The MSK-200 is an Analog and Digital analyzer covering 5 MHZ – 3GHz making satellite applications simple without compromising measurement capabilities.  The MSK-200 has a refresh rate of 5 sweeps per second and LNB Multimeter making dish alignment a breeze.   Also the MSK-200 features DiSEqC switching technology to handle multiple LNB’s.  The MSK provides functions such as signal to noise and Hum measurements, data logging and networking with its built in computer with browser, low resolution bandwidths for monitoring small carriers, channel selection in frequency entry, channel entry, and user lists, MER and much more.  The MSK-200 is a versatile device due to its size making portability possible even in the brightest conditions, allowing for remote control, and being loaded with bench-top measurement features.

As Account Executive for LBA’s Test Equipment Group, I’ll be glad to discuss your satellite system test needs. Just contact me, Paulo Fernandes, at email link or 252-757-0279.

German RF equipment manufacturer Kathrein and subsidiary Schomandl will exclusively distribute its radio frequency test equipment, including devices for digital TV, radio, wireless, CATV, satellite and laboratory use, through the RF systems expertise of LBA Technology, throughout the western hemisphere.

Read more here!

Read more here!

The Amateur Radio Service has an almost unduplicated position for a recreational activity/leisure time pursuit because of its historically tight coupling to the wireless telecommunications, broadcasting, and military communications industries.  Few other hobbies have supplied such a sizeable number of both motivated and trained workers and of useful technological improvements to their associated commercial industries.

There was once a time in the industry when it would have been routinely assumed that an applicant for a technical job was a licensed Amateur and had a station on-air.  No longer is that true, of course.   But, whether or not most people in the industry explicitly recognize it, the health and survival of the Amateur service is still very important for the industry – if for no other reason, because Amateur radio is one of the few remaining services where an individual can still develop practical, hands-on, trial-and-error RF experience on his own!  And since such practical RF experience is becoming scarce in today’s raging digital flood, that’s not a small concern.

In the Curmudgeon’s view the health of the Amateur Service today is only average.  Not robust but just “so-so,” a kind of flabby middle-age.  And that is ironic, for the level of RF technology available to the Service has improved tremendously in the fifty years since the Curmudgeon earned his first license.  But during these decades the sociology associated with the Service has degraded considerably.  That degradation extends to licensees’ on-air behavior, to their motivation and interest to learn and to experiment, and to their willingness just to “lend a hand” to benefit others, whether in helping new initiates to qualify for licenses or in public service activities.

Today’s Amateur Service is not your grandfather’s hamming.  “Yep, Bubb, it really was more fun back then!”  Too many of today’s active hams are too disinclined to pick up a soldering iron, too egocentric in their on-air operating practices, too focused on artificially-produced competitiveness when cooperation would work equally as well.  The character of the Service has degraded over the decades, perhaps tracking that of the larger American culture, and the obvious question is “Why?”

The Curmudgeon ascribes the sociology problem to two causes, one natural and one man-made.  The natural cause is the ageing-out of the senior ham population and with that the demise of some semblance of historical understanding, experience, and quality in the ranks.  That of course is unstoppable.  The man-made cause is something that the Curmudgeon now has to admit that he erred in initially favoring.  That was the restructuring of the FCC license exam process as manifested by the establishment a few years ago of the “No Code” Amateur Radio licenses (i.e., no requirement to demonstrate ability to send/receive the International Morse Code, plus other unrelated changes).

Prior to the advent of restructuring, earning an Amateur license probably required more than the amount of work and dedication that would have been proportional to the reward, and thus the arduous licensing requirements overly restricted the entrance of new participants.  Now the qualifications for the restructured Amateur licenses are probably set too low, and this has resulted in the influx of telecommunications consumers and casual hobbyists in quantities that threaten to seriously change the nature of the Service. 

