The Midwest Regional Broadcasters Clinic has announced the session agenda for its event in September.
The longstanding “Madison Clinic” began in 1956. It is now a partnership of the Wisconsin and Minnesota chapters of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, the Minnesota Broadcasters Association and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. It takes place Sept. 14–16. This year’s national meeting of the SBE will be held concurrently.
For the first time, the clinic will feature a talk on distance listening. Joe Ellis and Javier Ruano will present “DX Basics: How Your Signal Gets to Unexpected Places.” Radio World readers have shown strong interest in this topic as explored in recent articles by Nick Langan.
“What can DXing — the hobby of tuning in distant radio and TV stations — teach us about how our broadcast signals really behave in the wild,” the session description asks.
“Using AM skywave and atmospheric anomalies like sporadic E, tropospheric ducting and meteor scatter, DXers receive AM, FM and TV signals from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Recent innovations have supercharged the hobby: ultra-sensitive receivers based on the TEF668x AM/FM chip, recording an entire band of spectrum, and SDR autologging. Radio RDS and TV PSIP provide definitive station identification. Shared online SDRs let you DX remotely with no hardware of your own.”
Beyond DXing, the clinic will feature 20 presentations on a range of topics for radio and TV engineers and managers. A sampler:
- David Melby from the federal Department of Homeland Security will discuss “The Threat and CISA Physical and Cyber Resources for the Communication Sector.”
- Paul Kriegler of Telos Alliance will talk about “Processing for the Digital Dashboard” in the age of platforms like DTS AutoStage.
- Nic Blomstrand of Kintronic Labs will present “Maintenance and Keeping of High-Power AM Transmission Systems.”
- Chris Tarr of K-Love/Educational Media Foundation will host a roundtable on “The Future of Radio Content Delivery.”
- Two sessions will explore developments in ATSC 3.0, including one with Harvey Arnold of Sinclair Broadcast Group.
- A session on “Site Security and Safety” will be presented by Patrick Berger of Cumulus, Jeff Welton of Nautel and Jon Blomstrand of Minnesota Public Radio, exploring topics from keycard readers and site cameras to firewalls and first aid kits.
Additional sessions will talk about broadcast law; telecom circuits and links; challenges in wireless mics and IFB at sports events; and other topics.
Info including the full list is at https://broadcastersclinic.com.
