Broadcast Enginers on AM fone?

[KA3EKH]

How many of us are broadcast engineers? Just curious wondering how many do this thing professionally and then want to go home and play around with AM transmitters in there spare time. And on the same subject how many are under fifty? I am fifty three myself and have noticed that many of the newer CE in broadcasting are from the IT side then from the RF side and have little interest in transmitters beyond just wanting them to work and knowing the reliability of modern transmitters don’t blame them knowing that they spend the majority of there time resolving problems with the keyboard as opposed to a soldering iron. Don’t get me wrong being that I work almost entirely with the RF side of the plant that’s job security but can imagine a day where terrestrial broadcasting as we know it will be gone. May just be that I am still depressed about having to give up my analog 60 kW Comark that took some level of skill to use for a 5 kW digital where all you do is push the on button, then hear about the ideas of freeing up more bandwidth by consolidating all the television in a market to one channel it just don’t look good for terrestrial television broadcasters. If it weren’t for the fact that Direct TV and Dish pick up our signals off air sometimes think I can turn off the ATSC transmitters and no one would notice. Good thing the transmitter stuff is only a part time thing and I have a full time job at a university because we have not been running out of kids yet, matter of fact we have been getting more and more of them from China and they pay!

[kb3ouk]

I'm not a broadcast engineer but that is the field I would like to get in to when I'm out of college (even if it's only part time). I'm actually going for an IT degree, but that's not the part that really interests me. I like working with RF a lot more than computers, it's easier to understand.

[W7TFO]

I did broadcast eng for 42 years and retired.  Now I run my own consulting firm doing facility construction and upgrades.

The good thing is most of my work is still RF based.  The young turks can have the studios and HD stuff.

73DG

[Opcom]

The OP questions transcends the type of work.

When I went from applications engineering to technical marketing, I did more hands-on hobby work at home.
Now having returned to application engineering I again do somewhat less hands-on hobby work.
It's not so attractive to go to the home workbench after slaving at work all day over a hot modem.
When the job work was not as much hands-on, those days I am more likely to go out to the workshop in the evening if time allows.

[Jeff W9GY]

My primary field was entertainment radio receiver design and development,  Mostly from the RF/IF standpoint. 

However I did part-time broadcast engineering in TV (mid-60's) and directional AM (late 70's). By today's technologies, this was in the stone age, I'm sure.

[W1RKW]

I did it for 4 or 5 years then went into computer systems engineering after that when things became disposable. Haven't looked back.

[KL7OF]

I once helped the young folks at KABN radio, Big Lake, Alaska get their transmitter back on the air after the jury rigged power supply melted down........got it running in time for the Bluegrass show and they asked me to stay on and play tapes until they could round up a DJ......I also repaired the hot plate so I could have some coffee....Short but satisfying career in broadcasting...

[steve_qix]

I was a broadcast chief engineer for many years, and also designed broadcast equipment (transmitters) for a start-up company that went belly up during the 1987 stock market "crash".

Still designing similar stuff today 

[W8IXY]

I've been a broadcast engineer/on-air personality since the early 60's.  And with the combination of both on-air and engineering I have managed to stay employed for almost 50 years.   The experience in amateur radio greatly assisted in getting my First Phone while still in high school, and that opened the door.  I am still, fortunately, "overemployed" at my tender age of 66, doing one full time and several part time broadcast related jobs.  I do want to retire in another year or two, though.  But playing with RF will be something I'll do for as long as I walk the good earth.

73 and Happy New Year
Ted  W8IXY

[W4NEQ]

33 years in radio engineering and now doing related design and manufacturing.  The industry has changed a lot during my career.

Chris

[W4EWH]

I was the Chief at WMLO in Massachusetts during 1976,
and chief at KRUZ-FM in Santa Barbara, CA during 1978,
and the Assistant Chief at KDB AM & FM in 1979.

I guess everything has changed: the closest thing to a modem at that time was the tone-control board used on a transmitter control panel.

In 1979, I was offered a job at New England Telephone, and I stayed there for 25 years. Now, I do consulting in computer security.

I doubt I would recognize the inside of a studio these days: the only place I'm going to see a Rek-O-Kut turntable is in a museum, and the kids that do the work now wouldn't even get the joke if I played "Gramaphone Man" on their ipad.

