As the LBA Antenna Turns

“For 35 years of contributing to the success of our community,” reads the citation on the handsome certificate. My, how time flies.

The recognition of LBA Technology by the Pitt County Development Commission came in the commission’s annual reception Feb. 23 at Rock Springs Center in Greenville. LBA Technology president Jerry Brown represented the company in the honoring ceremony, accompanied by LBA Group Inc. president Lawrence Behr.  The award was presented by Wanda E. Yuhas, Executive Director of the Pitt County Development Commission.

Award Presentation - (left to right) Wanda Yuhas, Lawrence Behr, Jerry Brown

The affair was marked by tasty hors d’oeuvres and congenial networking. And then it was back to the work we do best – helping companies find, test and use radio frequency technology. We have, in fact, worked at this for three and a half decades now.

The company was formed in Greenville in 1975. Let’s put that in perspective: 1975 was when Motorola introduced its first “portable radiotelephone” using cellular radio technology. That unit and similar commercial offerings of other manufacturers were bulky, heavy pieces of communication equipment that now seem several light years old when compared to Motorola’s contemporary Razr and Cliq phones.

LBA Technology has evolved right along with the telecommunications industry. Our engineers continually adapt to technical change. Our manufacturing processes incorporate the newest thinking in our fabricated products. Our line-up of RF components for distribution to companies worldwide reflects the latest generation of equipment available.

In 2009, we became the exclusive distributor in the Western Hemisphere of the precision products of renowned German RF equipment manufacturer Kathrein Group, including its subsidiary, Schomandl. We were pleased to have earned the respect of Kathrein Group and are energetically promoting the company’s superb test equipment.

Jerry Brown became president three years ago after years of sales and management experience, both at LBA and with several top-flight broadcast and communications companies. He is certified by the Society of Broadcast Engineers and is helping propel LBA Technology deeper into the 21^st century.

What the future holds for the company and the industry is always fun to speculate about, but looking back can be pleasurable, too. We are proud to have contributed for several decades to the Pitt County community through our enterprise and business success, and to have become an influential part of the telecommunications industry as well.

We wonder what the next 35 years will bring. After all, how light and small can phones become?

Did your tower crew arrive at the project only to be shut down by the owner until everyone had a personal RF monitor? This is an increasingly prevalent situation as tower owners rigorously enforce OSHA safety rules – including RF safety!

Now LBA has the solution for you – Crew on Ground Priority!

We are stocking SafeOne® personal RF monitors, and can priority ship the monitors you need, overnight, direct to your tower crew locations. At only $695 plus shipping and handling per RF monitor, this is a cost effective solution to a costly problem!

And, there is no learning curve problem. The SafeOne® is ready to operate right out of the box, complete with long life batteries, and a 5 minute CD training guide. The crews can be on the tower 15 minutes after opening the box!

Better still, order ahead! At this price, half the cost of the competition, you can equip all your crews and avoid shut downs. You save even more with volume discounts and free standard shipping and handling!

Call Dick Hansson at 252-757-0279 for your SafeOne® personal RF alarm needs.

Have you ever wondered how you could make a safe and secure wireless test setup for wireless access point configuration, wireless network interface card configuration, wireless network sniffing, WEP cracking, rogue access point detection, wireless-based DoS attacks, or other black hat exercises?

Under the direction of Dr. Lee Toderick, the School of Information and Technology at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC has had success with the adoption of an isolated, remotely-accessible LBA EMFaraCage® faraday cage to house student laboratory wireless equipment. This permits even the most invasive wireless projects to be performed in an area that also offers unrestricted campus WLAN wireless network access. Their EMFaraCage® lab isolation setup is optimized for IEEE 802.11b/g radio communication in the 2400-2483 MHz frequency band.

