Too often broadcast engineers seem to operate in the background; yet we have crucial responsibilities. So much depends on us: studios, remotes, the transmitter system, the list goes on.
Kudos to K-Love, part of Educational Media Foundation, for releasing a well-produced 11-minute video that seeks to raise the profile of their engineering staff.
The video, titled “Boots on the Ground: The Engineers Behind the Signal,” was posted on YouTube and played during an internal meeting for all team members.
It provides insights into what broadcast engineers do. It includes remarks from other employees expressing gratitude for technical staff — for their dedication and analytical skills, for working alone so often, for spending a lot of time away from their families, and for their role in supporting K-Love’s Christian mission.
“Vice President of Engineering Kevin Cecil wanted to tell the story of the engineering team and how their dedication makes an impact on our ministry,” said Communications Director Rhonda Roberts.
This was a collaborative effort between the engineering and marketing departments.
“The goal was to show our in-office team members and listeners the great work our field engineers do every day, out in the elements, all over the country. They keep our signals going strong and K-Love and Air1 would not be possible without them.”
The video was featured in a recent edition of your daily Radio World SmartBrief email newsletter (if you don’t get that, you can sign up here).
Watch the video below. As one of the interviewees says in the opening scene, “It takes a special person to be an engineer.”
RFI paint
Scott Dorsey worked in radio in Atlanta as a kid before getting an EE degree and going on to build instrumentation systems. Nowadays he describes himself as an old grouchy guy who yells a lot at conferences!
Scott is a big fan of conductive paints, which we discussed here in October. He says it’s great for EMF shielding, for instance when you have plastic or wooden cases that need internal shielding. He recalls that in the 1980s you’d see silver or copper spray paint coating the plastic case of microcomputers and terminals.
Scott points out that available paints vary from a high-conductivity silver-charged product from W.R. Grace to barbeque grill black paint from Ace Hardware. The latter product uses graphite as a pigment and provides a surprisingly good shield at an affordable price while maintaining higher resistivity.
A useful tool to have in your kit.
Another perspective
San Francisco’s Bill Ruck recalls when Sutro Tower planned to host a cable TV head-end, getting their feeds from the TV stations with a coupler in the transmission line, but the site manager was concerned about direct RF pickup from the transmitting antennas.
The manager discovered a copper conductive paint by Spraylat and bought enough to cover the walls, floor and ceiling of the room the cable company would use.
Bill measured the RF levels before and after painting. He found that the paint reduced the RF by more than 40 dB in low-band TV, FM and high-band TV.
Years later, a friend of Bill’s was experiencing RFI problems at his new home studio. The house was at the top of Sausalito, Calif., about a half mile from a site with four FM stations. Bill told his friend about the Spraylat paint but warned him that it was expensive.
The friend used it in the studio and the control room, and the RFI problems went away. Bill says that at both locations, you could measure almost no resistance from any place to any other place. The paint works.
Let me know if you have experience with Spraylat paint, if it’s even still available. Based on what we find on the internet, PPG purchased some of Spraylat Corp.’s assets in 2012, and there’s also a company called Spraylat International in the U.K. that makes products under the brand name Protectapeel.
Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification credit. Email [email protected].