During his testimony, Martin told Congress that as of Sept. 30, 2004, the revenue generated for the federal government from the Commission's spectrum auction program has totaled $26.8 billion and that the Office of Management and Budget projects auction receipts from Fiscal Years 2006 through 2010 to exceed $18.3 billion after program costs.

FCC Names Martin as Defense Commissioner
Washington - May 6, 2005 - The FCC has appointed Chairman Kevin Martin as its Defense Commissioner responsible for overseeing all homeland security, national security and emergency preparedness and defense functions of the agency.

The Commission action sets Martin up as the FCC representative on interagency matters related to security and defense matters, including continuity of government during national emergencies; the principal point of contact for all matters pertaining to the Department of Homeland Security; the one responsible for developing emergency programs covering wireless, wireline, broadcast, cable and satellite facility service provisions; and the one who assumes the duties of the Commission under certain emergencies.

Direct-to-brain Broadcasting?
Sony has developed and patented a new technology for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain. According to an article in the New Scientist journal, the non-invasive technique involves a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify synaptic firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds.

Sony first submitted a patent application for the ultrasound method in 2000, which was granted in March 2003. Since then Sony has filed a series of continuations, most recently in December 2004. Sony describes the research as speculative.

Business

SNS Hard Drive Toss Winners Announced
St. Louis - May 5, 2005 - Studio Network Solutions (SNS) has announced the first, second and third prize winners of the First Annual Hard Drive Toss Contest at the NAB2005 convention in Las Vegas. Hiroaki Komatsu of Osaka, Japan received the grand prize 17" Powerbook while John Mills of Vancouver, Canada was awarded the Ibook. Finally, Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire received the Ipod.

The contest took four hours and about 500 people joined SNS in the festivities. Among those participants, an estimated 60 were successful in landing a hard drive into a garbage can placed 30 feet from the starting point. These individuals were automatically entered into a drawing for a Powerbook or Ibook. Those who tossed a drive but didn’t land it in the garbage can were entered into a drawing for a special edition U2 Ipod.

The goal of the event was to campaign the latest workflow design software built by SNS. It also served to demonstrate that without a proper Storage Area Network a person might as well "toss their hard drive in the garbage."

CRL and Harman Restructure Debt Agreement
Tempe, AZ - May 3, 2005 - Circuit Research Labs (CRL) has formally executed its agreement with Harman International Industries and its subsidiary Harman Pro America to document the agreement that was reported in its Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004. The transaction restructures CRL's short-term debt obligation to Harman of about $9.5 million. The restructure reduces CRL's total debt to Harman to be just over $3.2 million and Harman has reclassified the debt from a demand note status to long-term.

As part of the restructure of its indebtedness owed to Harman, CRL in 2004 paid Harman $1,000,000 in cash in repayment of debt as a condition for the restructure. Harman also agreed to exchange $2,104,000 of the debt for 2,104,000 shares of the CRL's common stock, which as then sold to a nominee of Jay Brentlinger, CRL's president, for $1,000,000. Harman exchanged an additional $2,400,000 of indebtedness for additional shares of CRL common stock such that Harman will own approximately 1,509,000 shares resulting in ownership of 19 percent of CRL's outstanding shares.

The transaction leaves a remaining balance of $3,227,530 that CRL owes to Harman.

Dalet Supports NPR's Content Depot Project
Las Vegas - Apr 15, 2005 - NPR stations using the Dalet radio broadcast system will now have the audio content automatically imported to their Dalet server and the associated medadata inserted in the Dalet database. Dalet will also offer the NPR stations additional capabilities including automatic audio transcoding during ingest.

NPR will have seamless integration between the new audio file delivery system and their Dalet broadcast system. Delivered files will be automatically ingested into Dalet and they will be available for schedule or live assist playback without user intervention.

Prism Sound Sells More than £100,000 of Equipment to Allen & Heath
Cambridge, UK - May 3, 2005 - Three years ago Allen & Heath chose Prism Sound for its testing equipment, the Dscope III. Since the initial introduction of the Dscope to Allen & Heath, Prism has implemented more systems in the production environment. Now, Allen & Heath has surpassed £100,000 worth of Prism Sound Dscope III equipment, and has a plan to invest further in the product.

APT Signs Licensing Agreement with Linear Acoustic
Lancaster, PA, and Belfast - Apr 30, 2005 - APT has signed a licensing agreement with Linear Acoustic to incorporate the Enhanced Apt-x audio compression algorithm into the Linear Acoustics range of audio distribution products.

