Among broadcast technology companies celebrating big anniversaries this year is Dielectric, which turns 80.
The company will highlight the anniversary in its NAB Show booth in Las Vegas. It describes itself as “the broadcast industry’s leading and longest-serving over-the-air antenna and RF systems supplier.” (Another long-timer, today called GatesAir, turns 100 this year, while Audio-Technica is turning 60 and Inovonics is 50.)
Dielectric was founded by Charles “Doc” Brown to develop transmission lines for wartime radar systems in the 1940s. The boom in television after the war helped drive the company’s growth. Brown moved it to Raymond, Maine, in 1954.
Dielectric will demonstrate new monitoring automation features to its software toolset RFHawkeye, including an analytics platform called Apollo, which it says lets users quickly analyze data from a site that can be formulated into a presentation package that is easy to digest.
“These enhancements will help TV and radio engineers take quick and decisive action on current problems, and take preventative action in the transmission line or antenna system that eliminate potentially disastrous situations down the road,” said President Keith Pelletier.
“Besides the intuitive active interface, Apollo can also provide customized reports, showing important system performance data and trends, over selectable time periods,” he added.
A managed services layer will help TV and radio stations remotely monitor their RF systems.
As previously reported, the company also will show its new line of FMP pylon antennas for FM, and VP of Engineering John Schadler will give a talk in the technical conference about that on Tuesday.
It also will show its High Frequency Simulation Software tools that virtualize and accelerate FM pattern studies.
[Related: “Allow Computational Modeling of Directional FM Antennas”]
“Dielectric will also offer a new interactive experience at its new West Hall location where there will be a feature wall including some of the top Dielectric sites in the world. Visitors can vote for their favorite and entered to win ‘Maine-based’ prizes.”
NAB Show Booth: W7017
