<t>To clarify: firmware version 89-34 is a free update that is available now, and addresses issues with how time is handled. Although it is not necessary for the upcoming national test on August 7th, it will be necessary for FCC compliance starting August 12th. Stations really should be installing 8...

There are several manufacturers making IRDs that fit in an OpenGear chassis -- we have a number of Sencore AG4400 and AG5800 series cards, for example -- some are satellite receivers, some are 8VSB receivers, some take ASI feeds. You don't specify what sort of incoming signal you are taking -- if it...

Do you have a TC reader or a scope you can connect to the TC line at the Namedropper end to verify signal presence/quality? We feed ours with timecode and I don't recall having too much trouble with setup, although it has been almost 10 years ago. I will try to remember to look up our setup when I ...

Like RG and Mike, we print the ENDEC activity log every week and add it to that week's transmitter logs. We also have a weekly summary sheet for the operators to note the week's daily tower light observations, verify that outgoing EAS tests actually made air, and so forth -- and there is room to exp...

These folks make some nice made in USA antennas,, UHF and VHF types: https://store.antennasdirect.com/HD-TV-antennas.html We have a number of viewers who have used their antennas quite successfully -- but our market is all UHF. I could be wrong, but I don't recall any of their models extending down...

But it's just funny to know while having an early 70's Soviet b/w VTR also using a 1" tape with very similar tape mechanism design (single-head helical scan drum with almost 360° grip) that is surprisingly able to write in SECAM with stable colors (on a originally black-and-white machine that doesn...

Solid Signal has several candidates that extend down to the VHF low band. Here are several, in no particular order:

Xtreme Signal HD8200XL, $119.99

Winegard HD8200U, $134.99

Channel Master CM3016, $69

Channel Master CM3020, $119.99

Jeff

AS I recall, the schematic I was looking at said we should have 11V triggering the SSR, which we checked for and it was present. If you have a scope handy, you might want to take a closer look at that trigger voltage and make sure you really have solid DC on the relay input and not a train of pulse...

(If you remember the old Ampex 2" quad machines, the corrector for horizontal error was called AMTEC, and the corrector for color was COLORTEC.) Just to be clear: AMTEC and COLORTEC are pre-digital systems, and worked by passing the RF signal from the tape through voltage-controlled variable analog...

Yes, this BVH-2000 allows to install 4 cards on it. Even very early revisions of the BVH-2000 had the four slots assigned for the plug-in TBC, but you would need to modify some of the other cards before it would work. Only a machine above a particular serial number would take the BKH without doing ...

Yes indeed, the unstable color is because there is no time base correction. The BVH-2000 needs to run either with an external BVT-2000 using a special umbilical cable, or the four-card BKH-2015 TBC (assuming that the machine isn't one of the very early versions). If there were a servo failure, you w...

I am not sure why anyone would build an analog plant in 2019. AOIP with fiber from each room to the tech core is the solution. Analog microphone runs should be short and good cable used there. I like double shielded quad core in any case. If you have a large facility and don't mind buying equipment...

Don't forget to put the shrink on BEFORE terminating the wire! :D For those of us who date back to using large multicore cables for studio cameras (think GE PE-350 or Ikegami HK-357), it's "don't forget to put the boot and shell on the cable before soldering all those wires!" Some of our younger st...

The NWS METAR site is tgftp.nws.noaa.gov , which currently resolves to 140.90.101.79. I can use Filezilla to drill down through their folders and grab the actual coded text file Evertz uses. When the Namedropper temperature stops working, I bypass and reboot first. If that doesn't work, I ping tgft...

For those of you who have been missing the temperature on the Today Show graphics since last week: the current known working METAR IP address is now 140.90.101.79 . It's changed several times over the last few months, and Evertz got me this latest address this morning -- and both of our Namedroppers...