Linear Acoustic will use the APT compression technology in a new product range for multi-channel audio processing. The new products will send eight channels of audio over an existing two-channel AES-3 infrastructure.

LBA to Distribute Tomco Test Equipment
Greenville, NC - Apr 12, 2005 - LBA has signed an exclusive distribution agreement for North and South America with and Tomco Technologies of Australia. The agreement allows LBA to sell Tomco's line of RF vector voltmeters and high-power amplifiers and transmitters.

Sales Call Citywalk Studios, a new full-service recording and production facility in Branson, MO, was built from the ground up with Auralex construction products and treated with Auralex Elite Series acoustic products. RCS is now the exclusive software provider for the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. RCS will equip its 12 campuses of training facilities (located in seven states) with the Selector music scheduler, the Linker promo scheduler and the Master Control studio system. VerStandig Broadcasting has standardized its entire radio group on OMT's Imediatouch digital audio delivery system. The transition will begin in July 2005. VerStandig Broadcasting owns and operates 10 radio stations between the Hagerstown/Chambersburg/Waynesboro, PA/MD, market and Harrisonburg, VA, market. Technica del Arte has reached agreement with the first six BBC regional broadcasters over the installation of the recording and transmitting software "Luci" on their journalists' Pocket PCs. It is expected that almost all of the BBC's 40 regional broadcasters will follow this example within a year. Using this program radio broadcasters can create and transmit more individual and original audio material in an efficient and cost-effective way. Greater Media’s talk station, 96.9 FM TALK (WTKK, Boston), is the first station to use 25-Seven's Audio Time Manager (ATM) on the air. ATM is a processor that lets radio stations delay the start of live programs and then catch up to real time seamlessly without loss of original content.

People

Studer USA Adds Factory Specialists
Northridge, CA - May 6, 2005 - Studer USA has added Jamie Dunn and Tibor Tamas. Both individuals come from the Studer factory in Regensdorf, Switzerland, and will be based at the Harman campus in Northridge, CA.

Dunn has been with Studer for six years and leaves his position in Switzerland as sales director for North and South America. As a Tonmeister graduate and former classical recording engineer, Dunn possesses a technical and applications background. He will primarily be responsible for West Coast sales, but with his experience with the Vista 8, he will also assist the rest of the Studer USA team in support and sales.

Tamas is a Studer veteran having worked for the manufacturer for more than 25 years. Regarded as one of the company’s best and most knowledgeable support engineers, Tamas has spent the last year based in Montreal handling Studer support for the United States and Canada. He now heads service and support for Studer USA on a full-time basis and will work alongside Martin Arthurs in the support network.

FCC's Martin Appoints New Staff
Washington - Apr 29, 2005- FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has begun putting his signature on the Commission. Daniel Gonzalez will be Commission’s chief of staff, Michelle Carey will join Martin's personal staff as a legal advisor for wireline issues. Martin will also appoint Monica Desai as the chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Kris Monteith as the chief of the Enforcement Bureau, and Tom Navin as chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau.

Gonzalez has served as Martin’s senior legal advisor and wireline advisor since February 2002. Gonzalez previously served as an attorney in the Common Carrier Bureau’s Policy and Program Planning Division and the Accounting and Audits Division and as a legal advisor to the Common Carrier Bureau Chief and Commissioner Rachelle Chong.

Since September 2004, Michelle Carey served as deputy chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. Prior to that, she was the chief of the Competition Policy Division for nearly five years.

Monica Desai has worked at the Commission since 1999 in a variety of capacities, including interim legal advisor to Martin on spectrum and international issues and various common carrier and media issues, and as an attorney-advisor in the Pricing Policy Division of the Wireline Competition Bureau.

Monteith most recently served as deputy bureau chief for outreach and intergovernmental affairs in the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. Monteith previously served as chief of the Policy Division of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.

Navin most recently served as the chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau’s Competition Policy Division.

photo by B.R. Morgan

SBE Awards Lifetime Achievement Award to Burden
Indianapolis - Apr 29, 2005 - With 200 members looking on, Richard W. Burden, CPBE, of Canoga Park, CA, was presented with the Society of Broadcast Engineer's Lifetime Achievement Award at the SBE annual spring membership meeting on April 19 during NAB2005.

The occasion marks only the seventh time in the society's 41-year history that its Lifetime Achievement Award had been presented. The award was a surprise to Burden, who was even more surprised when his daughter Nanuet from Oregon greeted him as he walked to the podium to accept the award.

