The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) awarded its NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award for 2013 to Jay Adrick, K8CJY, at NAB Show in Las Vegas. Established in 1959, the peer-nominated NAB Engineering Achievement Awards are given for significant contributions to advancing broadcast engineering. Adrick, an ARRL Life Member from Cincinnati, Ohio, retired earlier this year from the Harris Corporation where he was Vice President of Broadcast Technology in the company’s CTO Group. Prior to beginning his career with Harris, Adrick taught Broadcast Communications at Ohio’s Xavier University and was Director of its Radio/TV program. He also served as an engineer and design consultant to radio and TV stations in several Ohio markets. 

In the early 1990s, Adrick was instrumental in the conversion to digital television, and to the Harris/PBS DTV Express mobile demonstration system. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC) Board of Directors and chaired its Open Mobile Video Coalition Mobile DTV Forum. Adrick also led the ATSC’s development of a mobile emergency alerting system (M-EAS) for mobile digital TV, a system that is now used at more than 150 broadcast stations in the US, Canada, Bermuda and Mexico. He has also led technical teams on broadcast system implementations around the world and has participated in the educational efforts of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the NAB.

In addition to his roles at Harris and the ATSC, Adrick served as the Chief Technical Architect for the rebuilding of the broadcast networks in Iraq as part of the Iraqi Media Network. He has also served on the FCC’s Media Security and Recovery Council, helping to provide input regarding how to best protect communication integrity during natural disasters and attacks.

“His unceasing enthusiasm toward broadcasting is often cited as a unifying force that has provided significant contribution to many collaborative industry efforts,” noted Radio, a leading trade publication.

Adrick -- an active ham since becoming K8CJY in 1961 -- got started on VHF/UHF, beginning with AM and later weak signal SSB and some ATV on 439.25MHz. Beginning in the late 1980s, he became interested in HF operating, especially on 160, 75 and 40 meters, but also 20, 17, 10 and 6 meters. Adrick enjoys SSB, RTTY, AM, SSTV and PSK-31, and has recently been experimenting with a ham radio version of DRM.