The 2013 NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference

This year's Broadcast Engineering Conference will take place April 6-11 at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nev.

Along with our conference partner organization, the Society of Broadcast Engineers, the NAB conference planning committee has developed a program that will address television and radio technical matters of most importance to the broadcast engineering community. Advanced mobile technologies, new broadcast platforms, the evolution of IP into the broadcast plant, AM revitalization efforts and planning for safety have all become important elements in our changing industry. The Broadcast Engineering Conference, now in its 67th year, continues to be a unique source of training and knowledge for broadcast professionals from around the world.

Here is a list of events and topics scheduled for the conference:

SBE Ennes Workshop: Alternate Broadcast Delivery - 
How to Make it Work - Saturday all day
Advanced Technologies for Television - Sunday all day
Advanced Technologies for Radio - Sunday morning
IP for Radio - Sunday afternoon
Spectrum Matters - Monday morning
Audience Measurement Technologies - Monday morning
Broadcast Mobile TV Technical Status - Monday afternoon
Radio Receiver Technologies - Monday afternoon
AM Band Revitalization - Monday afternoon
IEEE-BTS Tutorial: IP in the Broadcast Plant - Monday afternoon
Television Technical Challenges in Need of Solutions - Tuesday morning
Radio Engineer's Forum - Tuesday all day
Video Production - Tuesday afternoon
TV Quality Assurance - Wednesday morning
Technical Regulatory Issues - Wednesday morning
EAS Panel - Wednesday morning
Cloud Based Storage and Distribution - Wednesday afternoon
The Web and TV - Wednesday afternoon
IP for Television - Thursday morning
Planning for Safety - Thursday morning

The RF Boot Camp

As a special part of the Broadcast Engineering Conference this year, NAB Labs will present RF Boot Camp - Understanding Radio and Television Transmission.

This focused full-day program will be offered on Wednesday, April 10. Our instructors are John Bisset and Mary Ann Seidler from Elenos along with Gary Cavell and Cindy Cavell from Cavell, Mertz & Associates.

Today the broadcast industry has a good source of engineers and technicians who are experts in the IT areas. However their expertise often does not extend to RF transmission operations.

This one-day boot camp is being developed to offer basic knowledge regarding the operations of a broadcast radio or television RF plant. The program will cover the distribution of program and data content from the studio to the RF transmission points. Our team of instructors will address the types of hardware and software typically used at the RF plant. They will explain remote monitoring and telemetry scenarios. Towers, transmission lines and antennas will be the focus of an interactive discussion tailored to attendees who are unfamiliar with maintenance requirements and safety concerns. Specific FCC and OSHA Rules related to RF transmission will be explained along with methods commonly used to insure compliance with those rules.

The RF Boot Camp is especially valuable for the following:

• IT professionals who require knowledge of broadcast RF technologies
• Students interested in broadcast engineering as a career
• Studio engineers interested in expanding their broadcast operations knowledge
• Technical operations staffs who need to understand RF transmission methodologies
• Small market station owners and operators needing this background

In addition to the Broadcast Engineering Conference, the NAB Show offers opportunities to network with industry peers and meet with experts from exhibiting companies with close ties to your business and profession. Complete information on the 2013 NAB Show with registration and housing information may be found at www.nabshow.com.

The January 7, 2013 Radio TechCheck is also available in an Adobe Acrobat file. Please click here to read the Adobe Acrobat version of Radio TechCheck.