As the LBA Antenna Turns

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!

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!

Lawrence Behr Associates cleared the path for a new electricity transmission line in New York that that could not be energized until interference problems with a Rensselaer, N.Y., AM radio station were resolved to the satisfaction of the New York Public Utility Commission.

After extensive onsite and computer analyses, LBA engineers determined that 8 of 33 tall power towers on this line in the proximate area of station WGDJ-AM would disrupt the stations licensed coverage pattern and require installation of detuning systems.

Utility constructors installing AM detuning system on East Greenbush 345 KV transmission tower.

The transmission towers carry a 345 kV electrical power line from a 635-megawatt natural gas fired power plant constructed in Rensselaer by Empire Generation Co. LLC. The distribution system has 70 towers in all, the last of which were erected last summer. The question was how many of them near East Greenbush, N.Y., would cause signal interference with broadcasts of the AM station. The interference would have created a violation of FCC rules governing the integrity of broadcast signals.

Transmission towers often are a height that makes for efficient radiation of medium wave AM signals. The broadcast AM signal is intercepted from the environment by the power tower and “reradiated”. This reradiated AM signal interferes with the designed coverage and interference of the AM broadcast antenna system. The Federal Communications Commission licenses AM station antenna systems to very tight tolerances, and only a few percent reradiated powerline signal can seriously impact the licensed pattern performance.

The proper evaluation and remediation of power line reradiation can be complex. The multiple transmission towers and the coupling between them through lightning shield wires can be a challenging analysis, but also spread the impact much more broadly than would a single tower. These interconnections form conductive loops which have vastly different electrical properties than single towers. Normally, a technique called “detuning” is applied, along with modifications of lightning shield wires. The recent practice of embedding fiber optic cable in these wires has made these mechanical modifications quite a bit more complicated.

To evaluate and resolve the New York problem, Lawrence Behr Associates was called in by CH2M Hill, an international consulting engineering firm based in Colorado. The eight disruptive transmission structures were subsequently identified through field measurements and software modeling. Their negative impacts were remediated by an AM protection detuning process, allowing the project to proceed. The offending structures were detuned using custom-engineered LBA Technology hardware along with modifications to the new power line. Modifications were carefully designed for safety and usability in conjunction with CH2M Hill and the owners, and implemented by LG Constructors. Necessarily, all detuning hardware was constructed, installed, and documented to rigorous utility standards.

LBA engineer Mike Hayden adjusting AM detuning system control box.

LBA has employed a similar process hundreds of times to detune cellular industry towers with AM radio interference problems of their own. While technological applications vary in each case, they are rooted in the same family of engineered solutions. This was an important design consideration, as renting transmission tower space to wireless carriers is an important revenue source for utilities. In the event the detuned towers were to be rented to a carrier to support their antennas, the AM dutuning documentation would also support the carrier’s FCC AM protection requirements.

Interactions between high voltage transmission systems and AM stations are expected to grow in future years. Thousands of miles of powerlines are planned to support the smart grid, wind turbine, and photovoltaic power generation. Many of these will pass near AM broadcast antennas. It is vitally important for utility planners to have proposed routes reviewed by an RF engineer, like Lawrence Behr Associates, early in that process. If lines can’t be rerouted, then detuning can be incorporated in the design process, at great savings over construction stage delays or modifications.

For more information, contact Mike Britner.

LBA Technology’s presentation of Kathrein / Schomandl RF Test Instrumentation generates overwhelming interest from South American visitors at the LABS’09 (Latin American Broadcast Show) going on now in Miami, FL. The MSK-200 TV signal analyzer can be seen in the center of the photo above.

LBA’s latest Authorized RF Instrument Reseller, 305 Broadcast, was also on hand promoting our products. 305 Broadcast’s President, Mr. Alfonso O Lopez and part of his sales staff preparing to engage eager visitors.

Instruments on display include:
MSK-200 TV Signal Analyzer, 3024 Power Monitor, FIT-70 In-Line Wattmeter, SafeOne Personal RF Safety Monitor. Click here for more info.

LBA Technology’s sales representatives, Javier Castillo & Paulo Fernandes waiting for the crowds.

All the capacitors on the attached PDF list are in stock and on sale for a limited time! If you see any of interest, communicate with LBA immediately. All are subject to prior sale. The list contains both new and old part numbers. Many are most familiar with the “Old Type” numbers. Those numbers that start with CF and MC are fixed, those with CV are variable. The capacitance is the first number, and the kilovoltage the second.

Contact Javier Castillo jcastillo@lbagroup.com or Paulo Fernandes pfernandes@lbagroup.com.

More about LBA’s vacuum capacitor store at http://www.lbagroup.com/technology/vacuum.php

Comet PDF Sale List Here!