To be fair, the elimination of the code proficiency requirement itself was inevitable; it was a change that occurred in the same time period when Morse Code was also being dropped as an authorized emissions mode for other (commercial) radio services.  By itself “No Code” is probably not sufficient to account for all the degradation.  Rather, the Curmudgeon believes that the open publication of the license exam question pool, with its “just cram for the exam” ethic, and the concurrent rise of commercial “Amateur exam quick study courses” of various kinds has created much of the damage. 

Just consider the advertisements for the nascent “FCC Amateur exam preparation industry.”  In one case an entrepreneur advertises that an individual can go from zero telecommunications knowledge to passing the (entry level) Technician Class exam in a one-weekend “camp!”  In another case an individual possessing the entrance grade license reported that he successfully passed the (highest level) Extra Class exam after just twelve hours of study using an on-line (for profit) Web site.  There are testimonials also from individuals who claimed to have passed all three current levels of license exams from scratch in the course of only two months, using the various exam preparation services!  These rapid time scales and minimal work loads were unknown in the Service prior to restructuring. 

But perhaps the most telling example of the lowered level of the current exams involves an English ham…a chap who is a graduate engineer and a long-time holder of the highest level UK ham license.  Recently he attended a UK national ham convention where he unexpectedly discovered that the US Amateur license exams were being given.  With no preparatory studying whatsoever, never having ever read the FCC’s Part 97 Rules, and acting strictly on impulse, he instantly decided to take the US exams.  Ninety minutes later he departed with a new US Amateur Extra Class license!  A “special case,” of course, but what does it say about the quality of the current exams?

The Curmudgeon asks, “Where is the growth of skills and knowledge that comes with invested time, experience, and dedication to the Service, producing as a natural consequence the ever-increasing ability to pass the exams?  Where are the proven benefits from this new license structure to the Amateur Service?  To the industry?  Isn’t this just more instant gratification for the ‘I want it….and NOW!’ crowd?”  And so the culture and quality of the Service shift and continue to move over time. 

Overall, this is a serious problem, and there aren’t any quick and easy solutions.  Much of any reform that may occur will have to come from within the Amateur Service itself.  But there is a definite role for the industry in the pursuit of this reform: recognizing, encouraging, supporting, and demanding the improvement of the Amateur Service!  Not solely as a pro bono initiative; it’s really in the self-interest of the industry too!

What do you think?

“Let’s keep the universe safe for RF!”

     The Old RF Curmudgeon

One day not too long ago I happened to have my spectrum analyzer connected to the outside discone broadband antenna.  Out of curiosity I scanned the entire first GigaHertz of the RF spectrum, curious to see who had the strongest RF signal into my house.  It turned out to be a pair of FM broadcasters.  So I then focused in on the FM broadcast band spectrum.

I quickly discovered two FMs who jointly held the top signals.   I measured received signal levels from each station of -16 dBm.  These two are the strongest measured off-premises signals at my residence between 0 and 1,000 MHz, and probably in the entire RF spectrum.   When that signal level is developed across a 75 ohm receiver input, it produces more than 43,000 microvolts! 

Few, if any, non-broadcast broadband receiver front ends are going to handle a signal of that magnitude without folding into compression.  It’s no wonder that my sensitive monitoring receivers on outdoor antennas curled up and died whenever they were tuned to within a few tens of Mhz of the FM broadcast band.  That grossly excessive received signal level is really needed only for receiving broadcasts on electric toothbrushes! 

I then went to the FCC Media Bureau database to determine just what transmission conditions these two stations were authorized.  And I discovered, after some data analysis, that great changes had recently occurred in the FM authorizations in my market. 

First, both of these “top signal stations” are now authorized 50 kW ERP.  Both are atop the same six hundred foot tower whose primary use is as an AM (ND) antenna.  The tower is located on flat land, line of sight to my driveway, three miles due south, and in the middle of a long-established residential area.  But there is no rational purpose in using this great a power level in my area, since VHF signals are always blocked by existing terrain before they can decrease to the noise level at far distances.

The primary FM had always been a twin of the co-sited AM, but it appeared that the FM had recently received a power increase authorization.  The second FM had been first established at an mountaintop broadcast site but had moved down to the ground and in doing so picked up about another 10-13 dB in authorized ERP.

