the router as the culprit. I could see data lights on the router input and wired computer port blinking when the router was connected in line as it usually was, but those lights seemed rather dim, and no other indicators were lit. Fortunately, I had brought my old router from home, and its wall wart. I looked at the specs on both the church router and my power supplies and found they were identical. I substituted my unit in place of the church router's power supply, and the dead router came to life with many more lights gleaming brightly than I had seen before. Problem solved, although I did have to reboot each individual piece of gear so everything was recognized in proper sequence. The funky part of all this, is that the dead wall wart had been plugged into a surge suppressing strip fed from a UPS. The outage could have outlasted the UPS capacity, or, since this UPS feeds line voltage through when every thing is normal, a surge might have gotten through first, frying the wall wart. Anyway, the broken system was restored. I was just very thankful I had picked up the box with my old router and its power unit….and that the church router had retained all the setup information. Do you remember how to log into your router? That ability usually is not just an icon on the home page of your computer. I know it is a simple matter to look up instructions on the Internet,
but it is so much easier if you can refresh your stressed memory by looking up the information from a secure file on your cell phone or other external device. I had saved the User Name and Password on my cell phone but forgot the part about typing 192.168.1.1 into a browser on the computer connected to the router you are trying to log into. That little item was quickly added to my prompting file when I got home, and I will be ready for the challenge next time its needed. 30

Chairman Bob Locke presides over the SBE Chapter 3 business meeting on May 14, as we met in KWCH Studios in Wichita, KS.

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