Bill, W1AC

[Steve W8TOW]

In 1977, as a H.S. student I worked at WJEF-FM. Having my
2nd Phone at the time, my "supervisor" with his 1st Phone was also a ham
(I forget his call at the moment!)
By 1978 I was also working at WXUS-FM in the studio...mainly repairing
cables, the board, setting up processing, etc...then
came my "BIG" break, I started at WBAA-AM, a 5KW NPR Station at
Purdue University. Still with the 2nd, I only got to work out at
the remote TX site a few times, as they kept me at the studios
in the basement of ELLIOT HALL of MUSIC most of the time.

The "back-up" tx was a Collin 21A though! I got the opportunity
to see her on the air a couple of times in the 2 years I worked there, it
was a beauty. I am sure she is in a land-fill now, sigh...
The installation at WBAA-AM is a 3 bay directional, reduced power at nite...
At the time of my employment, our primary tx was a Harris box...is was about
1/8 th the size of the 21A!

I left BC in '81 for the CATV industry. It was a fun time...lots less stress,
but a lot less money too...
73
Steve w8tow

[KB5MD]

Gosh, I feel like the only illegimate child at a family reunion, no broadcast experience here.  I have been a sign painter for the  past 42 years and plan to be around doing it for a while to come.  
My technical knowledge and experience in radio is purely a hobby that has been an obsession since junior high school.  
The age is 68.
Almost forgot, I did work for a TV station for 6 years doing photography and graphic arts, if that counts as broadcast experience and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

[kc0jez]

Was as still am chief engineer for KOZY-AM and KMFY-FM in Grand Rapids, MN. Been here 25 years.  I'm probably the last show host/engineer combo guy still doing that, as the real money is in engineering. 5K AM three tower directional array with a Harris MW-5 (and a Collins 1000 watt back up transmitter!) and an RCA transmitter for the 100,000 watt FM. (With a Wilkinson backup!) Have also hosted the morning show for those 25 years -- still do -- every morning! I'm 54 now, built my first ham transmitter when I was 11 years old.

Tim in Bovey
kc0jez

[WA3VJB]

Ray, my hobby of playing with AM transmitters spawned time as a broadcast engineer, but only because the hardware at work was so similar to what I had at home.  

My main line of work is broadcast journalism, but I got called upon early in my career to be an "assistant" engineer at a low budget kilowatt daytime-only AM station.  Tube transmitter (main and backup), tube boards, and the kind of multi-band audio processing I later put in place here at home.

But I don't think I'd want to have a primary job as an RF guy, broadcast transmitter technician, because work and play would tend to merge.

Others have done that, very successfully, with Dave W2VW being an example I like to point out.

My "success" was limited to scoring some pulls from the transmitters, being able to mix music tapes after signoff, and (occasionally) to pump a 32V2 into one of the 300' towers with their ground field in a swamp.  This time of year, signoff was mandated at 4:45pm, before the end of evening drive time!

These activities are not generally part of "air talent" responsibilities, and as you can see, when it was time to do the news it was completely formal and structured.

[W3NE]

After 31 years in TV studio equipment design at RCA I retired early, just in time to avoid the final self-inflicted collapse of the Corporation. Then went to a network for nine years, which is what I should have done at least twenty years sooner! Had something on the drawing board or bench at home during a good part of that time. Looking back I am convinced I got out just in time, as do most of my ex-B/C station cohorts who also have retired.

There has been a sea change in the business and there is a lot of truth in the comment about shutting off ATSC transmitters without making much difference, particularly with streaming video now well above the horizon. AM and FM broadcasting should have good futures, given increasing numbers of mouths on AM and latest fad formats on FM.

Bob

[KA3EKH]

Great to see others stories and how the two things interact. Think I was a Ham before working in broadcasting but started both about the time I was in high school. Ham radio and broadcast engineering do kind of compliment each other although have not had much success getting others I know in broadcasting to get there ham ticket, have drug one or two Hams into broadcasting. Also have to think about the idea that maybe its true twenty or so years ago when I use to do a lot more bench work and dragging around cables and the like that maybe did not have the desire to then go home and beat on some vacuum tube something or the other but thinking about it have always had some junky old Motorola or military junk that I was playing around with on two meters and if it were not for the reduction or what ever that allowed Tech + to become general class I would still be doing VHF and not playing around on 160 AM  The RCA Broadcast things is something that always amazed me, how can a company that had so many first and that dominated the market for so long go out of business over night? Think of all the TK-44 and TK-76 cameras they sold, I wasted many a hour doing alignment and replacing plums in the TK-76 and had three TK-44 in the studio that always needed attention just before air.