Two more established FMs had moved their locations to another pair of AM towers, these only four miles distant from my house, and also had been granted 50 kW ERP each.  So the game became clear to me:  relocate to a tower on the ground, receive big ERP increases, and be able to sell air time to your clients on the basis that they are buying onto a “dominating 50 kW signal!”

Also, almost all of the other local FMs had separately moved to the premiere established broadcast hill and all picked up additional ERP; the average now from that hill (about ten miles away from my house and also line of sight) is about 30 kW.

But one dirty little secret remains.  The local FM NCEs don’t have that gross power level.  They kick out with an average 2 kW ERP.  AND NO LISTENERS EVER COMPLAIN THAT THE NCEs  “CAN’T BE HEARD!”

So the commercial broadcasters are all pumped up with “superpower” ERP authorizations, and non-broadcast VHF receivers all over the region are being squished.  And for what?  What’s the point?  Where’s the ecological regard for “Mother RF Spectrum?”

We have lots of RF power in the region producing bone-crusher signals that go nowhere.  Lots of primary electrical power being consumed for transmitters and A/Cs in a region noted for continuing power insufficiency.  Lots of imported oil, domestic coal and natural gas being burned to generate lots of electricity.  Lots of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewing into the atmosphere.  But just what do we get for all this waste?  The Curmudgeon can’t see the point in it.

Media Bureau, do you have any idea what you are doing?

The “fix” to my receiver desensitization problem was fairly easy, even if it came at my own expense.   A commercial FM band-stop filter, working ahead of a broadband distribution amplifier and the multiple monitoring receivers, solved the problem.  The filter has a minimum of 22 dB attenuation from 88 to 108 MHz, and a notch of 45 dB at one of the -16 dBm carriers.  My monitoring receivers can handle FM band signals in the range of -40 to -50 dBm without folding.  I can hear VHF aircraft band once again!  The receiver blanketing is essentially gone!

For many years I unquestioningly believed that “bigger outdoor antennas were better antennas.”  Finally I measured actual received signal levels.  And I discovered that the real problem was far too much RF in the air over my residence, not too little!

“Let’s keep the universe safe for RF!”   

          The Old RF Curmudgeon
 

According to Jerry Brown, President of LBA Technology, “Our rapidly expanding test equipment business has gone beyond our traditional business core. We think it makes a lot of sense to divide it into a Test Equipment Group and an RF Systems Group for best service to our customers and vendors”.

The new Test Equipment Group will include state of the art antenna testers, digital TV signal analyzers, personal RF safety monitors, EMF shielded laboratory enclosures and related components. Product lines will include TOMCO, Jennings, and COMET. The Group will focus on exclusive distribution of top line international manufacturers in the North and South American markets.

AM towers frequently have been located in the heart of densely populated areas for years. Often these towers require little or no rezoning to accommodate wireless antennas! Read more about RF zoning strategies in our Wireless University.

Installation of the CoLoCoil™ solution can be seamlessly planned and supervised by LBA, including all AM station coordination and FCC details.

Pictured above is LBA account executive Cathy Scott at our plant with a dual CoLoCoil™ system recently shipped to Indiana. This system will isolate 12 coaxial lines onto a single AM tower. The system will be installed on a 5000 watt directional AM tower by Bechtel Telecommunications for AT&T Wireless. LBA will provide on-site supervision and testing.

When wireless antennas must be installed on a tower near AM antennas, LBA can provide Detuning Systems that make the wireless tower compatible with the AM antenna.
 

LBA asks - “Well, RF Curmudgeon, what do you say to this RF interference and spectrum pollution from the nifty LED devices popping up everywhere? Why I can’t drive through an intersection without LED traffic lights blanking out my FM! And don’t get me started about the LED billboards! Maybe my memory fails (it’s been so long) but didn’t the FCC enforce spectrum purity when we were kids?”

