The nomination period has closed for the third Annual Engineering Achievement Award, given by the Association of Public Radio Engineers. Now the group will begin determining who will be honored.
According to Gordon Carter, head of the APRE award committee and chief of WFMT(FM), Chicago, the honor is for outstanding contributions to the art and/or science of radio engineering that has significantly impacted or improved the state of the public radio industry.
Speaking of APRE, registration to attend this year’s Public Radio Engineering Conference on Friday, April 17 and SBE Ennes workshops the following day is open through April 3.
APRE Vice-Chair Dan Mansergh, who is DOE of KQED(FM) in San Francisco and an RW contributor, tells me the public radio engineering group plans a transmission session Friday to complement the Ennes discussions about the IBOC FM power increase. APRE’s focus will be on practical, long-term planning issues.
“In particular, the implications of the manufacturers’ findings that the two most viable methods of achieving higher digital power with reasonable operating costs are low-level and space combining will be of interest to the large number of stations that are operating high-level or split-level combined systems, and the requirements for isolation for space-combined systems (including a discussion of circulators) will be covered,” Mansergh said.
Overall, conference planners strive for a focus on practicality this year — how to actually get IP-based digital broadcasting and transport integrated into facilities, how to reduce distribution costs for a station group by delivering HD Radio over satellite, how to avoid problems with multiple audio codecs in the production and air chains, and how to make smart investments in the RF plant given what is now known about IBOC broadcasting.
