Jeff Welton, regional sales manager, Central US, for Nautel Limited, handled all aspects of transmitter sales and customer support. He joined Nautel in 1990 as the company’s first customer service technician. He spent his first 17 years at Nautel in field service and technical support positions, as well as assisting with design review of new products and improvement of existing systems. He joined Sales in 2007, as well as conducting site inspections and installations, and developed training materials for both internal and external use. Welton was also a frequent lecturer and author on digital radio, radio technology and radio engineering, including numerous articles and three chapters in the 11th edition of the NAB Engineering Handbook.
James Stenberg was the principal broadcast RF engineer for American Tower Corporation and served as the subject matter expert on broadcast antenna systems on the company's towers throughout the United States, including the design, installation and testing of 15 new and 8 existing multi-channel RF systems during the repacking phase of the FCC’s incentive auction. Responsible for numerous RF system product designs, and a holder of nine patents, Stenberg also co-authored a handbook on digital television implementation and presented technical papers at numerous NAB, SBE, and IEEE conferences. Prior to joining American Tower in 2013, Stenberg ran his own consulting and field service business for eight years and worked for several antenna and RF system manufacturers during his 33 years in broadcast, including Dielectric Communications, Jampro RF Systems, Passive Power Products and MicroCommunications.
David Hershberger retired as Senior Scientist at Continental Electronics Corporation in 2017. He began his career at Harris Corporation in 1975 as an Associate Principal Engineer, moving to Grass Valley Group in 1983, Continental Electronics in 1995 and Axcera/ADC Broadcast Systems in 2000, before returning to Continental Electronics in 2006 until retiring in 2017. Some of his significant technical contributions include inventor of the Harris variable angle AM stereo system, inventor of audio overshoot control for FM stereo transmission, development of analog and digital exciters for several manufacturers (including co-developer of the first digital FM exciter prototype in 1986) and development of non-linear digital adaptive pre-correction for HD Radio.
Dave Folsom, the Technology Lead for Pearl TV, specialized in the advancement of Next Gen TV through operational and technical education. He was the author of the several hundred page Phoenix Model Market’s Next Gen TV Host Station Manual as well as the Pearl 8-part webinar series about Next Gen TV. Folsom helped architect the Phoenix Model Market Station, a collaborative effort with a dozen Phoenix AZ TV broadcasters, as a model and open test bed for the TV industry. Beginning his career in the early 1970’s with Microwave Associates, he spent time at WGBH in Boston, Sony Corporation, WCVB in Boston and WCNC in Charlotte (which was the host for early testing of the digital transmission standard) before joining Raycom Media as Chief Technology Officer in 1996, retiring from that position in 2014.
Ashruf S. El-Dinary, Senior Vice President of Digital Platforms for Xperi Corporation, joined Xperi (originally USA Digital Radio, which went through name changes of iBiquity in 2000, DTS in 2015 and Xperi in 2017) in 1998. At Xperi he oversaw the HD Radio engineering team for over a decade and worked with major broadcast groups, equipment suppliers, car companies, the FCC, NRSC and ITU to implement the HD Radio system globally. He also managed the certification and quality control processes and represented Xperi in HD Radio technology standards at the National Radio Systems Committee, and at ITU and international regulatory discussions. Prior to Xperi he was part of the Senior Professional Staff at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, working in the Space Department for 10 years, developing science instruments in support of space research programs.
Peter A. Sockett, Director of Engineering and Operations for Capitol Broadcasting (WRAL/WRAZ/WILM), led the station’s multi-year renovation and digital rebuild beginning in 2007, public deployment of mobile digital TV service for city buses in 2008, and launched the first commercial station to transmit in ATSC 3.0 in 2016. In 2018 he led WRAL’s partnership with NBC and NAB to present the Olympic Games using Next Gen TV. In 2020 he spearheaded CBC’s launch of its Next Gen TV station. He served on the ATSC Board of Directors, the AWARN Steering Committee and was chair of NAB’s TV Technology Committee from 2019 to 2021. He was also chair of the ATSC Implementation Team on Advanced Emergency Information, which published an Implementation Guide on Advanced EAS in 2019. Prior to joining WRAL in 2003, he worked as Director of Broadcast Operations and Engineering at CBS station WBBM in Chicago, WWJ in Detroit and CTV News in Windsor, Canada.
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