Looking Forward – February

From the desk of Brian Walker – Chapter Chair

Jeff Welton, a man of many hats and many talents, is our presenter for the February chapter meeting.  We’re changing things up this month and are meeting at Cascade PBS (KCTS) at 316 Broadway in Seattle.  There are a few handicap parking spaces in the KCTS parking garage, otherwise its street parking and hike to the station.  My plan is to park somewhere affordable (a relative term in downtown Seattle) and Uber to Cascade PBS.

There are some nearby parking options within a 3-11-minute walk (all rates and availability subject to change).

Seattle University has multiple parking options:

• Murphy Garage (P2 level 1) 11th & E Cherry Street, Seattle, 98122; 3-min walk.
• Redhawk Center Lot (P7) 14th & E. Jefferson Street, Seattle, 98122; 8-min walk.
• Visitor Lot – The Lee Center (P1) 12th & E. Marion Street, Seattle, 98122; 11-min walk.

Harborview First Hill Medical Bldg Parking Garage:

515 Minor Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104; 5-min walk. Disabled spots available, electric car charging stations, and offers a height restriction of 32′ 9″.

Broadway Parking Garage:

600 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122; 10-min walk. Disabled spots available, electric car charging stations, and offers a height restriction of 11′ 0″.

Jeff Welton will be wearing his SBE Chapter 100 Chair hat and using his Nautel credit card to cover lunch.  Jeff will be talking about something very relatable for all of us and that is “IT Security in a Broadcast Plant.”  The trend is toward virtualization, containerization and cloud based everything. What does that mean – and more importantly, what are the steps we need to take in order to ensure that we’re presenting as little visible footprint as possible, while still enabling our teams to get the job done?

After lunch and Jeff’s presentation, Jack Portwood, CTO of Cascade PBS, will conduct a station tour.  Cascade PBS is a very interesting view of how lean and efficient a TV station can be.

That time of the year has arrived again and it’s the season to renew your SBE membership.  Not to turn this into too much of a sales pitch, but your dues are the primary source of income for SBE16.  Dues have increased for the first time in seven years. Traditional membership dues for Member, Senior, Associate and Fellow members are $105. Student membership is $35 unless you contact SBE16 which will cover your dues as long as you are a student.  The fastest way to renew your membership is online at sbe.org. Your membership can also be renewed through the mail, using the renewal form and return envelope mailed to you. Pro Tip: You can drop by the SBE booth at NAB and renew in person!

Should you be heading to the deserts of Southern Nevada in April, The SBE Ennes Workshop has been the traditional kick-off for the convention. It spans two days on April 4 and 5 in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Workshop has two program tracks: RF 101 Bootcamp, designed to give those with a predominantly IT-oriented background the foundational information regarding transmission methods and equipment so that they can effectively function in these disciplines, and Media Over IP, covering both video and audio implementations. The RF101 track is being assembled by Jeff Welton, CBRE, and the Media Over IP track is being crafted by David Bialik, CBT, and Fred Willard, CPBE, 8-VSB, ATSC3, CBNT. The Workshop concludes with a joint session on contract engineering. The two-day workshop includes lunch breaks.

Details on the sessions and speakers are being added to the SBE website. Register for the Workshop at the NAB Show website. Use the promo code SBEEARLYBIRD before Feb. 28 to save on SBE Ennes Workshop registration.

Meanwhile, over at the FCC… it’s politics as usual.  Brandon Carr is the new Chair.  Commissioner Anna M. Gomez issued the following statement on January 30 in response to reports of an FCC investigation into NPR and PBS: “This appears to be yet another Administration effort to weaponize the power of the FCC. The FCC has no business intimidating and silencing broadcast media.”

Somewhere out there you might not have noticed there were a couple of fires in Southern California that continue to burn.  As of January 31, the Eaton Fire (which threatened Mount Wilson) is 99% contained at 14,021 acres.  To the West-Southwest of the Eaton Fire, the Palisades Fire is 98% contained at 23,448 acres.  Since January 7, over 58.5 square miles of Southern California has gone up in flames and the fires are still not out.  To put this in perspective, Vashon Island is 36.9 square miles.  Imagine all of Vashon Island burning plus the entire city of Federal Way going up in smoke.  A containment rating of 98% or 99% means the fire department is confident that 98% or 99% of the fire line will hold and not allow the flames to spread.  It makes no claim about how much of the fire has been extinguished.

Fundraising efforts are underway for three L.A.-based broadcast engineers who have lost their homes to the ongoing California wildfires.

Michael Kealing, manager of engineering at Trinity Broadcasting Network, Charlina “Liz” Johnson, senior studio/transmitter engineer at Univision Communications and Maurice Mischook, a broadcast engineer at iHeartMedia, were impacted by the Eaton Fire. The three engineers and their families have active GoFundMe pages.

Chapter 47  — SBE’s L.A. chapter — sent out the following call to action in an email to its members.

“It [has] been an intense few weeks with all the fires raging in our beloved Los Angeles area,” read the email. “Our hearts go out to each and every person affected by these awful events. We are very grateful to all of the firefighters and first responders who have been valiantly battling the fires.

“We’ve heard of three L.A. engineers who unfortunately lost their homes. We will be making a contribution to their GoFundMe pages and encourage our members and friends to do the same. If you are able to help in any way, please consider donating. We thank you for your continued support of Los Angeles radio and television and hope everyone stays safe.”

The phrase “Defensible Space” may be moving up in your lexicon in 2025.  One station I know in LA paid a bunch of money to have all the brush cleared away from their tower on Mt. Wilson in 2024.  Management expressed some unhappiness over the costs, but changed their tune when they were still on the air.  Another thing to consider is your generator and fuel supply.  While this was an extraordinary event, how long would your station last without having more fuel delivered?  Mount Wilson went for 16 days without commercial power.  Getting a fuel truck up the mountain was impossible during the fire and then getting a truck to deliver was nearly impossible because of all the fuel demands of the fire trucks.  It’s easy to plan while sitting at your desk with a cup of coffee.  It’s something else again to strategize when all your plans go up in smoke and flame.  I don’t think anybody could have possibly imagined everything that went sideways in these fires.  It was simply overwhelming.  Congratulations to those who stayed with their transmitters and “figured it out” by the seat of their pants.

Let’s talk next month.

Brian Walker

Seattle SBE16 Chapter Chair

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