Topology of the ECU faraday cage lab

Many educational institutions that offer curriculum classes in wireless technologies include protocol investigation and security configuration. Wireless technology labs help to reinforce theory and concepts, and to provide educational experiences not available through classroom lecture. Secure, remote access to lab equipment enables students to perform experiments 24/7 from any location thus maximizing the utilization of the equipment and providing scheduling flexibility to the students. Student laboratories for wireless devices can be problematic in institutions that offer wireless network access. These production wireless environments can be disrupted or even disabled if a student improperly configures the laboratory equipment. The EMFaraCage® faraday cage gives instructors and administration the security to maximize instructional opportunities.

The LBA EMFaraCage® is not just for student labs. It can be a convenient, portable and economical accessory for any laboratory that needs to isolate ambient radio frequency environments from research and testing protocols.

To see complete implementation details on the ECU test setup, see Technical Note 127: Keeping Black Hat In The Box.

To discuss your EMFaraCage® requirements, contact Paulo Fernandez, pfernandes@lbagroup.com or 252-757-0279. Special discounts are available for educational institutions!

As the most experienced firm offering AM detuning services, LBA gets some complicated requests. LBA’s professionals are mostly unsung when they accomplish these missions.

Kathryn Tesh and the LBA team recently set straight a cellular tower detuning project in the Pacific Northwest, saving the cellular customer considerable money in the process. So it was a bit of a Holiday gift to receive kudos from both the station consulting engineer and the wireless carrier project manager. Here’s what they said (slightly edited for privacy):

From the consulting engineer:

“The ownership of K*** has asked me to respond to the engineering study performed to determine re-radiation potential.

I see no problems and I appreciate this careful work.  We have a history of concern expressed by the (on channel) station in Seattle and consequently have been careful to maintain our night-time directional.

LBA has done excellent, careful engineering.  Please proceed.”

From the client carrier manager:

“Thanks I have the reports and believe this closes out the projects.  I hope you have already invoiced for everything and I have approved what has come my way.

I agree with the K*** engineer.  These projects were somewhat complicated with the three sites and our early construction of one of the towers.  I am very pleased with how LBA handled the whole thing. My compliments to yourself, Mike and the LBA team.”

And, as we write this, here’s a thank you just in on another project!

A carrier construction contractor needed really fast response involving the dispatch of an LBA engineer to a remote California location over Christmas week. Unfortunately, an LBA competitor had walked away from the project, leaving the contractor stranded with a deadline. The LBA report was on the client’s desk this morning!

Here’s what the Program Director said to Kathryn:

“Excellent work.

I have reviewed the report and I appreciate the completed analysis.

I may have questions later today but for now this report as delivered is much appreciated.”

We very much appreciate the customer feedback. LBA has been performing consulting services since 1963, always with customer satisfaction as the #1 priority. Please contact Mike Britner to enjoy LBA superior professional services in AM and EME wireless compliance services.

Providing an AC feed to strobe lighting systems on high power AM towers can be problematical. The ring-type chokes often used for tower light feeds on high voltage towers often do not function well under the low pulse loads of stroboscopic lighting systems. These problems can cause overheating and burn out of seemingly adequately rated ring transformers!

Traditional lighting chokes, such as the LBA TC-300, typically do not have a sufficiently high RF voltage rating to be an alternate to ring transformers at RF voltages encountered at 50,000 watts and above.

To solve these problems, LBA developed the BALC-20 lighting choke specifically for the low power drain, peak pulse needs of tower mounted strobe light systems. Rated at 30 KV peak RF, it is particularly suited for broadcast systems of 50KW and above. It provides a three wire 110/230 volt AC feed at a nominal maximum 1000 V/A.

The photo shows a typical installation of the BALC-20 in a 747 kHz 100,000 watt antenna tuning unit. It is powering a Flash Technology strobe system on a 400 foot tower. The BALC-20 is withstanding a peak RF base voltage at 125% modulation of about 22 KV!

More about the LBA RF & lighting choke line can be found at LBA’s RF lighting and chokes page.

LBA has partnered with Balboa Capital Corp. to provide lease financing plans for LBA Technology RF and test equipment resellers and customers.

