Transmitter makers anticipate the unpredictable
WASHINGTON
There is only one certainty in the transmitter business-vendors have to be ready for anything. Throughout the last four years, demand for transmitters went from analog to digital, from high power to low power, and now back again in both cases.
When digital transition deadlines were established, analog business diminished. The folks making transmitters went to work turning out digital units to meet the FCC's decree that all stations would broadcast a full-power digital signal by May, 2003.
Then, BAM! On Nov. 8, 2001, the FCC issued an order that allowed broadcasters to meet their DTV deadlines with low-power transmitters. That day, the market for transmitters shifted from $2 million units to those costing less than $200,000.
It was also around this time that broadcasters started buying analog transmitters again, said Dave Glidden, director of transmission products for Harris. Glidden and his industry colleagues attributed the analog uptick to a couple of factors. First, analog plants across the country were simply reaching replacement age. Second, with fewer than 200,000 or so over-the-air DTV receivers in the hands of consumers, no one seriously thought analog would be going away anytime soon.
In fact, analog sales have helped keep the transmitter industry alive. Ai's national sales manager, Mark Polovick, said Ai's ratio of sales of analog and digital transmitters is about one-to-one. Rich Schwartz, director of marketing and product management at Axcera said likewise at his company. At Thales, analog accounted for about 20 percent of sales last year in the U.S., according to Rich Fiore, senior vice president of sales.
Larcan Vice President of Sales and Marketing Steven Zakaib said analog made up roughly 70 percent of last year's sales at his company, where an entirely new analog system was developed for roll-out at this year's NAB. Dubbed the Eclipse, the new system was introduced in analog UHF form, but ultimately will be a platform for PAL, NTSC, ATSC and DVB-T configurations. The power range of the system runs from 5 kW to "mechanical infinity," but economically speaking, to about 100 kW in VHF and 60 kW in UHF formats, Zakaib said.
Glidden said that Harris, too, continues to sink R&D dollars into analog equipment, particularly the Atlas line of solid-state UHF transmitters. Like Larcan, Harris has an eye on overseas markets, where analog is expected to endure for some years to come.
And it's a darn good thing for those overseas markets, because...BAM!
FCC STRIKES AGAIN
The FCC recently floated the news that it was cogitating a way to add cable households to the DTV reception count, which legally must reach 85 percent of U.S. television households per market before analog transmissions can be shut down. Under the speculative plan, the congressionally established analog shutdown date of Dec. 31, 2006 could feasibly be met.
"That put a rapid pause on analog spending again," Glidden said.
How such a plan would ultimately affect the transmitter business is not known. Would broadcasters still be required to replicate the cable coverage area? What would happen to the nation's 4,700 translators and 2,100 low-power stations? (Larcan, with its translator/LPTV division in Denver, certainly wants to know.)
These and other issues are supposed to be addressed through the findings of the FCC's second periodic review of the DTV transition, initiated 16 months ago. As of press time, the commission would not speculate on just when the results of that review would become available.
In spite of it all, transmitter makers have done their very best to anticipate and meet market demand. Overall, manufacturers said they expect the analog market to remain strong, while the digital market shifts back to high-power units.
WARP NINE, SCOTTY
"We've been pumping out more proposals on full power than we have done in the last two years," Larcan's Zakaib said.
Schwartz said most of Axcera's digital orders in the last four to six months have been for high-power systems.
"The number of stations upgrading from low to high power is still relatively low, but beginning to increase," he said.
Fiore from Thales had similar observations, although he expects the demand for high-power systems to ratchet up because over-the-air business opportunities will one day outweigh the constraints of cable carriage.
"Eventually, stations are going to want to manage their own 19.3 megabits of spectrum," he said.
Even so, there are still quite a few broadcasters out there waiting to see what the FCC's max-power drop-dead date will be, which may not be the best strategy, Glidden warned, because the industry's installation capacity could be overrun. There are only so many folks out there who know how to install a television transmitter, many of them closer than not to retirement age. All of the manufacturers acknowledged the scarcity of qualified transmitter engineers, but they've also parlayed the situation into a business opportunity of their own.
"In the U.S., every broadcaster had to double their RF chain, often with fewer people available," Glidden said. The upshot is that broadcasters are seeking more assistance from vendors.
Thales has introduced a new series of transmitter maintenance programs that combine personnel and parts at a flat fee, Fiore said. Larcan and Axcera are also picking up the slack for stations that are short an RF engineer or two.
The shortage of qualified personnel is also driving interest in remote monitoring systems like the Harris' eCDI local remote control system, and Recon, a program that monitors everything from the studio-transmitter link to the tower lights, Glidden said.
Most of Axcera's transmitter customers opt for its remote monitoring package known as DTVision, a remote monitoring system that provides a pre-exciter view of the constellation, eye diagram, spectrum mask, signal-to-noise ratio and other elements, Schwartz said.
MSDC GETS FEET
Multistage depressed collector (MSDC) technology represents yet another way the transmitter industry has anticipated market demand, somewhat before it has materialized. Although they are currently more expensive than traditional IOT tubes, MSDC models run at a higher rate of operating efficiency-55 to 60 percent vs. 40 percent for regular IOTs, according to Glidden.
Operational costs are an especially sticky wicket for public broadcasters, who, in many cases, have received adequate capital funding for equipment but lack the cash flow to keep the lights on. With the April 1 75-percent simulcasting deadline (when all stations had to start simulcasting 75 percent of their analog programming in digital as well), energy efficiency is even more imperative.
Harris designed its PowerCD transmitters specifically to accommodate MSDCs, Glidden said. At press time, the company was anticipating its first delivery "in the not too distant future," he said.
Axcera added a series of MSDC models to its existing Visionary line of analog and digital transmitters, because the company anticipates a rapid shift in favor of the technology, Schwartz said.
"Only recently have depressed collector offerings been characterized for analog operation," he said. "and since analog systems are typically being operated at much higher power levels than DTV by most broadcasters, efficiency is much more important for analog. I think we will begin to see the depressed collector IOT become the standard high-power amplifier of the next year."
Ai, part of the Sinclair Ventures Group, recently installed its first MSDC Quantum transmitters in Sinclair's Baltimore Fox and WB affiliate stations. The WB configuration was particularly notable in that it uses "the water-cooled e2v ESCIOT tube in a dual-use analog/digital cabinet," according to Ai.
"This demonstrates the depressed collector Quantum transmitter is a system that can and should be used for either analog or digital applications," said Nat Ostroff, Ai president and board chairman. "WNUV-TV is expected to realize a total energy savings of a quarter-million dollars annually as a result of the installation."
As for shear numbers, Thales walks away with the prize for most MSDC systems in the market.
"Since our introduction of the Paragon transmitter line, we have seen significant interest, and as of today, we have 20 systems either installed or on order," Fiore said. "The fact that there is no crowbar in the system leads us all to believe that long-term reliability will significantly improve."
QUE SERA, SERA
The number of unknowns in the broadcast business remains daunting. What the FCC will decide about channel election, signal replication and interference protection, must-carry, market definitions, program system and information protocol (PSIP), digital V-chips, and a list that goes on and on-is up in the air.
For transmitter manufacturers, the big question is when and if the commission will set a date certain for full-power digital transmissions. Come what may, they'll have to be ready for anything.
