December 20, 2013

First let me wish everyone a very special Merry Christmas and hope all transmitters behave during the holidays.

We wanted to update you on a few items….

The Alabama Public Television Network EAS unit is now back in operation. Thanks to Jim Hyatt and Windel Wood for their work on this project. All stations should now be receiving the RWT from APTV. Don’t forget to enter a note in your station log as to reason for not receiving the test over the last few weeks.

Our state CAP/EAS server is now connected with the IPAWS server in Washington. This allows our state test and alerts to be send on both the GSSNet Satellite Network and the IPAWS path to your units. Starting in January stations will receive a state weekly test through IPAWS. The Required Monthly Test (RMT) will also be fed through IPAWS.

The January RMT scheduled for 1/9 at 11:15 AM will be fed on IPAWS only to test the audio transmission path.

The ABA Engineering Academy is gearing up for another round of classes covering radio and television engineering. Check out the schedule at www.al-ba.com click on the engineering tab. This also allows online registration.

In addition to our regular classes the Academy will host several “special technical seminars” during the year. These seminars will cover HD Radio, HDTV, IP Fundamentals and Audio/TV over IP.

Finally, a good number of both Radio and Television stations Certificate of Compliance under the Alternative Broadcast Inspection Program will expire in 2014. We are sending emails out to stations as a reminder to sign up for renewal inspections. If you have never had an Alternative Inspection you need to check it out. Complete information along with online registration is available on the EAS tab of the ABA web site.

As always contact us if you have any questions concerning EAS, Inspections or the Academy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the ABA Engineering Department.

Larry Wilkins CPBE®
Alabama Broadcasters Association
334-303-2525