Latest articles by DON MARKLEY
Shall we gather by the tall tower?
The first advantage of a community tower is usually in the site itself. The construction of a tower acts as a magnet, drawing unanticipated users with
I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
Those words have often struck terror into the hearts of station management.
Transmitter technology review
Other than a possible new tower, the single biggest item at the transmitting plant is probably the transmitter.
So, you need to pick a new tower
Many broadcasters go through their entire careers without having the joy of building a new tower. For many others, this particular activity only occurs
Transmission & Distribution: What's Happening Up There?
Traditionally, we monitor the television signal at every stage of the process from the initial generation point in the cameras until it leaves the transmitter itself.
Taming the RF system
The tuning of combiner or diplexer assemblies is a job for the factory representatives. As is well-known and often discussed in laborious detail, most
Digital encoders
Be very reluctant to purchase a unit that is specifically designed for a narrow set of input parameters with no expansion capability. The encoder that
Low-power transmitters
Up to this point, most of the reporting on DTV transmitters and antenna systems has focused on equipment for the large, full-power DTV systems. That includes
Towers + lead paint = trouble
Take a look at the paint on your tower. If it's lead-based, even under layers of acceptable lead-free paint, you could face the financial and legal challenges associated with safe removal
Identifying hot spots
The development of new sensing devices has made temperature-testing tools extremely useful for broadcasters. The devices permit testing under power a
Television antenna systems
In the past few months, this column has discussed many issues involved with propagation. But it might be helpful to look at a broad overview of television
Advances in transmitter technology
Since last year, TV transmitters have change in subtle but significant ways.
Coverage holes
The terrible truth is that you can build a beautiful transmitting plant using the latest state-of-the-art transmitters and antennas and still find areas
RF at NAB2004
At the last few NAB shows, the most interesting RF products exhibited were all closely grouped around digital broadcasting. Well, they were this year
Peanut whistle DTV
Broadcasters may scoff at the abilities of low-power “peanut whistles,” but they are proving themselves by providing good quality of service at a lower cost than the high-power operations.
The unchanging face of RF
NAB2003 offered a continuing steady improvement in the technologies that have been emerging over the last several years.
