TECHNOLD Official Trade Journal of the Society of Cable Television Engineers I
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COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLD Official trade journal of the Society of Cable Television Engineers I ..._/ • ,.',,_ ___.,-.".-' -_',.,-''' -_-',,,e0K.:- _ _72 ,-- •••••••,..„ Handling the problems of lightning and power Wrapping up a successful Tec Expo August 1988 /tba Only one manufacturer's headend' e gg, equipment is reliable enough 1Ne/ ,br)a _ 4:0 ese) Ni,;:•fo .44 In addition to the standard Nexus 2Year is Warranty Extension to five years Limited NS arrranty, we are now pleased from the date of purchase applies to to offer an additional 3Year Warranty c„eNee 2 Year any Nexus headend equipment. Extension. This applies to ce` regardless of how long all Series 1, Series 5and you've owned it. Series 100 headend products. Of" Nexus will provide this For further information on valuable 3Year Warranty esee the Nexus Five Year Warranty si ts` Extension after you complete a earVVarranl, program, please call, write or market and application questionnaire. check the reader service number below. NEXUS - Built to Last. TEL: (206) 644-2371 OR WRITE: NEXUS ENGINEERING CORP. BELLEVUE. WA. 7000 LOUGHEED HWY. ENGINEERING CORR BURNABY, B.C.. V5A 4K4 (604) 420-5322 PERFORMANCE BURNABY, B.C. FAX: (604) 420-5941 YOU CAN - V>. CE. Reader Service Number 2. ,t11. 11k NO DROPOUTS Now that Trilogy has acomplete line shopping in all installations. of foam drop cables, you don't have to go Take it all the way in with Trilogy elsewhere to move inside after your MC and go forward with confidence with trunk and feeders are in place. the most rigorous quality control found in And you get the savings of one-stop the industry. itrommumumimene. Reader Service Number 3. liilogy te COMMUNICATIONS INC. Call or write for our free sample and brochure: TRILOGY COMMUNICATIONS INC., 2910 Highway 80 East, Pearl, Mississippi 39208 800-874-5649 •601-932-4461 • 201-462-8700 CONTENTS 111 111,11111 111111111111 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 Departments Features Publisher's Letter 8 The art of grounding 16 News 10 Establishing an electrical interface Blonder's View 14 between a conductor Ike Blonder pays and earth is illustrated a tribute to Professor by LEC's Roy Carpenter. Daniel Noble. Power efficiency 24 System Economy 104 Albar's Howard Bobry Installing meters reveals how to get on power supplies, by the most from your Paul Barth of United. system's power supply. Tech Tips 106 Lightning Part II of aseries by and the home 28 Jerrold's Richard Covell Dave Wachob of Jerrold on system upgrades. describes ways to protect converters President's from damage. Message 110 Grounding resistance 16 SCTE President Batteries 32 Ron Hranac discusses Discussion of the lead the BCT/E program. acid battery is provided by Neil Tinggaard of Product News 113 Daniels. Keeping Track 115 TVRO performance 42 Jack Sanders of ATC Calendar 116 examines the effect of noise and signal power Ad Index 116 on earth stations. Tech Book 117 Expo wrap-up 62 Cable-Tec Expo '88 Ciciora's Forum 118 in words and photos. ATC's Walt Ciciora Expo wrap-up 62 highlights the latest Satellite chart 67 trends in consumer A special pull-out wall electronics. chart covering downlink frequencies for C- and SCTE Interval 47 \Ofr Ku-band domestic Expo highlights, calendar 1 1 satellites. plus chapter and meeting group reports. e Signal leakage 96 Steve Johnson of ATC Cover describes techniques Top photo courtesy for calculating and Spectrum Inc., Golden, — preventing leaks. Colo. Spectrum e produces the color ,. separations for this -e ,4 magazine. For further information about Spectrum, call (800) 426-5677. Expo photo Tech Tips 106 by Bob Sullivan. 1988 by Communcakons Technology PublIcakons Corp All nghts reserved Communeatoons rechnology 1u (ISSN 0884-2272) Is publIshect monthly by Communceons Technology PublIcallons Corp. 12200 E Bnarwood Ave. Sae 250, Englewood. Colo 80112 — or — P 0 80x3208. Englewood. Colo 80155, 003)792-0023 August 1988, Volume 5. Number 6 Office of putolcabon Is 12200 E Bnarwood Ave ,Suote 250, Englewood. Colo 80112 Change of address notIces should be sent promptly, provIde old (or coped) mallIng label as well as new address. ,ncludtng ZIP code. allow 6108 weeks for change Second-class postage pad at Englewood and Denver, Colo POSTMASTER Please send address changes lo Communcatlons Technology. Box 3208 Englewood Colo 80155 4 AUGUST 1988 COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY Now. .You, too, can have Powerful Friends in High Places To upgrade your Jerrold STARLINE R 20 amplifiers and J-Series line extenders, simply "drop-in" new Jerrold power doubling modules. No respacing, no replacement of housings, no big rebuild costs. Put new powerful friends—SJPA power doubling trunk modules and JLP power doubling line extender modules—into your existing housings, even if they are in high places. A high