HORSESHOE VALLEY, Ont. – With well over 270 delegates last week, the Central Canada Broadcast Engineers 2006 conference saw a 20%-plus jump in attendance, say organizers.
Beginning Thursday with papers and seminars, the CCBE agenda was a full one as speakers covered topics from fibre optics system design for broadcast operations to high definition connectivity, media transport technologies to aspect ratio handling, HD radio/IBOC to ENG IP connectivity, audio processing to digital workflow.
The conference wrapped up today (Sunday).
Saturday morning, CBC Transmission’s Martin Marcotte detailed the 2005 installation of the terrestrial repeaters to make Sirius Canada’s satellite radio system work (Sirius Canada is part-owned by the CBC). With the company’s three satellites and network of repeater transmitters across the country in the eight major centres (which were installed within 60 days last fall) Sirius Canada can cover nearly all of the Canadian population – even well to the north.
Consultant Wayne Stacey detailed the myriad technical issues that Canadian broadcasters face – and which the Canadian Association of Broadcasters is tackling. Stacey is the CAB’s technical advisor. Overly-powerful FM modulators, new rules governing the relationships between broadcasters and municipalities and where towers are located (and even how they’re upgraded), the many technical issues of the radio policy review and TV policy review, HD radio and IBOC, and the new technical publication the association will publish beginning in 2007, were just some of the topics he covered.
Those are just two of 38 seminars, speeches and papers presented over the four days. The keynote speech was Friday’s address by consultant and former SONY executive Pat Wittingham.
When it came to Saturday’s awards, the organization honoured Jim Adamson, senior vice-president of Larcan, Kyle Clouthier, a senior technician at A-Channel, Ottawa and Ron Weller, the recently retired chief engineer at CTS Television and Crossroads Christian Communications Inc.
Larcan’s Adamson was presented with the Ambassador of the Year award for his continuing support of CCBE and his demonstrated desire to teach and share his knowledge of broadcasting. "I love this industry and the people who are in it," said Adamson when accepting the award.
Clouthier won the first Rohde & Schwarz CCBE Engineering Excellence award for a succession of engineering accomplishments over the past year. This new award celebrates outstanding accomplishments by individual station engineers.
Weller, recently retired from CTS, but who has a long history in the industry in Canada and abroad (from North Bay to Denmark and Zambia, for that matter) was presented with the CCBE Lifetime Achievement Award.
