January 2000 Newsletter
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Chapter 24, Inc. Madison, Wisconsin Next Meeting: Wednesday, January 19, 2000 Society of Broadcast Engineers January 2000 TELECOM INDUSTRY NEWS ITU-R 601 Digital By Neal McLain Video Testing A HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY CABLE SYSTEMS PART 3: STAR CABLEVISION, MARCUS, CHARTER Dutch Treat Dinner By the time Charter Communications completes its pending acquisition of at 5:30 PM Bresnan Communications’ cable systems, Charter will be the only cable television operator left in Dane County. This is the last in a series of three articles relating the history of the original cable companies that collectively at Babes Bar & Grill became Bresnan and Charter. This article is devoted to the companies in and near Dane County that first became part of Star Cablevision, and then 5614 Schroeder Rd. eventually became part of Charter. CABLE VIDEO, INC. Meeting and Cable Video was founded in 1980 by Vern Bertrand. In the 60s, Bertrand Program had been Sales Manager at Video Systems, Inc., a video-equipment systems integrator based in Skokie, Illinois. After leaving Video Systems, Bertrand took at 7:00 PM up residence in Lodi, and served as sales representative for several video- equipment manufacturers. In This Issue: During the 80s, Cable Video acquired and built cable television franchises in four municipalities: Minutes.............................. page 2 • Village of Dane, Dane County • City of Lodi, Columbia County Amateur Radio News ... page 3 • Village of Prairie du Sac, Sauk County • Village of Waunakee, Dane County FCC Rulemakings ......... page 7 These communities were served from two headends, one in Dane (serving SBE Resume Service ... page 8 Dane, Lodi, and Waunakee) and one in Prairie du Sac. Extensions from both headends also provided service in several nearby townships. One such SBE Short Circuits ..... page 9 (continued on page 4) Y2K, THE DRILL By Kevin Ruppert Y2K gave us all the chance to hone stockpiled canned goods and other skills that were rusty or altogether supplies. Now that the “event” is over, Say what you want about Y2K, but it forgotten about. (Remember DOS?) It they are giving all of that food to local was an excellent drill. Before you turn also gave us an incentive to investigate food pantries. the page, think about it for just a minute. new and innovative ways to do things When was the last time you checked that had been done one way for a long Many say that it was a waste of time ALL of the systems in your plant, forged time. Maybe that change had to be and money. I disagree. Even though relationships with the tech support made because the old system would “millions” of dollars were spent by departments at their manufacturers, or no longer work at all once the date companies the world over, I think it was established new ones with companies changed over to 2000. It gave us a worth it. It gave as all a chance to see that took over the product after the chance to break old paradigms. how dependent we are on technology, originator went out of business? and to prepare to do without at least Another totally unexpected benefit some of it. When was the last time you seriously of Y2K was the opportunity to give exercised your generator during cold something back to the community. Our It gave us an opportunity to weather, or made up a plan to run the local newspaper ran an article about a remember how vulnerable we are to station on a portable Honda? group that feared the worse. They (continued on page 3) SBE CHAPTER 24 NEWSLETTER PAGE 2 CHAPTER 24 December Business OFFICERS Meeting Minutes CHAIR: Chapter 24 of the Society of Broadcast Engineers met on Kevin Ruppert (WISC-TV) Thursday, December 21, 1999 at Engineering Hall, on the W - 271-4321 UW-Madison campus. There were fourteen members and [email protected] two guests present; eleven held SBE certification. VICE-CHAIR: The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair Tom Smith Tom Smith (WHA-TV) at 7:05 pm. Minutes of the November meeting were approved W - 263-2174 as published. [email protected] It was reported that Chapter 24 has 23 Sustaining Members SECRETARY: including the recent renewal of WISC-TV. Lloyd Berg (WKOW-TV) W - 274-1234 Mike Norton reported that the January Newsletter deadline [email protected] will be Friday, 1/7/00, at midnight; with the folding party on Wednesday, 1/12/00, at 5:30 pm at WKOW-TV. TREASURER: Stan Scharch (WISC-TV) Jim Hermanson, Certification & Education, reported that W - 271-4321 the next local certification exams will be given in February; [email protected] deadline for application is 12/31/99. The following opportunity for SBE certification will be at the NAB convention. COMMITTEE APPOINTEES Tom