As to your LED transmitter observation, I have only a UHF two-way radio in my car, so I haven’t noticed the “LED effect” on VHF high band.  We have plenty of LED traffic lights in my area, so that part of the equation is in place.  And don’t forget about all those red LEDs in automobile tail lights now.  I haven’t noticed anything from the LEDs directly on FM broadcast channels either, including IBOC stations, but that’s more a reflection of our having such strong broadcast signals in my area of the country.

In answer to your other observation, yes, the FCC doesn’t give a twiddly-damn about the RF spectrum or its purity.  I think that this trend started well over a decade ago, and it is fueled by two deeply-held policy positions within the Commission.  First, they badly want to get out of the regulatory enforcement business.  They don’t get any major brownie points or funding from Congress for running the Field Enforcement Bureau (or whatever it’s called now), spectrum enforcement is a bottomless pit for them, and it’s a never-ending chore.  They would rather auction the spectrum off and tell the happy purchaser, “You look after the cleanliness of *your* bands!  We’re outta here!” 

The second is the deeply-held regulatory notion that “cellular transmission” with its concurrent frequency re-use is the highest and best use of the spectrum.  If you do cellular, you don’t have to worry too much about the ambient noise level as the transmitters are always fairly proximate to the users.  The cellular regulatory model is at work not only in public land mobile, but also in private land mobile (where it’s very difficult to get new PLMRS licenses for wide-area mountaintop or major tower stations, and if you do get one about the most station you can then run is “walkie talkie” power levels.  And in broadcasting (LPFMs and LPTVs, which also conveniently use up all available channel slots).  And in unlicensed consumer Part 15 wireless LANs.  “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” as the King of Siam would say.

Don’t know whether you caught it at the time, but a few years ago the Commission floated an NPRM which proposed to *allow* interference sources onto licensed channels (in this case, microwave), using a concept known as the defined “Interference Temperature!”  The idea was that “smart radios” in the interference generator source would “know” when the source had gone one bridge too far and would then shut itself down.  Lacking that degree of equipment capability by the interferers, the licensee of the channel could always monitor and scream when the measured “interference temperature” rose past established limits. 

The industry quickly shot that *^@(&^ idea down!

So, driven by these two philosophical points, the Commission now says, “Please proceed to trash the spectrum with lots of unlicensed low power devices, singing power lines, chirping power meters, high speed digital logic with femtosecond switching times (I exaggerate, but not by much!), screeching LEDs.  We don’t care, and we don’t enforce the law here in Dodge City any longer!”

As soon as some clever businessman figures out a use for the 4 degrees Kelvin cosmic microwave background radiation, it too will be quickly licensed and eventually auctioned off. 

You and I, being old timers in this art and science, understand the invaluable resource that the RF spectrum represents and we respect it and we do what we can to maintain it in good working shape.  The Commission, especially in later years, has been directed and run by lawyers, economists, and politicians who don’t know the physics behind electromagnetic transmission, have none of the “vision thing” for the future non-economic uses for which quiet spectrum could be employed, and consider the spectrum mostly as an exploitable economic good.  What would you expect?

Adding to this outrage, there is too much transference of communications today from wired to wireless modes.  Most people don’t really need “Web service to the belly-button!”  Now my eleven year-old granddaughters are getting their own cell phones.  Give me a (&#%$@& break!

Many, many services could be well and cheaply provided by wire, if we just had a broadband Universal Fiber Network in this country.  But that’s yet another Commission failure in the “vision thing.”  The Asians and perhaps the Europeans will “clean our clocks” on this failure alone.

So, sayonara RF spectrum, my dear old love!  I will always remember you as you were in those long-ago days when you were still young, fresh, and beautiful.

“Let’s keep the universe safe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

The RF Curmudgeon will be churning out occasional pieces for the LBA blog.  No set schedule for them, just whenever the mood strikes.  Come around here often, see what’s happening, and toss in your own fifty cents worth (inflated from the classical “two cents” of antiquity). 

“Let’s keep the universe safe for RF!”