The Kansas Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention will be held next month, with several sessions of interest to broadcast engineers.
The 2023 convention will be held in Overland Park, Kan., on Monday, Oct. 23, kicking off with a welcome breakfast and concluding with a Station Excellence Awards dinner, presentation and cocktail hour. Throughout the day on the 23rd, KAB has organized a variety of breakout sessions split up into “management,” “news,” and “engineering” categories.
John Gray, the VP/director of R&D and V-Soft Communications, will lead the session “Modern Broadcast Propagation Prediction — Know Where Your Signal Goes!” This will cover basics of modern signal propagation prediction for FM and TV, and how that compares to the FCC coverage maps that have traditionally been used.
Mike Pappas, a field engineer and VP of business development at Orban, will lead the session “Last-Minute Solutions for Cloud-Based Broadcasting,” which will look at a variety of cloud-to-transmitter link solutions, including a pair of real-life examples using “unconventional” delivery methods.
Finally, for engineering topics, Kirk Harnack of Telos Alliance will lead the session “Real Hosts Working Virtually — How Real Humans Work with Containerized Broadcast Systems.” This SBE Ennes Workshop presentation will discuss the evolution of virtualized infrastructure and its broadcast software used.
Find the full schedule here. The deadline to register is Oct. 13.
The keynote address will be given by Ryan Lefebvre, an American sportscaster, best known as a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Royals since 1999. The KAB Annual Meeting and SBE Annual Meeting will also be held during the convention.
Prior to the main convention day, KAB will host its Hall of Fame Dinner to celebrate this year’s inductees on Sunday, Oct. 22. The KAB Hall of Fame Award is the highest honor bestowed upon an individual by the Kansas Association of Broadcasters. Recipients of the KAB Hall of Fame Award “are individuals who have attained positions of national prominence in the industry or its allied fields, have been majors contributor to the growth and welfare of radio and television in Kansas or nationally and have been exemplary stewards of broadcasting,” said KAB.