I raise a toast to you all. The Heartbeat of a Station Anyone with the ways and means to afford a nice home entertainment system can dabble in editing, and with the proliferation of PC based multimedia systems, high end special effects are well within the grasp of most of the people who browse this page. It takes a transmitter to breath life into a TV station, to provide its 63.5 microsecond heartbeat. 1500 feet of tower, standing defiantly against the wind, with 9 tons of high gain antenna give a station its voice. It takes alot of work to keep up a television facility, and the responsibility for keeping it all in good working order falls to a talented group of individuals known as Engineers.
Engineering is a unique field.
When our job is done properly, we are completely transparent. Of course when things go bad, we have an engraved invitation to the midst of the fray. KTEN-TV Engineer Joe Haun ascends the tower during a recent microwave repair.