Next SBE Chapter 59 Meeting
When: Thursday, February 11, 2010
Where: Surewest, 14859 West 95th Street, Lenexa, KS 66215 [Map]
Gather at 11:30 AM, business meeting at 11:45, followed by lunch and program.
Program:
Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery Seminar. Allegiant Networks & Surewest will host the seminar which will include a tour of the Surewest data center and guest speakers from Allegiant Networks, Surewest, and Framework IT.
Lunch will be provided by Allegiant Networks & Surewest.
Allegiant Networks is a full service, "One-Stop-Shop" for organizations Telephone and Information Technology needs, with three locations in the Midwest and 35 certified technicians on staff. Our extensive foundation boasts 24x7x365 support and monitoring, two offsite 24 hour N.O.C.'s located in Denver and Kansas City, and partnerships with AT&T, Surewest, Nuvox, Windstream, Asigra, Avaya, Nortel, NEC, HP, Microsoft, Cisco, Proxim, NetApp and many more.
SureWest Communications is one of the nation's leading integrated communications providers and is the bandwidth leader in the markets it serves. Headquartered in Northern California for more than 90 years, the company expanded into the Kansas City region in 2008 with the acquisition of Everest Broadband, Inc. and offers bundled residential and commercial services that include IP-based digital and high definition television, high-speed Internet, Voice over IP and local and long distance telephone.
Chairman's Chat
By, Robin Cross - SBE Chapter 59 Chairman; February, 2010
What’s going on with you? Recently I have been busy. Transmitter problems with a 20 year old beast that is starting to show lots of signs of its age. The usual suspects are first. The filter caps are drying out and I have been replacing them. The new transmitters seem to be much less reliable than the older generation that had fewer microprocessors and ICs in them. But then they were much less reliable overall and needed more continual TLC. The oil filled capacitors seemed to last forever. The replacement cycles seem to be getting shorter. This is the new age of where replacement seems to be the way instead of repair. But then the ‘old days’ were probably not as good as I remember them.
I have heard that the few TV stations that retained a VHF allotment are in big trouble. Even the high VHF Channels 7-13 are not very kind to the HDTV signal. The scramble to find a UHF channel or get a STA for an increase in power are not ideal situations. Will the loss of viewers be temporary or permanent? Any solution seems to be expensive.
The FCC may soon move on the increase in IBOC FM power increase. This puts a LOT of FMs in the same position as TVs trying to figure out how to increase their power. It seems that nearly all solutions are expensive for Class C FMs.
When will FEMA/FCC move on the new EAS/CAP rules? Enquiring minds want to know. Do you remember the big scramble to get ‘approved’ EAS equipment installed and working in the ‘90s? Will we have the same short window as before? The new equipment will be microprocessor based and will it just need a memory ‘flash’? The microprocessor thing brings me back to the first paragraph.
Meeting Minutes Available Online
Minutes from the most recent SBE Chapter 59 meeting can be find online here:
http://www.sbe59.org/newsletter/download.php
Past meeting minutes can be found here.
SBE59 Website Wins Award
 | The SBE Chapter 59 Website was selected as the 2008-2009 Best Chapter Website by the national organization. |
SBE59 Bids Farewell to Analog TV
The February, 2009, chapter meeting was a wake for NTSC...
Click here to view complete story with photos!
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