KH6HTV VIDEO was founded in the summer of 2011 by Jim Andrews, KH6HTV. Jim is an experienced, Extra Class, amateur TV veteran with over 45 years in ham TV. Over the years, he has designed and built many different ham TV transmitters and TV repeaters.   He is the trustee for the Boulder, Colorado TV repeater, W0BTV.

In 2010, Jim’s  TV transmitter, the model 70-1, generated a lot of interest in the local Boulder ham club, BARC. The transmitter was fully synthsized and produced a 10 Watt, pure VUSB-TV signal. The transmitter was used in the W0BCR-TV repeater. Several units were used by the Boulder ARES in Sept. 2010, assisting fighting the worst forest fire in Boulder’s history. After the fire, several members of BARC asked Jim to build transmitters for them. After making a dozen of the model 70-1, Jim realized that there is a definite market for amateur TV transmitters. Thus, the idea was born to start KH6HTV VIDEO.

The model 70-1 is now obsolete. A key, critical, semiconductor amplifier component had been discontinued and was no longer available. About this same time, Jim became interested in high-definition, digital TV, using CATV QAM. As research continued to find a suitable replacement amplifier component for the VUSB transmitter, studies of DTV showed that ultra-linear amplifiers were needed for DTV.  A line of 70cm, 33cm and 23cm RF Linear Amplifiers resulted which were capable of operation in either digital or analog TV transmitters.    In 2014, Jim  discontinued CATV QAM in favor of the European digital broadcast standard, DVB-T for high-definition DTV.   Jim has published a couple of articles in  QST on DVB-T.   ( dvb-t-qst-june2015  ) ( DATV Rprtr QST Sept 2019 )

Jim’s background is technically based. He holds the B.S., M.S. & Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. In 1980, he founded Picosecond Pulse Labs (PSPL) and served as the chief design engineer and president for twenty years. Jim retired from PSPL in 2001 and turned over the reins of the company to his oldest son, Scott. PSPL was a dynamic, high-tech company producing ultra-fast risetime (5 ps) and ultra-high bit rate (40 GB/s) pulse and pattern generators and bit error rate detectors, 100GHz sampling oscilloscope, plus a line of ultra-broadband (kHz to > 50GHz) coaxial components, including amplifiers and bias tees.    In January, 2014, PSPL was sold to Tektronix.

In retirement, Jim and his wife, Janet, live in Boulder, Colorado.  Jim is a active member of  the Boulder amateur radio club.   He has been active in the Boulder ARES (BCARES) for over 45 years.    He has served as a volunteer, video technician for 18 years with the Boulder Sheriff’s SWAT team.  Additional details about Jim’s ham career can be found on http://www.qrz.com — kh6htv.

Rev  20 April 2019, kh6htv