Fried Isocoupler? The AM CoLoCoil® Solution.

A Verizon technical manager, just learning about the CoLoCoil®, recently inquired “How well does the product hold up to lightning strikes? I’ve had to change melted isocouplers quite a few times.” This is an excellent question, because the patented LBA CoLoCoil® is fundamentally different from AM isolation devices generically called “isocouplers”. These old-style isocouplers have [...]

A Good Match: JAMPRO and ADBL

Some weddings make you wince. What does she see in him! Not so the merger this week of JAMPRO Antennas Inc. and the Alan Dick Broadcast (ADBL) Division of ADC UK Ltd. It is a wedding of talent and professionalism and holds the promise of producing many good engineering solutions under the Jampro name. California-based [...]

That Beeping? It’s a Tower Worker’s Wake-up Call

Help! That plea is the gist of calls that come to Betty Perez, director of logistics and resources for LBA Technology. Perez is an old hand at fielding hurry-up requests from LBA customers, but the telephone calls she receives about the fieldSENSE ProHD™ Heavy Duty Pack are in a special emergency category all their own. [...]

FCC Invites Behr to Give Testimony About Colocation

LBA Group CEO Lawrence Behr’s persistence in promoting colocation of AM towers and wireless antennas as a means to speeding public access to broadband earned him another invitation to Washington. The executive, along with LBA vice president for sales Mike Britner, traveled to D.C. Dec. 12 to meet with Commission staffers and representatives of radio [...]

LBA Group Logistics Director Staying on Top of Export Requirements

Greenville  – Betty Perez keeps tabs on foreign shipments for LBA Group, Inc., a task made more complicated for every company by the 2001 terrorist attacks. In the post-911 world, no parcel or palleted material is too innocuous not to be of interest to various federal agencies. Perez participated in a refresher course this month [...]

LBA Time Machine – Back to AMITRA 1995

We look back to August 1995 and the 18th annual AMITRA conference of Mexican broadcast engineers. As usual, AMITRA 1995 had a robust and international slate of presenters and subjects. Among them was LBA’s CEO Lawrence Behr, who addressed the group on “Using Tunipoles and Combipoles in AM Antenna Systems”. The photo shows Engineer Aurelio [...]

A Holiday Message to All Our Friends...

Business in 2011 was a challenge for every company in America. Did you notice? Here at LBA Group Inc., our team did a magnificent job of tuning out the static and vectoring in on solutions to customers’ needs. Consequently, we are able to look back on the year with considerable satisfaction and to look forward [...]

LBA Group Welcomes Marketing Director, Katie Sneed

Katie Sneed

Keeping pace with the constantly quickening environment of online marketing, LBA Group is growing its B2B marketing team. Graphic designer and content specialist Katie Sneed has joined LBA as business-to-business marketing director, a new position created to coordinate the work of the lbagroup.com website technical and content staff. Among her tasks will be vitalizing the [...]

Windmills Really Burn well, Don't They....!!!

Windmills have a record of creating havoc with the electromagnetic environment, particularly microwave, SCADA, and cell phone communications. We don’t often see the results of the mechanics gone awry, or of runaway rotors from electromagnetic interference to control systems! Here are some photos of what happens when transmission failures occur in windmills. If You See [...]

Multivision of Monterrey Engineers visit LBA Technology and Voice of America

Eric Garza, Olivia Falcon y Ramon Baca en la planta de LBA Technology

On July 26, 2011 LBA received the visit of Engineers Eric Garza, Olivia Falcon and Ramon Baca of Multivision of Monterrey Mexico who as part of the Tour of Factories organized by LBA Representative 305 Broadcast Inc previously visited the Wheatstone Factory in New Bern NC and continued their visit to the LBA facilities in [...]

Tech Talk: Coax Isolation on Shared AM Towers

Traditional AM isocoupler installation

Most people think of an isocoupler as a capacitor or loop pair inserted in a coax line of sufficiently low impedance at the coax frequency to pass that signal without undo loss and VSWR, while looking like a high impedance at the AM frequency so as to not disturb the base impedance too much. There [...]

A webinar truth: AM and wireless are compatible

AM Collocation Installation

LBA Group’s successful June 16 webinar, under sponsorship of WCAI, was titled “AM Radio: Traps and Promises in Broadband Deployment.” The question-and-answer session that followed suggested a better title might have been… “AM Radio and Broadband Wireless can Co-exist? Really? I Didn’t Know That!” Under-awareness of AM and wireless compatibility continues to run through the [...]

When KPH Ruled as Wireless King of the Pacific

Tree tunnel entering Point Reyes, California station KPH

Wireless carriers like Verizon and Sprint may capture our imaginations today, but in the 1920’s maritime stations ruled the airwaves, and station KPH was the wireless king of the Pacific. Visiting the site of maritime radio station KPH evokes a flurry of emotion as one can see old remnants of vital shipboard communications even during [...]

New FCC “Site Rage” – Big Fines On Tower Safety!

Tower site RF hazards – take seriously!

Recently, the FCC has levied fines totaling almost $40,000 on operators for infractions of FCC rules on RF safety, tower lighting, and site access. This may represent a new aggressiveness on the part of the FCC. In any event, it is a wakeup call to all tower and site operators to be vigilant in FCC [...]

New World Friends Share Old Broadcast Memories

IMG_1890

Almost 25 years after President Ronald Reagan said the famous words,” Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall”, LBA Group President Jerry Brown meets with representatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the recent National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas, NV.  Pictured with Brown is Max Sidorov and Victor Shegay.  The picture was [...]

