I neglect this website, and I know it. I always say to myself that I’ll post more and do my best. I never do. TV keeps you busy and when you’re not busy, you’re resting from being busy.

I have left my job at the Irish Parliament television station for that of a bigger fish, the national broadcaster. Currently I work in the network monitoring centre where I deal with the number of transmitters. My role has given me a different system and circuit that I can learn from and gain insight to. I think the more informed anyone is, the better. My work in at the Oireachtas has given me so much insight into how a television station operates. Over the past 4 years I also worked on a number on Outside Broadcasts, in different trucks for different companies. Learning how things are done with each so that when I am planning a media system or setup that I have already seen very efficient (or sometimes incredibly inefficient) setups.

Though my last job did involve working irregular shifts, the job here is completely shift based. Meaning I either work an early, a late or a long shift. Long shifts are fine when you learn how to approach them correctly.

As I said before, I deal mainly with transmitters. They mostly connect to one another via microwave signals, and broadcast on the designated Digital Terrestrial Television channels allocated for that purpose. I’ve found a whole lot of interesting content here in audio-video form which suits me best because nothing beats having visuals to explain a technical point.

A major part of my job is health and safety. Before starting I had limited knowledge of transmitters, other than the small FM one I had in my car. Soon after starting here I learned that very high powered transmitters can emit so much energy that at a short range they can be incredibly dangerous and create an NIR hazard (Non-Ionizing Radiation). I read the schematics of our transmitters and read whether or not it will be dangerous for engineers to undertake certain jobs.

I’m doing my best to become more productive and on-target. I’m failing, a whole lot, but what I’ve come to try now is to target some things and make them part of my routine and slowly add more one by one.

I am SOO sidetracked but obviously if anyone does read this then ask a question. The point of explaining my production method was to say that now soon I will factor in this site on my list of things to stay on top of and hopefully you’ll be getting more from me. If there’s anything anyone who is interesting in how television works, in starting to work in TV and media but hasn’t a clue what they’re doing, or are in the profession but have a question. I think you’ll be able to comment somewhere?? Or just tweet me @James_McKenna