gain automatic trunk module, the Jerrold SIPA-450/27 uses the latest generation of hybrid IC technology for optimum performance. Its new die casting affords dramatic improvement in heat dissipation and is compatible with all earlier versions of the SJ series chassis and housing. The SJPA provides 27 dB of operating station gain with abode slope control for flat output levels (sloped output levels are optional). Jerrold JLP Series line extenders offer power doubling at 450 MHz and 550 MHz, making them ideal for rebuilds, upgrades and new builds. It makes good sense to upgrade with power doubling modules from the original manufacturer of your equipment. For more information, contact your Jerrold account representative or call or write Jerrold Division, General Instrument Corporation, 2200 Byberry Road, Hatboro, PA 19040. (215) 674-4800. -4 4 e 4;j0 y-- • • •é •• GENERAL JERROLD INSTRUMENT where innovation is a tradition See us at the Eastern Show, Booths 214 & 216. See us at the Great Lakes Show, Booth 222. Reader Service Number 4. Scientific Atlanta Our Customers AreTheWinners Scientific-Atlanta introduces five new products to give you the winning edge. Our value-added, user-friendly solutions help generate revenue, improve penetration and retention, and oper- ate your system more efficiently. We want you to be awinner. -fflill111111•11111MMIIIMI WIN THROUGH VOLUME CONTROL Our new 8590 is the friendliest and fullest featured volume control addressable in the industry Aunique display lets your subscribers see sound on avolume level inch- cator. And it guides them easily through the VCR programming process. The 8590 keeps asecret better, too. With achoice of 50 security modes, utilizing three advanced security technologies: dynamic sync suppression, chopped field, and video and sync inversion. It indudes easy-to-implement, plug-in lPPV. It's compatible with the rest of the set-top family. And, since it's also compatible with Oak and along list of others, the 8590 can help you out with the old and in with the new. WIN THROUGH VALU E The new 8570 addressable set-top is the value packed younger brother of the industry standard 8580. It comes with all the subscriber features of its older brother. And then some. It shares the same new advanced VCR timer with the 8580 and 8590, taping twice as many events as before. It simplifies impulse like the 8590, with aone-touch buy key on both the remote and the set-top. &nil 61 fa GI WIN THROUGH FRIENDLINESS Our Complete Remote Control is so smart it generates revenue while solving problems. Ninety percent of subscribers with set-tops have two or more remotes per set; thirty percent have three or more. That's a problem! The CRC eliminates multiple remotes by quicldy and easily learning their functions, without the obsolescence risk of preprogramming. And, if your subscriber has aremote control TV-it can pmvide volume control with- out avolume control set-top. That's friendliness your subscriber will pay for. WIN THROUGH EFFICIENCY Our new 9650 lRD beats today's rack space squeeze by cutting space needs in half. The 9650 integrates the leading CATV receiver-the 9640-with asatellite descrambler in one package the size of the receiver alone. Result: You get twice as many channels in the Ve same rack-with perfect compatibility AGILF OUTPUT CONVERTER -28 TEST WIN THROUGH AGILITY Our new Frequency Agile Drawer gives you agility when you need it. And only when you need it. One drawer that backs-up an entire headend, elim- inating costly spare parts inventories. It provides quick and dependable slide-in convenience for the industry standards, the 6350 modulator and 6150 processor. Its 550 MHz range makes it compatible with every cable system. Md these five new products to our proven line-up of winning solutions. You'll have awinning combination no one else can provide. That's because at Scientific-Atlanta we're committed. Committed to making sure that... "Our customers are the winners' Fbr more information, call: 1-800-722-2009. Or, write us at: Scientific-Atlanta, Dept. AR, PO. Box 105027, Atlanta, GA 30348. Reeder Service Number 5. PUBLISHER'S LETTER 111111 1111111 Expo Conference Committee members Dan Pike, Paul Levine, Pete Petrovich (chairman) and Bill Riker take aphoto opportunity after receiving their plaques. You had to be there Although Ididn't leave my heart in San Fran- until CT was started). He is definitely worthy of cisco (site of Cable-Tec Expo '88, June 16-19 at being the first hall-of-famer. the Hilton and Towers), Idid experience the heart ...the Outstanding Achievement Award win- and soul of what the Society of Cable Television ners, and everyone else who took a plaque Engineers has to offer: the growth of our industry home. through training. Whether it be the Engineering ...the entire SCTE staff, for a job beyond Conference panels, workshop sessions or BCT/E well-done. testing, the expo provided many opportunities You'd think with the expo behind them, SCTE for self-improvement.