Hazards in the Workplace – RF Shock and Burn

Bridge and Crane Structures near high power transmitter site

Most engineers and operators in the wireless industry think of radio frequency (RF) safety as an exposure issue and often forget RF shock and burn that can be a concern for tower climbers and construction workers. Occupational safety and health are of prime importance in the workplace especially towers and structures that may be energized [...]

Watch Copper Thieves at Work!

Police are searching for two men who stole more than $30,000 worth of goods and copper wire in Salt Lake City, Utah. Their target was KSL NewsRadio’s transmission site. The east radio tower is over 400 feet tall and has been there since the 1930s. The actual target of the theft was a building near [...]

Doing Our Part for Broadband Acceleration!

Colocoil Isocouplers

The collocation of broadband facilities’ on AM broadcast towers has been recognized by the Federal Communications Commission as one way to expedite the provision of new broadband services. See a video of the FCC Broadband Acceleration Panel with LBA CEO Lawrence Behr. LBA is the leader in providing AM colocation technology to broadcasters and wireless [...]

Precision Timing and Mobile DTV – An Introduction

Mobile DTV Receiver

Ask any TV engineer if synchronization is important to coverage and the response may surprise you. Synchronization in a broadcast or wireless network is often overlooked because the equipment necessary for timing is taken for granted. The base stations’ timing accuracy in the “broadcast” channel is critical to voice, data or video transmission. Synchronizing a [...]

How to Kick Up Broadband Deployment – Use AM Radio!

FCC Broadband Acceleration Panel - Lawrence Behr, second from right.

The Federal Communications Commission held its Broadband Acceleration Conference in Washington, D.C. on February 9th, 2011. The FCC thus took another step to further the goal of connecting all parts of America to the digital age by convening leaders from federal, state and local governments, broadband providers, telecommunications carriers, tower companies, equipment suppliers, and utility [...]

LBA Authorized Repair and Recalibration Center for TE1000 Impedance Analyzer

trewmac-impedance-analyzer

In September of 2009, LBA Technology became an authorized calibration center for the Tomco TE1000 Impedance Analyzer (see referenced story.)  Since that time, manufacturing of the TE1000 was switched from Tomco to Trewmac Systems Pty Ltd.  LBA has now been authorized by Trewmac to repair and recalibrate the TE1000 Impedance Analyzer, including servicing unites that [...]

AT&T Tower Overcame Public Safety Interference Concerns

public-safety-interference

As wireless systems proliferate, the number one adversary of systems designers and service providers is interference. Interference hampers coverage and capacity, and limits the effectiveness of both new and existing systems. Interference is an inescapable fact when wireless communications systems must coexist in extremely complex environments. What is it about cellular towers that make people [...]

Winter Tower Safety – When Icicles Attack!

In winter, ice, lots of it, frequently forms on towers. Often, this ice is out of sight hundreds of feet above the ground. When the temperature warms, down it comes – from guy wires, tower structure, and antennas! This falling ice can do great damage to tower attachments, vehicles, and structures. It can kill you! [...]

What’s All This FemtoCell Stuff, Anyhow?

Figure 1: Logical Architecture of a 3G FemtoCell and its connectivity to the network

You have heard the old saying “splitting hairs” referring to arguing about very small differences or unimportant details. There is splitting hairs and then there is splitting cells – cell splitting to be exact and it is occurring all over the world as wireless service providers attempt to add ubiquitous coverage and more traffic capacity. [...]

Holiday Greetings from LBA

winter-snow-bridge

Greetings and best wishes for this Holiday Season to our friends and customers worldwide. During 2010, our staff members have been fortunate to visit with many of you around the globe, and they extend their personal greetings to you and your associates. May all of you have peace and prosperity in the coming year! Lawrence [...]

Larry Bloomfield "Taste of NAB Road Show" Founder Dead at 72

Larry Bloomfield

Broadcast engineer Larry Bloomfield, founder of the Tech-Notes newsletter and the “Taste of NAB Road Show” died Monday in Eugene, Oregon from a heart attack at the age of 72.

In his 9 years running the Taste of NAB Road Show, Larry gave 468 presentations to nearly 12,000 people and drove an astonishing 143,337 miles around the country.

Larry Bloomfield wrote his own autobiography that can be found on his personal website [...]

The Broadband Expo 2010

Dilbert.com

Wireless Internet Service Providers Association The wireless phone industry has many buzzwords and “broadband” is no exception. In fact, broadband is misleading just as the term wireless can be confusing since there are many mediums and technologies that allow communications to exist without wires. The 2010 Broadband Expo was no exception to the buzzwords but [...]

Radio Guide Features LBA AM Colocation

bob-vinikoor

Under the title “WNTK Uses LBA to Reap Revenue From Towers”, Bob Vinikoor relates how his stations use LBA Technology’s patented CoLoCoil® AM collocation technology to lease AM tower space to 15 cellular carriers!  Koor Communications, Inc. operates a group of five award winning radio stations in New Hampshire and Vermont. In the past, some [...]

3 phase vs 1 phase for 10KW FM Transmitter Site

While we normally post technical information here on “As the LBA Antenna Turns”, we had an article on this topic contributed by an author on our RF blog with information compiled from several experienced engineers in the industry. Be sure to check it out!

3 phase vs 1 phase for 10KW FM Transmitter Site [...]

DZMM 630 kHz Radyo Patrol in the Philippines

From Wikipedia: ABS-CBN DZMM Radyo Patrol Sais-Trenta (630 kHz Metro Manila) is the flagship AM station of ABS–CBN Corporation in the Philippines. The station’s studio is located at the ABS-CBN Broadcast Center in Quezon City, while its transmitter is located at Obando, Bulacan. The station operates 24 hours a day except on Sundays where it signs-off [...]