NAB. Dielectric returns to the NAB show floor this month with an impressive commercial milestone under its belt. Celebrating 80 years in business, the leading and longest-serving rf systems and over-the-air antenna provider in the broadcasting industry will host customer-oriented activities at its booth while showcasing its latest radio and television innovations.
Dielectric will show for the first time a now available ATSC 3.0 antenna line and updates to RFHAWKEYE, its IP-based RF monitoring system that is now gaining traction in the market with more than three dozen live installations.
It will also present several new innovations for radio stations in a public environment, including new high-frequency simulation software (HFSS) tools that virtualize and accelerate the developments of accurate FM pattern studies. In addition, Dielectric will showcase its recently announced FMP family of FM pylon antennas, which aligns with the theme of a presentation by Vice President of Engineering John Schadler on Tuesday, April 26 at 1:55 p.m. in Room 307-309 in West Hall.
Schadler's presentation, Changing the Landscape of FM Broadcast Antenna Technology, will educate about the novel benefits that tower antenna designs bring to FM radio stations, including lower wind load, increased reliability, and pattern flexibility, benefits that TELEVISION stations have enjoyed for decades.
Dielectric will also offer a new interactive experience at its new location in West Hall (W7017), where there will be a wall that will include some of the best Dielectric sites in the world. Visitors can vote for their favorite and enter to win prizes based on "Maine."
"For Dielectric, NAB marks an occasion where we can celebrate the return to industry meetings we've all missed over the past two years, while also recognizing our 80 years of transmission heritage," said Keith Pelletier, recently named president of Dielectric. "As we reflect on where our business started, there are three core values that have helped us: engineering strength, manufacturing innovation, and a customer-first philosophy. Dielectric's current team has also left a significant mark on the company's history over the past few years, especially in terms of product innovation and business growth."
NextGenTV will be a substantial focus for Dielectric's product innovation and business growth in the coming years. Dielectric has been involved in approximately 80 percent of NextGenTV's headlight launches and has products in every test and market launch to date.
As NextGenTV's penetration spreads and broadcasters realize new revenue opportunities, the need to ensure that signals can be reliably received everywhere will lead to the deployment of single-frequency (SFN) networks. These networks, widely implemented with other OFDM standards in the world, can take various forms, including upgrading the headlight with in-channel repeaters (OCR) or implementing low- to medium-power networks of synchronized transmission facilities. All are designed to improve signal saturation and provide reliable reception on a multitude of devices.
Dielectric's new Powerlite TFU-WB-LP series will be an ideal antenna option for these deployments. Dielectric has focused on a complete product platform for SFN builds, including antennas, combiners and filters.
"There are a huge number of antenna pattern options to consider when planning ATSC 3.0 deployments, many of which are customized for specific network configurations," said Jay Martin, vice president of sales at Dielectric. "Our ATSC 3.0 antennas and software tools will help consultants customize network designs for broadcasters, and at NAB we will use software demonstrations to showcase everything we can support around ATSC 3.0 network planning and implementation. That includes optimized azimuth patterns with high front-to-back ratios, which will be common in SFN configurations that we expect to see gain traction in ATSC 3.0 network designs."
Martin adds that new software engineering tools related to the Powerlite TFU-WB-LP series will help ATSC 3.0 broadcasters accurately select the appropriate antenna gains, directional pattern characteristics, and antenna elevations as they plan SFN network designs. Dielectric will also demonstrate new monitoring automation features for RFHAWKEYE's suite of software tools, including an advanced analytics platform that the company has dubbed Apollo.
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