Recognizing the needs of our customers for financing flexibility, LBA has made available leasing services from one of the preeminent business oriented finance groups in the US.  Balboa Capital is a national leader in equipment leasing and financing that was twice named to Inc. 500’s list of Fastest Growing Companies.

Featuring a fast application, approval, and funding process, the new leasing program applies to most higher value RF and test equipment.  Typical covered equipment includes LBA EMFaraCages®, antenna tuning systems, diplexers, directional antenna systems, Schomandl-Kathrein MSK-200 and MSK-125 digital TV analyzers, frequency generators, antenna analyzers and more.  The program is applicable to direct purchases, as well as purchases through our US dealer network.

For details and immediate application, Contact LBA!

Check out the new LBA Technology Index page.  We would appreciate your comments and suggestions on the new design!

LBA Technology is offering the top-of-the-line Kathrein MSK-200 TV Signal Analyzer for hands-on demonstrations at the following October events:

October 6-7 in Verona, NY at the SBE22 Broadcast Technology Expo presented by LBA Reseller Broadcasters General Store in booth# A18

October 13-15 in Madison, WI at the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association “Broadcasters Clinic“, presented by LBA Reseller Broadcasters General Store.

October 14-16 in Alexandria, VA at the IEEE 2009 Broadcast Symposium http://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/bt/abs09/abs09program.html

October 14-15 in New York City at SATCON, presented by LBA Reseller Satellite Engineering Group in booth# 705 www.satconexpo.com

October 27-30 in Denver, CO at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, presenteed by LBA Reseller Mega Hertz Company in booth# 5065 http://expo.scte.org/

If you are in the area of these events, please stop by to experience yourself the quality and functionality of the Schomandl/Kathrein line of RF Test Instruments.

New and improved MSK-200 Analyzers have arrived!
(LBA Sales Executive Paulo Fernandes)

Since LBA introduced the Kathrein MSK-200 TV Signal Analyzer to the Americas last year, it has been enthusiastically welcomed by TV engineers. As an economical portable or fixed 6 ‘n 1 digital signal test solution it was without compare. And we have had extensive wish list feedback.

Now the German engineering wizards at Kathrein have added a whole galaxy of new features, as you requested, shipping immediately – Same old price!

• ATSC/8VSB analysis for new USA DTV signal standards
• MPEG-4 decoding and transport stream information
• Dolby AC-3 audio decoding/demodulation
• SMPTE-310 HD video analysis
• Automatic loop testing
• DVB-S2 satellite standard analysis capability
• Automatic channel scanning
• MER/BER/Signal-to-Noise automatic measurements
• And more…..

Here is an overview of the major new features and how they will make your engineering life easier. Please contact the LBA Helpline or your authorized dealer to order or for more information.

ATSC/8VSB Decoding:
The MSK-200 has recently been updated to support and analyze the new USA DTV ATSC signal standard as well as measure and analyze 8VSB sideband modulation in real time.  Broadcasters and Cable operators can now diagnose and repair issues in multi-path transmission.  In addition, the MSK-200 can scan and find transport stream information for this new standard and allow broadcasters to find issues in PID, PMT-PID, PCR, CA and elementary stream ID’s as well as decode video images and demodulate audio including Dolby AC-3.  This is essential for installing, maintaining and repairing our new DTV signal standards.

MPEG-4 Decoding and Viewing:
The MSK-200 has always supported MPEG-2 streams. Now it does MPEG-4 decoding! MPEG-4 is especially important as it is used for compressing different formats (audio/video/speech).  Key features of MPEG-4 are improved coding efficiency, robust transmission, enhanced bit rate usage and compressed services.  MPEG-4 is also playing a large role in new HD technologies such as blue-ray.  Now the MSK-200 can decode and view video and audio for picture and audio quality analysis.

Dolby AC-3 Audio Demodulation:
New digital audio formats can now be demodulated and listened to while viewing the image. The MSK-200 becomes a major aid in real-time transmission quality control.  The AC-3 audio format is prominent on HD TV and MPEG-4.