[steve_qix]

Gosh, I feel like the only illegimate child at a family reunion, no broadcast experience here.  I have been a sign painter for the  past 42 years and plan to be around doing it for a while to come. 
My technical knowledge and experience in radio is purely a hobby that has been an obsession since junior high school. 
The age is 68.
Almost forgot, I did work for a TV station for 6 years doing photography and graphic arts, if that counts as broadcast experience.

Most people here don't have broadcast experience, so I wouldn't give it a 2nd thought 

[W3NE]

The RCA Broadcast things is something that always amazed me, how can a company that had so many first and that dominated the market for so long go out of business over night? Think of all the TK-44 and TK-76 cameras they sold, I wasted many a hour doing alignment and replacing plums in the TK-76 and had three TK-44 in the studio that always needed attention just before air.

Although the end of RCA came suddenly the journey to the end began in the late 'sixties when Bobby Sarnoff suceeded his late father with devastating reckless business decisions made by his and subsequent inept administrations. Not the least of those was dissipation of financial resources during the "diversification era" when Radio Corporation management thought they could be successful renting Hertz cars, making Coronet Carpets, selling NY real estate as Cushman and Wakefield, and selling frozen dinners, not to mention a disaster in the computer business. At that time Broadcast and Home Instruments Divisions were making tons of money and it was thrown away in non-electronic businesses where RCA had no expertise.

Closer to broadcasting, B/C Engineering was dominated by the Marketing Department, comprised of individuals with limited business credentials, and certainly none in engineering. Yet these people dictated what products we would make. how much time we had to design and debug them, and were the only interface between designers and customers. No wonsder isolated engineers at RCA made clangers in operational aspects of product design! It wasn't until I got to the network and found how accessible and responsive Japanese companies are to customer's concerns that I saw how woefully detached RCA had become. The NIH philosophy blinded RCA to the advantages of Plumbicns, triax camera cable and later, to 1" helical-scan VTRs until it became too late to catch up.

Beginning in the 'seventies, Division Managers were sent on sabbaticals to the Harvard Business School, returning with a mantra that seemed to be, "Don't worry about the future, just concentrate on improving today's stock value." That resulted in an enginering budget at RCA Broadcast far below other U.S. companies and vastly less than the Japanese were investing in product design and applied research. We had 3-year business plans that lasted only one year while Japanese were working to a 10-year business plan. (Top management at Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic) were engineers.) There was a delusion pervading RCA Broadcast, after about 1960, that it was more profitable to be Second than First, ignoring the reality of ultimate failure in that philosophy. So we warmed over stale designs and constantly followed competitors. The results speak for themselves.

Bob - NE

[W3LSN]

How many of us are broadcast engineers?

Not quite anymore, but close enough.  I still consider myself to be a broadcast engineer with 35-years experience, but I left radio because I didn't see a future in being a radio broadcast engineer.  That was in 1993 just before the big wave of consolidation and deregulation hit the radio industry.  I worked for dozens of call letter stations eventually ending up at WFAN, New York and my last hurrah in radio was building the new studios and transmitter site of WTEM Bethesda, MD. I briefly worked as a TV chief, but quickly shifted to project engineering at PBS, Fox, and Discovery. I now work for a systems integrator in DC area. I still wistfully look at very tall towers on mountaintops and in cow pastures, but don't miss my pager and enjoy having a life.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

[John K5PRO]

I started my career in transmitter work with broadcast engineering at 3 small AMs and 2 FMs in the southeast. After EE degree, I transitioned into RF equipment design, for several B/C equip. manufacturers, then getting out of the broadcast (except for occasional moonlighters) biz in 1985 to get into industrial and later scientific RF. Money and benefits got a lot better. It was from a start in ham radio as a kid that got me interested, not the other way around. For the past 21 years, have been doing high power RF engineering for a large scientific facility where we have not one transmitter but 48 of them running 24/7, average power being a megawatt each (pulsed). We still use tubes for HPAs, so it all just scaled from ham 'linyeers". I finally got rid of my pager a few years back, as newbies are handling the call-ins, while the old man gets to develop and install the replacement systems. Unfortunately, working with RF transmitters daily for so long has spoiled my own interest in getting on the air, although I like to participate in the forum and discussions on AM with my fellow hams. Maybe when I retire from the salt mine.... 

