Out with the old
May 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Susan Anderson
What can you do with your analog debris?
The shutdown date for analog television is right around the corner. That begs the question: What can you do with your analog debris?
Transmitters
Shown here is a klystron analog transmitter used for KVTN Ch25 that was retired on Feb. 9, 2009. Not only is the transmitter old, but also the technology will not work on DTV economically. It is now being scrapped piece by piece, with some parts going to radio amateurs, while the rest are just metal scraps.
“As far as the transmitters go, a lot of times that's a question of the vintage of the transmitter,” says Jeremy Ruck, consulting engineer for Don Markley Associates. “If it's new enough to be converted to DTV, the stations will probably avail themselves of that.”
Rich Redmond, director of strategic marketing for Harris Broadcast Communications, agrees.
“In many cases, what we've found is our customers are converting their analog transmitters for digital operation,” he says. “They realized 10 years ago or so they needed to have reliable analog, so what they purchased had an upgrade path to digital.”
This is the case with the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Harvey Arnold is the director of engineering for the group, which operates 58 TV stations in 35 markets. He says that over the past six years, the group has replaced many of its old analog klystron transmitters with new-generation IOT transmitters, which can be easily converted to digital service.
Some of the bigger market stations that had bought a new transmitter for both NTSC and DTV now have quite a bit of redundancy, more so than they'll probably need.
“So that becomes a question of shipping it somewhere else in the group,” Ruck says. “There are a couple of groups we represent that are playing the transmitter, antenna and transmission line shuffle. That way, they can minimize the amount of capital they have to spend on equipment.”
But what are your options if your analog transmitter is older? If it's in good shape, it may have some resale value. The challenge is finding a buyer.
“Whether you can find somebody that has a use for it, like a religious group or school that can use the equipment, is an issue,” Ruck says. “If you can't, then you've got the extra cost of paying for the disposal.”
Rolin Lintag, chief RF engineer for the Victory Television Network (VTN), says he's been working with mission organizations to see if they can use VTN's analog equipment.
“One TV network in Guatemala responded that they were serious in getting our transmitter and analog test equipment,” Lintag says. “However, they got bogged down by customs duties that their government imposed on them, so they backed out.”
Now, the station is repurposing some of the parts, like the heat exchanger and the pumps, for its other station that still uses IOT tubes.
“I tried to salvage some parts as well that we can still use, but the rest will go to scrap,” Lintag says. “It is sad.”
The Sinclair Broadcast Group has klystron UHF TV transmitters, some of which were more than 30 years old.
“They are basically useless and will be salvaged,” Arnold says.
Pat Ingram, director of engineering for WBNS, says the station had an RCA TT-50 that was still operational after nearly 60 years.
“We disassembled it bolt by bolt and sorted the different metals,” he says. “All of it was sent to recycling. There were quite a few pieces kept by the engineering guys as collectibles.”
Towers and antennas
For a lot of antennas, the post-NTSC usage is going to be minimal.
“There could be a small market for used TV antennas, but these antenna systems are typically specific in design,” Arnold says. “We expect there may be a small business for equipment brokers to sort out some possible matches vs. needs, but I do not see the reuse of antenna systems to be a big market. Remember that many of these analog antennas have been in service for 30 years or even longer and have served their purpose for many years.”
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