SMPTE-310 HD Analysis:
The MSK-200 now allows viewing and analysis of transport streams using SMPTE-310 for HD video.  It can display video and decode audio to measure HD streams and signals and provide transport stream information.

Automatic CATV Loop Testing:
This new feature will help Cable engineers to measure ingress from headend to subscriber for signal quality issues.  CATV systems need to test nodes for proper distribution of signals to customers and loop testing will allow for these measurements to be made and ensure functionality from headend to customer and provide RF information.

DVB-S2 Satellite Standard Monitoring:
The MSK-200 now supports the new generation of the older DVB-S broadcast standard for high definition via satellite.  This is especially helpful in transmitting HDTV satellite news gathering content back to the station.  When compression is added, DVB-S2 allows for MPEG-4 services to be delivered.  DVB-S2 performs about 30% better than the previous DVB-S standard.  Now you can analyze and monitor these streams in real time.

Automatic Channel Scanning:
Automatic channel scanning enhances a user’s ability to customize their own channel plan in the MSK-200 for quick access to each carrier, channel and frequency of interest.  Users can program modulation symbol rates, frequencies, associated channels, satellites and transponders, so each can be accessed quickly eliminating the need for repetitive manual parameter entry. This is a real time saver- even better, you can download and select multiple channel programs!

MER/BER/Signal-to-Noise Automatic Measurements:
Now signal quality measurements are automatically displayed during measurements to show MER, BER Pre and Post Viterbi and Signal-to-Noise levels.  This allows for users to monitor essential quality levels while making using most measurements in the MSK-200.

 
Installing SAMWAS-200 ATU

Ships sailing in waters near Guam have a new connection to shore. The island’s NAVTEX navigational telex broadcast system has been upgraded by replacing three conventional 300’ vertical towers with one small aperture SAMWAS antenna

The unique SAMWAS medium wave antenna system is a product of LBA Technology, a North Carolina telecommunications firm with over 40 years experience in antenna innovations. The company’s engineered solution for the Guam site is replicable at most other NAVTEX locations worldwide.

The coastal telex broadcast system called NAVTEX is a vital link for commercial and military ships operating within 400 miles of a coastline. NAVTEX is a maritime safety system typically operated by navies, coast guards, or lighthouse authorities in coordination with the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The shore-to-ship signals are sent out at either 518 kHz or 490 kHz. 

For the US Navy transmission site on Guam, LBA Technology used a suite of subsystems called SAMWAS-200 that incorporates a grounded 199 foot electrically short transmission antenna rated at 2500 watts. Installed for LBA in the spring of 2009 by Guam contractor AIC International Construction, the antenna’s propagation of medium wave signals has proven effective and efficient, though its physical footprint is much smaller than the three-tower system it replaced.

The short height avoided the need for aviation safety lights and the associated installation and operating costs. The grounded tower reduces system vulnerability to lightning and reduces RF safety hazards.
 
The transmitter building is located fully 3,000 feet from the tower. As the dual frequency SAMWAS-200 Phantom-E™ remote control system can use a coaxial cable as its sole connection for both RF and control signals, an existing coaxial cable was utilized with no new trenching for electrical services. The Phantom-E™ system selects between 490 and 518 kHz frequency modes.

As there are no moving RF parts in the SAMWAS tuning unit, it is expected to function reliably for years with minimal maintenance. Because of the stability of the overall system, periodic retuning is not needed to accommodate changing environmental conditions.

Other SAMWAS antenna systems from 65 to 350 feet high are available to support DGPS, NAVTEX, and GMDSS medium wave transmissions. Dual NAVTEX frequency support and DGPS diplexing are options. Full turnkey projects with transmitters and message equipment are offered.

For tactical communication situations, LBA Technology offers medium wave transmission systems integrated into trucks or trailers, and smaller emergency units that can be assembled on site by hand.