Geoff Mendenhall (left) receives his award from Guy Bouchard of CBC Technology.

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Alexandria, VA - Oct 27, 2011 - Geoff Mendenhall, vice president of transmission research and technology for Harris Broadcast Communications, was awarded the Matti S. Siukola Memorial Award for "Best Technical Paper Presentation" at the IEEE 61th Annual Broadcast Symposium last week. The award, which is given for the best paper from the previous year's conference, was presented at the luncheon on Oct. 21, the final day of the three-day event.

Mendenhall's paper, "Transmission System Solutions to Increase IBOC Power and Coverage,"outlined the problems associated with increasing in-band on-channel (IBOC) HD Radio transmission power; and new facility design options to improve digital signal coverage.

The IEEE Annual Broadcast Symposium, which this year took place in Alexandria, VA, is attended by consulting engineers and broadcast engineers who design new broadcast transmission facilities. The technical nature of Mendenhall's paper provided timely new information for these engineers to help improve IBOC HD Radio coverage. That message resonated with the audience, as the paper was selected for the award based on rating sheets filled out by attendees.

Dr. Matti S. Siukola of RCA was a prominent television antenna expert and a very popular engineer with the broadcasting community. He died of a heart attack at the 1980 IEEE Broadcast Symposium after having just completed delivering a paper on circular polarized television transmitting antennas.

The IEEE Broadcast Symposium is focused on technical presentations as opposed to marketing or new product promotion. "To have my paper selected based on its technical merits and usefulness by my peers and the top professionals in the industry makes winning this award a great honor," said Mendenhall.