As usual, our luncheon will be at Sinbad's just south of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero near the foot of Mission St. We meet at 11:30 and are seated at 12:30. To make reservations call Paul Black at 925-827-9511 and leave a message on his machine.

One day short of his 78th birthday, Don Lincoln passed away in his sleep. He'd been fine the day before and had been at the BABEs meeting one week earlier.

Don was a longtime employee of KPIX-TV and succeeded Harry Jacobs as Sutro Tower manager, a job he held until his retirement.His daughter Penny, who was the Sutro Tower office manager, died this past February.

The funeral was held Dec. 15th at St. Brendans Church. His obituary appeared in the Chronicle on Sunday, Dec. 9th. He is survived by his second wife, Maryliz Lincoln, a son, Mark, and two grandchildren.

The family suggests contributions be made to Little Sisters of the Poor, 300 Lake St., San Francisco, CA 94118 or to your favorite charity.

Gary Liebisch began his broadcasting career in college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Worked on air in New York, Florida, and North Carolina. Held Chief Engineer positions in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Cincinnati. Joined Harris in 1999 when the Mason OH facility opened, as a studio systems engineer. Moved over to AM applications engineer in December of 2000, and has been involved in support of the AM Product Line and new product development for AM transmission. Gary was founding chairman of two SBE chapters in South Carolina and North Carolina, is a Lifetime Certified Broadcast Engineer, amateur radio operator KC4FN, and holds a B.S. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute."

Gary told us: "The topic I'll speak on for your SBE meeting will be 'IBOC Exciter Interfacing:New and Existing AM-FM Transmitters'. We will discuss typical signal levels for interfacing, the audio path through the IBOC exciter, processing issues, and connectors. For AM specifically, we will also talk about how to determine if your existing transmitter will provide satisfactory IBOC performance, what is a 'linearized' transmitter?, and measuring IQM. And we'll touch on low level vs. high level combining in FM systems.

Drawings by the man who drew our mascot are on-line at http://home.earthlink.net/~rhtrumbull.

Webmeister Tim Pozar has the current newsletter plus newsletters all the way back to 1996 at: http://www.lns.com/sbe

Tim is also keeping track of email addresses and you can subscribe to the mailing list at:

(What follows are not recommendations of SBE Ch40) Free always appeals to me. That's why I like the tools at http://www.bigcharts.com. You can enter the symbol for a stock and chart it over various time intervals and in various charting styles. You can compare the stock to popular indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial average or theS&P 500. The moving average of the stock can be overlaid onto the graph of the stock. Moving averages are smoothing techniques using the average value over some interval such as 50 days or 200 days and checking to see if the day to day value has crossed under or over the moving average curve. Other technical indicators can be added to the plot. But the simplest enhancement is simply to compare one stock or mutual fund to another. Maybe you might be considering dumping one mutual fund and buying another. How do they compare? Using bigcharts you can make a visual comparison of results. The only caution I would add is that you must also compare annual fees. Whether the fund is up or down, a percentage of your total investment goes into the fund advisor's wallet each year. Let's assume there's a mutual fund that grows 10% a year and the fee is 1/2% annually. A similar fund has a 1.5% fee. Income is reinvested in more shares of each fund. After 20 years, what's the difference if each fund starts with $10,000? The first funds value will be $61416 while the seconds will be $51120. The higher fee will cost you $10,000 over the 20 year interval.

Southern Oregon, known for its scenic environment & limitless recreational opportunities is home to Kathrein, Scala Division, a successful world leader in antenna systems for broadcast and communications industries. We are seeking an experienced sales and applications engineering professional to promote sales and support customer products and service needs in the TV and FM broadcast industry. Strong technical and interpersonal communications skills are required; plus antenna application experience, knowledge of TV, FM and LPTV transmission systems, working knowledge of RF test equipment and procedures, and familiarity with FCC rules and regulations. Some travel is required for trade shows.

Send Resume to:

KSD
HR Dept.
P.O. box 4580
Medford, OR 97501
Fax 541-779-3391
email: lteshima@kathrein.com