Longtime broadcast engineer and RF consultant Joseph Davis is set to retire this summer, officially closing his consulting firm of nearly 20 years.
Davis is the president and founder of Chesapeake RF Consultants, a Virginia-based firm that advises commercial and public television and radio stations in engineering regulatory matters. His clients include the likes of Gray Television, CBS Broadcasting, Hearst Television and Sarkes-Tarzian Inc.
Over the next few months, Davis will wind down his practice, with his official retirement and business closure date set for Aug. 31.
Early days
Davis has spent the last 45 years immersed in the broadcast industry. The Virginia native fell in love with the radio biz back in high school, where his extracurriculars involved working at the school’s FM station.
“Pretty soon I was staying after school every day running the board, doing record shows, reading the news, making repairs and loving every minute,” he said of the time.
While still in high school, Davis got a job doing part-time on-air work at a nearby commercial FM station. From there, he moved on to studying electrical engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., where he received his First Class Radiotelephone Operator License and landed the job of chief engineer at WYVA(FM) at the start of his senior year.
Career life
After graduating in 1982, Davis was chief engineer for various radio stations — including WHYW(FM/AM) in Pittsburgh and WBMW(FM) and WETA(TV/FM) in D.C. — over the next 15 years, working on RF and studio projects for those stations in addition to freelancing.
One of Davis’ proudest engineering accomplishments during his decade in Washington was his work to bring a new public radio service to an underserved, outlying area.
“Building on exposure to some FCC licensing rules I had learned along the way from Michael Benns, Morgan Burrow, Bernie Segal, John Kean and Sid Khanna, I found an open frequency and a mountaintop site location to build a new NCE-FM station,” he said.
Davis planned and executed every detail over a couple years, and put that station on the air in 1993. It included a 59-mile, 950 MHz duplex STL with diversity reception, which he says is still in reliable operation today.
As fate would have it, it was that NCE-FM station project that prompted Davis to consider work as a consulting engineer. He worked part-time at the Cavell Mertz & Davis consulting firm in D.C. for over a year, “and in 1996 I turned in my pager to [WETA] and became a full partner,” he said.
Eventually, Davis’ longing to return to southeastern Virginia led him to strike out as a solo practitioner.
“With deference to the nearby Chesapeake Bay, I set myself up as Chesapeake RF Consultants LLC in 2007 and was back in my hometown shortly afterward.”
His consulting work over the last 30 years has included transmitter site relocation analysis, facility upgrades, frequency searches, interference evaluation, RF exposure analysis and FCC licensing for broadcast stations in nearly every state.
Industry musings
Asked to comment on the state of radio and where the industry is headed, Davis had this to say:
“Clearly the glory days of radio are behind us, as internet-delivered on-demand entertainment and news are commonplace, and the actual listeners of radio continue to age. I believe the FCC’s ownership limits are ripe for further relaxation, meaning more consolidation. Regarding the push to emphasize radio’s importance for emergency communications (i.e., the ‘AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act’), I fear a backfire, as the vast majority of AM stations simply do not have staff and resources necessary to provide emergency programming.”
As for his advice to present and future radio engineers, Davis encourages his peers to get involved with their local SBE chapter and attend regional events.
“Not only is that educational, the camaraderie and networking will allow you to know who to ask regarding unusual problems you may encounter,” he said. “And, it is likely that your next job will be connected to one of those contacts, either because you are looking or they are recruiting.” Also, Davis says don’t forget about obtaining your SBE certifications!
Finally, as for his plans post-retirement, Davis will continue to be active in his local SBE chapter — Hampton Roads Chapter 54 — as their certification chairman, and expects to attend occasional industry events. He also plans to finally tackle those long-put-off home improvement projects, visit U.S. national parks with his wife Cheryl, and invest more time into his ham radio endeavors.
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