Work related to building an IMC LPTV station in Ithaca.

Questions:

• Antenna Construction and Cost
  • Location, location, location
    • South hill with line-of-sight across cayuga lake?
    • Should we look for a tower site, or rent space on existing tower?
    • Could barter wireless internet access for tower use (or land to locate one)
  • Antenna cost
    • ? Wide variety
• Transmitter Cost
  • Many commercial solutions are available ($5000 and up)
  • Homebrew solution:
    • Composite video (Luminance + Chrominance) output from computer
      • Already properly seperated in frequency, but frequency needs boosting
      • How much would this cost?
    • Audio
      • Standard FM just above composite video frequency
      • Stereo?
    • Filters
      • Need to ensure that both video and audio are "in bounds"
    • Amplifier
      • 1-3kilowatt is a large amplifier, large cost too?
      • Does this make a commercial solution more affordable/feasable?
• Point-to-Point link to Transmitter
  • Off the shelf 802.11ab, $300 cost (antennas, cards, cable, mounts)
  • Will use both 2.4ghz and 5ghz to prevent jamming or weather-based problems
  • Easily replaced if damaged (lightning, etc)
• Licensing
  • Costs / Roadmap
    • Free for non-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization
    • Need a licensed engineer to sign off on it
    • Need to be ready to file when LPTV window opens
  • Community Service Requirements
    • Closed Captioning
      • Are not required to provide CC for first four years.
      • ... but still very good thing for local community!
      • CC uses "Line 21" of video frames
        • Field 1 is for CC
        • Field 2 is for program metadata (name, time, rating, etc)
      • Could this be implemented by the video stream decoder?
      • Traditional hardware encoders run $3k and up
    • Emergency Alert System (EAS)
      • LPTV is required to have EAS decoder, but not encoder
      • Defined in FCC Rules Part 11.31
      • Not difficult to implement chacter generator in video stream decoder
      • Are we required to use specifically licensed equipment? Cost?
      • We are required to monitor two independent sources
      • http://www.fcc.gov/eb/eas/47part11.doc
      • Traditional hardware decoders/text crawlers run $3k and up
    • For Class A
      • Broadcast 18 hours/day
      • Atleast 3 hours/week "locally origionated non-news content"
      • Must be non-profit educational org
      • Don't know of it's still available

-- ArcNLN - 21 Aug 2003
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