Re: How did you become a broadcast engineer?

Rick Hammang wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael, I hope you don't mind me throwing my take in here, on your
> thread. I was an audio engineer first, took some courses in video, and
> saw the relationships in signal flow, it clicked.
> 
> Next, I took a job as a master controller. Well, I didn't like the
> quality, or the arrangement of the system, and opened Pandora's box,
> if I screwed something up, I would stay as late as possible to fix it,
> no matter what it was.
> 
> After realigning master control I started making productions. Then it
> grew, and grew into a monster. Through all this you get aquainted with
> all the aspects of signal preservation, calibration, design, sat
> systems, automation, fiber, SDI, Mpeg2, remote trucks, routers, sync,
> all the video formats, etc., sort of evolving thing. Production
> lighting, script development, audio, video broadcast server
> administration. Editing, post production, studio management, and more.
> Gear recommendations too!
> 
> All I can say is, you have to love it, you have to see the results of
> your work, and feel good about it. You never really clock out at
> quitting time, as some of us are here are posting, sharing and still
> learning. If you develop leadership skills, you CAN advance in this
> trade. So bottom line for me was, I started tweaking and asking
> questions, when I proved my ability, I was free to make decisions on
> gear, systems, and make them have the highest quality, with
> operational efficiency, and reliability. It is a job with many moments
> of high stress. But, you get to work with some great people, and when
> the shows meet all expectations, there is great satisfaction. You will
> notice around you who is really into it. At times it can be lonely,
> only because there may not be anyone around to share some idea's with,
> or have tech chatter. There are many different paths in television,
> you are not at all limited to engineering.
> 
> --Rick

   I completely rewired the TV station at Ft Greely. I was operating for
a while with the film chain fed straight to the transmitter while I
located a bad cable. What i found was disgusting. Equipment had been
moved repeatedly, and the coax was extended to the ne location. The
master monitor was in the line feeding the transmitter, and looped
between the processing racks and the master console seven full loops.
All the nice new grass valley DAs had a single output used, with
everything looped all over the control room and studio. I had two bad
Conrac video monitors and only one working Tektronics 529 RM waveform
monitor. The main transmitter had problems so the visual section was
dead. The standby transmitter only worked for Aural, and they had run
the station that way for over a year, waiting for the engineer for
Sacramento to come up to the base to fix both transmitters. One of the
RCA TK series film chain projectors was missing the shutter to block the
light when you changed projectors, and both barely ran. There was noise
in all the audio wiring because the studio and transmitter didn't have a
ground system, at all. It took me three months to completely rebuild the
station, against the station managers orders.

   It was kind of funny. Right after I was discharged, the chief
engineers of the two TV stations in Fairbanks drove the 105 miles to the
base to help "those poor, stupid GIs" I got a letter from another
engineer at the station, telling me how upset they were because
everything was worked perfectly. He told them who did all the work, then
laughed and reminded them that I had visited both stations before I went
home. They wanted to know how to reach me to offer me a job, and didn't
like it when they were told I wouldn't stay in Alaska if I was given the
whole state.

   I have been away from broadcast work for a number of years now. I
worked for Microdyne, who built a lot of C-band equipment used by TV
stations and in CATV headends.

   I worked on telemetry equipment at Microdyne, and we built a lot of
equipment for NASA, and the aerospace industry. One special receiver we
built is aboard the International Space Station for private video and
broadband data uplinks. We also built a complete turnkey system for the
Italy's new space research program, and a NOAA receiving station for
Wallops Island. We installed some new equipment at their other
locations, as well. When your local station displays the satellite
weather photos, there is a 95% chance that it was received by one of the
LEO Sat receivers we built. Now, due to poor health, i am unable to
handle the work. Poor vision, and problems walking mean my days in the
business are probably over for good.
-- 
I say, the boy is so stupid that he tried to make a back up copy of his
hard drive on the Xerox machine!

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida