The Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) took time during its annual meeting at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington DC this week to present S. Merrill Weiss its highest technical honor, the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award. Mark Richer, ATSC President, commented, "Merrill is very adept at analyzing complex issues, putting them in perspective and recommending strategies to move the process forward. He has played a key role in many of our standards development efforts."
The Lechner Award is named for its first recipient, Bernard Lechner and is "bestowed one a year to an individual representative of the membership whose technical and leadership contributions to the ATSC have been invaluable and exemplary." John Godfrey, VP, Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the ATSC Board of Directors said, "It's a pleasure to welcome Merrill into the long list of TV industry experts who have earned recognition for their contributions to the standards-setting activities of ATSC. Anyone who has worked alongside him knows that he exemplifies the spirit of cooperation that makes collaborative progress possible."
In the field of broadcast RF technology, Merrill's work includes the original A/110 "Synchronization Standard for Distributed Transmission" and its successor A/110:2011 "ATSC Standard for Transmitter Synchronization". He was also actively involved in and provided technical contributions to the A/153 Mobile DTV standard. Merrill is always willing to share his expertise with other broadcast engineers and has presented many papers at the IEEE Broadcast Technology Symposium and the NAB Broadcast Engineer Conference on topics ranging from distributed transmission system design, the proper way to model antennas with mechanical beam tilt and, most recently, identifying and correcting passive intermodulation at transmitter and cell phone sites.
Some recent recipients of the Lechner Outstanding Contributor award include Jim Starzynski from NBC Universal in 2011, Pat Waddell from Harmonic in 2010, and Wayne Bretl from LG Electronics/Zenith in 2009.
