Who: Mike Pappas
From: Orban Labs
What: Why Worry About Your Air Chain?
When: July 8, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Where: Capitol Airspace Group – Register Here
Address: 6350 Walker Lane, Suite 450
Alexandria, VA 22310 United States
Sponsors: Orban Labs and Capitol Airspace Group

Over the past several years, Mike Pappas, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Orban Labs has reviewed numerous AM and FM air chains, in large and small markets, and has found a plethora of problems. Not only do these problems negatively impact audio quality, they can also affect Nielsen PPM encodability!

Air chains inevitably degrade over time, and there are many reasons. Equipment, formats, and other conditions change. Analog to digital conversions (or digital to analog) happen. "Stuff" may have been added to the air chain over the years, and an engineer might not even be aware of its existence.

PPM encoding and EAS may have been inserted in less-than-ideal locations, and there’s also the issue of mic processing, mic selection and, of course, board operators. "But," you say, "the air chain is working, so why should I worry about it?"

Mike's found some interesting problems over the years, and many are quite humorous. This talk will address locating the problems, planning to resolve the problems and the actual resolution.

Mike Pappas’ technical experience spans several decades, including roles in broadcast engineering, government communications, and railway communications. Mike joined DaySequerra in 2015 as VP of Business Development and has assisted this forward-thinking and progressive company in the development of new products, new markets and new business opportunities. In 2016, DaySequerra acquired Orban Labs, Inc., one of the broadcast industry’s best-known names in audio processing. Mike has been heavily involved in Orban Labs since the acquisition, helping to steer the development and market opportunities for a dozen new products. He has installed all of Orban’s beta sites for the new XPN-AM audio processor, and has developed specialized field testing methodology for MDCL operations at different AMC levels. Mike is proud to be part of this revitalization of Orban as it again leads the way in audio processing for radio, TV and Internet streaming. He was recently promoted to Senior Vice President of Global Sales.

TO REGISTER:
Regardless of if you wish to attend in person or virtually via Zoom, please Register Here so that we can estimate how much food is needed for the meeting. Doors at Capitol Airspace Group will open at 6:00 pm for a light dinner (courtesy Orban Labs), followed by chapter business at 6:45 pm and presentation at 7:00.

Special thanks to the folks at Capitol Airspace Group for the use of their facilities, and keeping the lights and HVAC running for us!