Working as a Broadcast Systems Engineer

It is mid-August 2017 and I have been working as a broadcast engineering intern at Byce Broadcast and Technologies Kenya Limited, a system integrator company that offers turn-key solutions for TV and radio broadcasting. This business has a steep learning curve and I am required to learn real fast. Thankfully, the work is interesting and the fast changing technologies in this industry means that I’ll never stop learning.

This post is just to simply provide an overview of the skills and competencies that are required in broadcast engineering and the work involved as a systems integrator.

Broadcast Stations

TV and Radio stations require solutions that facilitate their ability to deliver content to their audience.

• Satellite uplink – This refers to setting up a signal link from a TV/radio station to a satellite uplink provider who will send the signal to a satellite in space that will perform a broadcast downlink to users. You can read more about this on my previous post here.
• Teleport services – This is connecting a link from a TV/radio to a center that offers regional transmission of signals from the stations and has gateways to national networks.
• Budget – TV and radio stations are required to pay certain fees in order to access infrastructure for transmission and broadcast. Also, licensing of an allocation of the frequency spectrum to the Communications Authority of Kenya, CA.

An understanding of satellite communication with reference to broadcast is required to provide the solutions stated above. In the last few decades, a set of international standards for digital television has popular. This is the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standards. They are internationally recognized and supported by over 270 members.

DVB standards are implemented for a variety of modes, the two of most importance are:

• Satellite: DVB-S, DVB-S2
• Television: DVB-T, DVB-T2

Another way of broadcasting media that has been rapidly rising in adoption is the OTT (Over-the-top) distribution which allows for transmission of audio and video content straight to the Internet without any requirement of a satellite operator. Users can access this content directly on the Internet without the need to subscribe to a satellite TV provider.

 

TV and Radio Studios

Although TV and radio studios have different equipment set up in them, much of the underlying principles of design and setup is largely similar. Some of the technical considerations that are handled here are:

• Studio size and design
• Sound acoustics and material considerations
• Room temperature and air conditioning
• Choice of studio equipment
• Lighting considerations
• Choice of transmitting equipment
• Desk size and design
• Inventory
• Safety measures

These considerations and equipment may be detailed further in later posts.

 

Roles and Responsibilities

Some of the organizational key activities include understanding client needs and budget, design of the proposed solutions, configuring, supplying and installing equipment at client site. For most clients, the four major initial service processes are to supply, install, commission and train users on the equipment. Thereafter, a SLA (service-level agreement) is defined between the system integrator company and the client to agree on terms of after-sales support such as troubleshooting and repairs. This is handled through official phone calls or email ticketing and could be handled either remotely or on site.

So far I am involved in two ongoing projects for major clients in the country, as well as having successfully performed a small project involving the coverage of a recent graduation ceremony in the biggest university in Kenya. This is only the beginning and I anticipate exciting times ahead. Broadcast is a field of electrical engineering I formerly was not much aware of but my experience in the past few weeks has opened me up to a broader world.