John George here – As an old time broadcaster, I’ve run into a bunch of antenna testers and power meters over the years! Now, the LBA Technology Test Equipment Group has a whole new bag of goodies for me. Case in point is the FIT-70 Antenna Tester.

The FIT-70 tester, is manufactured by Schomandl, a division of renowned German antenna company Kathrein. It is distributed exclusively in the western hemisphere by LBA Technology. The Antenna Tester is an easy to use, convenient, on the go device to provide quick checks on forward power and VSWR.  The FIT-70 covers 70– 1000 MHz which includes the FM broadcast band, RPU bands and STL bands.  Two other models, the FIT-400 and the FIT-1700 will handle frequencies up to 2000 MHz, making these popular for the wireless industry.

The FIT-70 arrived in molded carrying case with adapters and interconnect cables, making it ready to use out of the box.  There were no sample elements to plug in, which saves time when checking the output power of a piece of equipment.  The read out on the FIT-70 was easy to see and accurate. There is even a red LED for antenna short circuits.  A couple of other features include an ohmmeter for fault finding and memory storage of the minimum and maximum values. The separate RF test head is really nice, and makes it much easier to get to difficult cable locations than the clunky Bird boxes!

In my initial test of the FIT-70, I set up a Marti ™ transmitter to confirm forward and reverse power.  I had the FIT-70 providing the power output reading in a matter of moments.  I then powered down the Marti ™ and connected my Bird™ model 43 to the output.  I had to sort through a collection of elements to locate the correct power and frequency before I could power up the Marti ™ and check the output.   My next step was to compare the accuracy of the FIT-70 with my Bird ™ Model 43 and both units read within a Watt of each other.

The FIT-70 will definitely find a place in the gear a service person or engineer needs to take to a transmitter site.  Presently the FIT-70 will test power levels up to 50 Watts but Schomandl is planning to increase the range to 100 Watts.  This unit is ideal for checking most broadcast exciters, FM and TV translators, STL transmitters and RPU transmitters.  The unit is ruggedly “German” built and will provide years of reliable use at a competitive price. Here is an FIT-70 spec sheet PDF. You can order the unit from LBA Technology – just call Paulo Fernandes at 252-757-0279, or email, and he’ll get you hooked up.

In a breakthrough action, the Federal Communications Commission today authorized digital television stations to use DTS technology. In a move aimed to remedy coverage problems in the analog to digital transition, the FCC has now permitted DTV stations to supplement their tall tower transmissions with low power outliers, or abandon the tall towers for a network of low height, lower power transmitters.

A DTV “distributed transmission system” (“DTS”) employs multiple synchronized transmitters spread around a station’s service area, rather than the current single transmitter approach. Each transmitter broadcasts the station’s DTV signal on the same channel. Due to the synchronization of the transmitted signals, DTV receivers treat the multiple signals as reflections or “ghosts” and use “adaptive equalizer” circuitry to cancel or combine them to produce a single signal. DTS is also referred to as DTT, for distributed transmission technologies and as DTx, for distributed transmitters.

DTS can enable service to areas that a single-transmitter station fails to reach due to obstructions that block the signal coming from the single-transmitter site. The technology provides more uniform signal levels throughout a station’s  service area, making indoor reception more reliable. Also, multiple DTS operating at a lower power than a single transmitter achieve the same coverage while reducing interference to neighboring licensees.

A full text of the FCC action may be found at the FCC website. Key points of the FCC action were as follows:

• A DTS service area was defined as being comparable to that of a station’s single transmitter facility. A new “Table of Distances” was set out to implement this policy.
• Waivers would be permitted for a station to use DTS to enable it to continue to serve its existing analog viewers who would otherwise lose service as a result of its transition to digital service.
• DTS transmitters must be located within either the DTV station’s Table of Distances area or its authorized service area.
• The multiple transmitters of a DTS network are afforded primary regulatory status within the areas that such DTS transmitters are authorized to serve.
• DTS stations are subject to the Part 73 licensing and technical rules that apply to DTV single-transmitter stations.
• DTS proposals will be evaluated using the same interference standard adopted for DTV stations’ and the root-sum-square (“RSS”) method of calculating interference from multiple DTS transmitters will be used.
• A licensee of multiple digital Class A TV, digital LPTV, and/or digital TV translator station may operate through interconnected single frequency DTS networks. Each station in the network must be separately licensed.
• We approve on an experimental basis the Use of DTS technologies by a single digital Class A TV, digital LPTV or digital TV translator station can be approved on an experimental basis within its authorized service area.

LBA can supply full support for the DTS network engineering and deployment. LBA also offers the Kathrein MSK-200 Digital Signal Analyzer with advanced capabilities for the synchronization and signal quality control of DTS networks.

For engineering support, contact Jerry Brown at 252.757.0279 or via email. For information on the MSK-200 and other LBA test equipment for television, contact Paulo Fernandes at 252.757.0279 or via email.