Monday Morning Coffee and Technical Notes

March 24, 2025 View as Webpage

ABA Engineering Academy

The ABA Engineering Academy will be holding its Television Engineering class the week of April 28 – May 2.

This class will cover basic electronics, audio (analog/digital), history of television, black and white, color, NTSC, ATSC-1, ATSC-3, and SMPTE 2110. In addition, a review of station operation (EAS, FCC rules, good engineering practices, etc.).

 It is designed for engineers just getting started and seasoned engineers as well. Classes are being held at the ABA training center 2180 Parkway Lake Dr, Hoover, AL (Birmingham)

Visit our web site for more information and online registration. Best of all there is no cost for the class. We offer an opportunity for students to take the SBE certification exam on Friday (not required to attend the class). The SBE does have a charge for the exam. Register online here.



The schedule for the fall classes is Radio September 22 – 26 and Television November 3 – 7.

Review Ground Connections

While conducting your transmitter site Quarterly “walk around” (yes, I said quarterly) check all the grounding connections. Buss bars on the tower and entrance to the building.

What you are looking for are any loose connections either with bolts or welds. Review tie-in with surge protectors and outside feeds such an commercial power, telco, cable and internet lines. Don’t forget to inspect all satellite dish grounding to the master point.

Our good friend and grounding expert Jeff Welton with Nautel, tells the story of inspecting a ground system and when he pulled on a ground cable it slipped right out of a compression connection on a ground rod. Compression type connections are not recommended for proper junctions. However, if you do have some, make sure to pull on the cable to make sure it is tight.



Inspecting the ground system is critical this time of year as springtime usually brings with it thunder storms. Make sure everything is grounded properly!

Station Logs



It’s the end of the quarter, do you know where your Station Log is? Engineers are encouraged to review these logs for the first quarter to make sure they have been filled out correctly, plus signed and dated.

The Station Log is a document that is required to reviewed weekly by the station Chief Operator. It is a certification that the station has been operating within FCC Rules and Regulations and requirement of the station authorization (license)

 Editors Blog

Most all those involved in the broadcast industry are aware of the shrinking number of available engineers. This is partly due to the “aging out” of senior engineers. Replacement engineers are difficult to find for several reasons.

However it is my opinion the technical side of broadcasting doesn’t have the lure that it had years ago. I can’t really put my finger on why, but in years past being a broadcast engineer at a radio or television station was exciting. There was a time when installing, trouble shooting and repairing a piece of equipment required understanding basic electronics, circuit designs, replacing components and don’t forget soldering.

Now I am not downplaying the newer technology, but most repairs now simply involves changing out a module.

Another area is the ability of anyone than has an interest in broadcast Engineering to receive the proper training, especially in basic electronics. Students need to be taught how to “look under the hood” to see how broadcast equipment works and it’s not that difficult. 

Although technology has and continues to change, schools that offer broadcast Engineering should include courses on understanding electricity, ohms law, circuit components and the history of broadcasting. With this basic knowledge they can more easily understand all the new technologies that are evolving.



The ABA is proud to offer special training classes for both radio and television engineers (both new and seasoned). Click here for more information, schedule and registration.

 Pro Audio –  Less is More

I would be the first to admit that a lot of microphones on the stage feeding a large format mixing console looks impressive, but sometimes you’ll find that based on the event, band, genre and venue ,less could mean a much cleaner mix.

Miking every source on the stage not only creates more work for the FOH engineer, but can easily sound too busy, you can only put so many people in a car or bus before you start to have a problem. This is especially true with a drum kit. Unless you are going to use the tracks for a mixdown for a record, one can get a cleaner and open sound using properly place kick, snare and single over head mikes. Most FOH engineers know that depending on the venue not much of the drum kit is used in the house mix.

During rehearsal, pay close attention to the discrete sound sources and concentrate on these. Mike placement is important for both true sound pick up and minimizing bleed which can lead to phasing issues that occur between those two inputs.

Remember most of time in a live event, you are mixing in mono which means you can’t use panning to glue the sound together. Sometime during the sound check you can go through tracks muting them one at a time, listening to see if that track is adding to or taking away from the quality of the sound. 



While every gig is different, you might find that using less sources actually creates a more pleasing sound.

? Wonder if that is C-band or Ku?