When you spend nearly three decades in the radio industry, you collect stories. Some involve cutting-edge technology. Others involve famous people. A few involve places that supposedly don’t exist.
When I started in the business, digital radio was still largely a thing of the future. We talked about “Big A” and “Little A”, analog wideband and analog narrowband. The FCC recommended narrowband operation, but it wasn’t yet the requirement it would later become. Fast forward to today and there are hundreds of emission designators covering digital voice, data, telemetry, and applications that would have sounded like science fiction when I first entered the field.
On my office wall hangs an interference matrix that coordinators use to evaluate compatibility between systems. To visitors it looks like an advanced engineering chart. To coordinators it looks like job security.
Over the years I have coordinated radio systems for manufacturers, transportation companies, broadcasters, public safety agencies, research organizations, entertainment companies, and even a few famous names. One thing I’ve learned is that no two licensing projects are ever quite the same.
One of my favorite stories dates back to the late 1990s. I was working on a license application for a charter bus company that transported workers to Area 51. Yes, that Area 51.
As with any repeater system, I needed the coordinates of the communications site. That sounds simple enough until everyone involved becomes reluctant to acknowledge that the location actually exists.
For purposes of this story, we’ll call the site “Skull Mountain.”
After countless phone calls, explanations, and follow-up requests, someone finally provided the latitude and longitude. The mystery location had coordinates after all. Another successful frequency coordination. No aliens were harmed in the process.
Celebs
Occasionally our work puts us in contact with celebrities. To borrow a line from an old television show, the stories are true, but some details have been changed to protect the innocent.
I remember a radio dealer describing one of his well-known clients, whom we’ll simply call “Martial Artist Man.” According to the dealer, visitors entering the actor’s home were greeted by a wall-sized mural of the star’s face.
The height of hubris.
As I listened, my brain drifted toward thoughts of Under Siege, but I made an Executive Decision not to comment.
Other projects took us to places like Skywalker Ranch. For us, however, it was just another license application. In frequency coordination, even the extraordinary eventually becomes routine.
The customers
Over the years we have had the privilege of working with organizations including Netflix, Nintendo, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Amblin Entertainment, Nestlé, Anheuser-Busch, IBM Research & Development, Weyerhaeuser, Rocketdyne, and many others. Every application represented a different challenge, but the objective was always to do the best job we can.
The people I’ve worked with have been every bit as memorable as the clients.
My Mentors
One person who immediately comes to mind is my former boss, Kenton Sturdevant. Learning from Kenton was like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. Knowledge came at you fast, usually accompanied by a hand-drawn diagram and occasionally by something that looked as though it had escaped from a garage workshop.
One morning he arrived carrying a homemade contraption built from two 2x4s arranged in a cross, loops of wire, a tuning control, and a radio mounted in the middle. He demonstrated how the surrounding coils could influence the radio’s tuning characteristics. It looked like a science fair project assembled by a mad scientist, but it worked.
Whenever I had a question about radio theory, Kenton was ready with an explanation, a sketch, or a demonstration. Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to learn from someone with both deep technical knowledge and a genuine passion for sharing it.
Before FIT
Before joining FIT, I worked in television. My career began as an electronic news gathering photographer, technical language for “the guy carrying the camera.”
During one assignment, I found myself among a crowd of reporters waiting for President Bill Clinton to arrive in Eugene. Secret Service agents formed a line between the media and the presidential motorcade.
A cameraman standing nearby announced, rather loudly, “I need a clear shot of the President.”
For reasons that should be obvious, this is not a phrase that tends to inspire confidence among trained protection professionals.
I quietly moved a few steps away.
Eventually I transferred from the newsroom to the engineering department, where I met Joe Brown. Joe and I became lifelong friends. Back then Joe was my supervisor. I later left the local NBC affiliate and joined the FIT team. Joe eventually moved into the cellular industry, but our paths crossed again years later when I had the opportunity to hire him.
That experience reminds me of something I’ve learned over the years: technology changes, regulations change, and businesses change, but relationships endure.
Final Thoughts
Today I am proud of the team we have assembled at FIT. We continue to help organizations navigate the increasingly complex world of spectrum management, just as we have for decades.
The equipment may be different. The regulations may be different. The emission designators are certainly different.
But at its heart, frequency coordination remains what it has always been: helping people communicate.
And occasionally obtaining coordinates for places that officially don’t exist!