Burden became SBE member #450 in 1966 and was an original member of SBE Chapter 1 in Binghamton, NY. Later, he would help organize Chapter 47 in Los Angeles, serving as its second chairman and as program chairman from 1979 to 1981. He is a senior member of the SBE and was elected an SBE Fellow in 1999. He earned his SBE Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer designation in 1990 and he continues to serve Chapter 47 as certification chairman.

Burden received the award in recognition of his 55 years of significant contributions to the broadcast engineering industry. His career started while in a student at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, where he was appointed chief engineer of college radio station WJRH in 1950. He transferred to RCA Institute to study radio broadcast engineering and graduated in 1952, holding a First Class Radiotelephone License.

In 1952, he was appointed to the Signal School in Fort Monmouth, NJ, as a civilian instructor. He was instrumental in the instructional revision of the Radio and Radar Course material and teaching technique. He returned as an Army Reservist to the Signal School Radar Division as chief military instructor in 1953. Burden was assigned to the Armed Forces Radio Service in New York as staff engineer and released from active duty with citations as a staff sergeant in 1955.

Later that year, he joined the engineering staff of General Precision Laboratory. He was employed there for five years designing circuits for audio-video and pulse modules, writing technical elements for video systems, and engineering the air traffic control system for the Federal Aviation Administration.

In 1960 he formed Burden Associates in Mount Kisco, NY, and in 1972 opened an office in Canoga Park, CA. Burden Associates still operates in Canoga Park. He has rendered technical services to numerous radio stations and networks in the field of radio and TV, and has consulted for many manufacturers throughout the years.

In 1958, Burden worked on the development of a system of stereo broadcasting in conjunction with Multiplex Development Corporation and is a holder of a patent in that field. He served on the National Stereophonic Radio Committee, Audio Engineering Society Standards Committee and as an AES representative to the Joint Committee of Intersociety Coordination. He also served on the ad hoc committee for the Study of Television Sound, as a member of the Broadcast Transmission Systems Committee on the study of stereophonic sound of TV and as a member of the National Radio Systems Committee, working toward improvements in radio broadcasting, from 1990 to 1994.

He served as AES Los Angeles section chairman from 1989 to 1990 and as Western Region vice president of AES from 1992 to 1993. He has authored numerous papers and chaired several AES sessions on audio in broadcasting in his career. He became a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society in the 70s, having been selected as one of 25 people who had made significant contributions to the industry over the last 50 years.

Prophet Creates Remote Control Interface for Logitek, Prophet Systems
Houston - May 4, 2005 - Prophet Systems has developed a remote control interface between the Logitek Console Router system and the Prophet Nexgen system. With this software, any Nexgen audio server can send commands to route any audio source on any Logitek Audio Engine via one TCP/IP connection. The Nexgen router can connect to Logitek's primary and backup Supervisor programs for redundancy.

Enco's DAD Integrates 25-Seven's ATM
Las Vegas - Apr 18, 2005 - Enco Systems and 25-Seven Systems have entered into an agreement whereby Enco will integrate 25-Seven's Audio Time Manager (ATM) into its Digital Audio Delivery (DAD) on-air system. This integration allows Enco users to control ATM using their existing automation system. Stations will be able to create additional availabilities in their broadcast day using ATM's time compression features. Both companies plan to install an ATM at an Enco site to further refine the interconnection between systems.

Logitek Upgrades to 16-character Source Names
Houston - May 4, 2005 - Logitek Electronic Systems now supports 16-character source names in its digital console line, which includes Mosaic, Remora and Numix consoles. This capability is also supported by the Gst-20, Gst-22 and Route-XY router control panels. For these products to display 16-character names, a Logitek C6 controller card is required for the Audio Engine router. The controller card is available for purchase.

"It's now possible to add information that pinpoints the source of a signal such as station, studio name and source type," said Tag Borland, president of Logitek. "Large facilities with multiple stations under one roof will find this capability especially useful."

Altinex's TNP121 is Now UL Listed
Brea, CA - May 5, 2005 - The TNP121UL is a compact interconnect unit for installation in office furniture. The TNP121UL provides access to computer video, audio, network, telephone and ac power when they are needed through a plate and conceals it under the table when not in use. The input plate is accessed by pushing down on the top panel. This releases the mechanical latch, allowing the pneumatic gas-powered spring to tilt the input plate into view. Once opened, the input plate locks securely in place. The input plate is hidden by pressing down on the top panel, which closes the lid and locks the latch. In its closed position, the top panel lies flush with the table top. All signals are passed through the unit with connection to the AV system being made under the table. No signal processing or buffering takes place.

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