Smith, Frequency Coordinator, made a report about Program Committee: recent frequency coordination efforts and issues. Mark Croom 271-1025 Denise Maney 277-8001 Tom Smith read a letter from Kevin Ruppert thanking all Kerry Maki 833-0047 who helped with the November meeting (student night). Steve Paugh 277-5139 Steve Zimmerman 274-1234 Tom Smith read a letter from John Poray (SBE Executive Director) congratulating Chapter 24 for success of student Membership: night meeting. Paul Stoffel [email protected] Vicki Kipp reported on the recent field trip to Green Bay to tour the ABC HDTV truck. Sustaining Membership and Past-Chair: Fred Sperry W - 264-9806 Tom Smith reported that WHA-TV has an opening for an [email protected] engineer. Special Events: The business portion of the meeting was adjourned at 7:20 Vicki Kipp (ECB-TOC) pm. W - 264-9631 [email protected] The evening’s program was presented by David Devereaux- Weber, engineer with the UW-Madison Division of Information Certification and Education: Technology. It featured information on, and demonstrations Jim Hermanson 836-8340 of, streaming audio and video over Local Area Networks and [email protected] the Internet. Tim Trendt (UW-Platteville) Submitted by Lloyd Berg, Secretary Frequency Coordination: Tom Smith W - 263-2174 [email protected] PROGRAM IDEAS? Is there a topic you would like to see covered at one of our local National SBE Chapter Liaison: Chapter 24 meetings? Or, better yet, is there a topic that you are Leonard Charles qualified to speak on at an upcoming meeting? Please forward W - 271-4321 FAX - 271-1709 any ideas to one of the Program committee members or to one [email protected] of the Chapter 24 officers. PAGE 3 January 2000 Y2K, The Drill (continued) AMATEUR RADIO NEWS “circumstances beyond our control”. (We don’t get an opportunity to use that By Tom Weeden, WJ9H phrase on the air very often anymore, • In a move that will streamline amateur radio licensing, the FCC has do we?). The skills needed for surviving issued its long-awaited Report and Order on amateur licensing restructuring. Y2K were very much like those needed Starting April 15, 2000, new licenses will be issued for only three classes: to survive a severe winter storm, a skill Technician, General, and Amateur Extra. Also, the 13 and 20 word-per- that could prove useful in this part of the minute Morse code requirements will be dropped in favor of a single code world! speed proficiency test of 5 WPM. I think that this was such a good “We believe that an individual’s ability to demonstrate increased Morse experience that we should plan on doing code proficiency is not necessarily indicative of that individual’s ability to it more often. Maybe every five years or contribute to the advancement of the radio art,” the FCC said in its Report so? (Okay, would you settle for every 10 and Order. Besides drastically streamlining the Amateur Radio licensing years?) process, the FCC said its actions would “eliminate unnecessary requirements that may discourage or limit individuals from becoming Here’s a thought for those of you trained operators, technicians, and electronic experts.” who like to indulge in conspiracy theories. Maybe our government Although no new Novice and Advanced licenses will be issued after the knew that Y2K would be a bust. Maybe effective date of the Report and Order, the FCC does not plan to automatically they found this out with their super upgrade any existing license privileges. The American Radio Relay League fast computers months ago, but let had proposed a one-time, across-the-board upgrading of current Novice and Tech Plus licensees to General class, but the FCC declined to adopt us all prepare for the worse anyway! the idea. This means that current licensees will retain their current After all, we no longer have air raid operating privileges, including access to various modes and subbands, drills or “duck and cover” drills. Maybe and will be able to renew their licenses indefinitely. this was one way that they could get us to be on our toes once again the A copy of the entire Report and Order (FCC 99-412) is available at http:/ way we were when the “red menace” /www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/1999/db991230/ was something to be concerned fcc99412.txt about. • 75 MHz of spectrum around 5.9 GHz has been reallocated to the new Anyway, those are my random “Intelligent Transportation System” services aimed at improving highway thoughts on the subject. Maybe you safety. The allocation of 5.850 to 5.925 GHz includes the upper portion of have some favorite Y2K stories that a secondary amateur radio allocation (5.650 to 5.925 GHz) which is shared you would like to share with the with government radar and non-government fixed satellite uplinks.