[Steve - K4HX]

It wasn't over night. It was a long and slow decline as W3NE well detailed. You also have to remember that RCA was a creation of the US government after WWI to keep foreign entities like Marconi from dominating the USA telecom market. Patents from many different companies were taken and used to form the IP of RCA, creating a monopoly or nearly so in some areas. From that start, RCA never learned how to compete. When it actually had to compete later, it was unable to do so.

[W3RSW]

Yeah, Steve,
Interesting, the rise and fall of another crony govt./biz corporation.  Some time I'll write of one in my business, oil and gas.  Suffice to say that Pres. Roosevelt commandeered all the surveys, leases and rights of way of one company that planned and layed out the original long line natural gas transmission of Texas producted gas to New York state and gave them to his brother who started a new co., Tennesse Natural Gas.  War Powers Act authorization, I suppose.

But outside of govt. inefficiency, now I wonder about the whole Rochester spectrum,- Kodiak, Zerox and B.& L., etc.  Guess they had a lot of govt. contracts for cash cows.

Well, Kodiak still lives in concept, the sale of below cost printers so you'll buy the very expensive cartridges.  This is the "Brownie" camera/film concept on steroids. 

Sorry to digress from orig. thread.
I do envy a lot of the careers illustrated; sounds like a lot of fun.  Through much of my career, regardless of positon or how high up, I hung around the comm., measurement  and two way guys as much as I could.  Kind of like Paul I "got some pulls" too including a lot of big Link stuff.

Paul, VJB, your broadcast writing experience explains a lot of stuff too....   
Fascinating.  I enjoyed your pix with the van.  Was that really you?

[W3NE]

From that start, RCA never learned how to compete. When it actually had to compete later, it was unable to do so.

RCA certainly knew how to compete from the get go! RCA-Victor phonograph records did pretty well even after the 45 rpm escapade. RCA was competitive in commercial overseas communications while SW RF transmission was the preferred mode. Remember also that it was David Sarnoff's NBC that was, to say the least, a major player in broadcasting. After the war RCA dominated the FM/TV antenna market (even to the end) and was leader until the mid-'50s in most aspects of broadcast equipment manufacture, sales and service.
 
Has anyone heard of RCA tubes? Were they competitive? They dominated the consumer, industrial, and military markets until the rise of solid state devices, and then RCA competed well in CMOS. The 807, 813 and a raft of competitive pre-war tubes drove Taylor and other manufacturers right out of business.

The 630TS was the monochrome receiver of choice in the early post war years of television, many manufacturers buying drawings, components or complete kits from RCA. The Corporation competed very well in home instruments, especially in color TV from the introduction of the RCA Color System under NTSC Specifications, until the end of the Sarnoff era. RCA did not just lie down when the FCC imprudently approved the incompatible CBS sequential color system. A huge investment was made in a compatible system that became adopted in similar forms by civilized countries around the world. Until that time 44BX and 70D mikes had a pretty exlusive track record, even against W,E,Co.

It was at the end of the David Sarnoff era that RCA began to falter for all the reasons previously described. Until then, however, RCA quite definitely knew how to compete in an industry where there were many other strong participants, e.g., GE, CBS, Sylvania, Zenith. Let's not hang the demise of the Corporation on the managers of its first thirty years of successful business!

Bob - NE

[DMOD]

How many of us are broadcast engineers?

Have GROL will travel.  

I received my 1st Class Commercial in 12/69 with Radar Endorsement and did a lot of AM/FM broadcast work and tugboat radar work in St. Louis in the 70's, and Kansas in the 90's.

In Kansas I did engineering work for mostly AM and FM stations which had both tube and solid state transmitters. I installed one of the first C-Quam AM stereo exciters in Kansas, a 10KW day/1kW nights country station.

Regarding RCA's CMOS technology: While at an aerospace company in St. Louis during the 80's (after receiving an additonal degree), I was on a team that developed radiation hardened military IC's based on RCA's CMOS-on-Saphire technology, which was very successful.


I enjoy reviving AM boatanchors and homebrewing. Currently restoring a Knight T-150, Knight R-100, and Eico 753.

Phil - AC0OB