The Alabama Broadcasters Association Engineering Academy’s indispensable Radio Engineering Class will once again be conducted, this time on June 6, at the ABA’s headquarters in Hoover, Ala.
The classes, while aimed at younger and aspiring engineers, can also act as refreshers for older engineers while also introducing them to changing technologies.
The classes run the gamut from basic electronics and audio fundamentals to AM/FM transmission basics and the operation of a station’s engineering plant. A class outline can be found here.
The “Dean” of the Engineering Academy, Academy Director Larry Wilkins, CPBE, explains, “As you know we can’t make someone a ‘chief engineer’ in a five-day course. The goal of our classes is to give prospective engineers an overall view of the technical side of broadcasting which will enable them to work as a technical assistant and not be blind-sided by technical processes and acronyms they will come across in the broadcast plant.”
The genesis of this unique offering, along with others in radio and TV broadcast technology that the ABA Engineering Academy offers is because, according to Wilkins, “It is difficult for someone with an interest in broadcast engineering to find schools that teach the ‘technical stuff’ anymore. The academy gets a lot of emails and phone calls from other states about the program. We are in hopes that others will join our efforts in their area help train new engineers.”
