The Minnesota Broadcasters Association, North Dakota Broadcasters Association and South Dakota Broadcasters Association bring you the Heartland Media Conference. The conference will look at ways to innovate, provide opportunities to collaborate with others and celebrate the successes of the radio and TV stations serving the Heartland of Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Location
Radisson Blu201 5th St. N.Fargo, ND 58102
Timing
Timing and Speakers Subject to Change.
Tuesday, May 5th, 2026
12:00 PM
Registration, Vendors Open
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Sessions for Engineers in partnership with SBE with speakers: John George of Broadtech Services Inc., Mike Pappas of Orban and Fred Baumgartner on "Calculating Reliability"
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Fred Baumgartner, “Retired” Broadcast Engineer
Calculating Reliability for Broadcast Engineers
No one wants down time. But highly reliable systems come at a cost and that cost is driven by design and environment. We can calculate the reliability of a system with some simple mathematics.
When you propose a project or expense that is meant to reduce down time, it often is useful to present this as competing costs – the cost of doing nothing versus the cost of investing in reliability – and the cost of down time. What does it mean to have 5-nines (99.999%) of availability versus 2-nines (99%)? A big part of broadcast engineering is keeping things running. This is how to calculate the return on investment for various design approaches. Your gut feeling might be far from reality for some subtle and not very obvious reasons. Never again will you have to pull a number out of the air or guess -- you will be able to support your decisions with real numbers.
This is a skill and a mindset that every broadcast engineer can benefit from. And the rules are few and the math fairly basic.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Mike Pappas, Field Engineer and VP of Business Development, Orban
Why Worry About Your Air Chain
Over the past several years, I have reviewed AM and FM air chains, in large and small markets, and have found a plethora of problems. Not only do these problems negatively impact audio quality, they can 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 you 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? After all, I have other things to worry about.” Well, what if your station’s audio sounds bad? Have you listened to it carefully?
I’ve found some interesting problems over the years, and many are quite humorous. This talk will address:
1. How the problems were located
2. How a course of action was developed to resolve the problems
3. The actual resolutions to the problems
4. The result
Additionally, this talk will cover air chain “best practices” as well as “processing 101.”
It's time to hear from the vendors! The leadership side of the industry is from a vendors perspective is a really interesting topic one you start looking from if from both the inside and outside of the top four or five markets. For example, DOE in major radio markets like LA can pretty much do as they please. Those same groups in Gainesville have a completely different role. Hear how vendors deal with each of these markets in quite a different way.
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
John George, Broadtech Services, Inc.
FCC Compliance for your Broadcast Facility
The presentation will focus on John’s years of experience as a broadcast engineer and ABIP Inspector. He will review the easy mistakes made in FCC filings and required record keeping for the broadcast facility, including EAS, tower lighting and the documents one should have at their studio and transmitter sites.
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Welcome Reception at Blu Bar at Radisson Blu
Wednesday, May 6th, 2026
7:30 AM - 9:00 AM
Registration, Breakfast, Vendors Open
9:00 AM - 9:45 AM
Broadcasters Policy and Updates from Capitol Hill -- A Fireside Chat
Curtis LeGeyt President & CEONational Association of Broadcasters
Nic AndersonVice President of Government AffairsSalem Media Group
9:45 AM - 10:30 AM
How AI is Reshaping the Future of Broadcasting
Erin Callaghan President of Enterprise PartnershipsFuturi
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Break
10:45 AM - 11:30 AM
FCC Compliance and Updates
David Oxenford Wilkinson|Barker|Knauer
John GeorgeBroadtech Services
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Minnesota National Guard and Department of Veterans Affairs
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
Keynote Session: Overcoming adversity and mental mindset (no bad days)
Growing up in rural North Dakota, Hunter Pinke spent his childhood summers working at his family’s lumberyard and on his grandparent’s grain farm. After graduating high school in his class of 18 students, he ventured to the University of North Dakota where he played as a tight end in 34 football games. Following his junior season, he suffered a spinal cord injury in a downhill skiing accident, leaving him as a chest-down paraplegic. Pinke finished his college football career as a team captain, on the sidelines in his wheelchair and earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He went on to play three seasons of collegiate wheelchair basketball at the University of Arizona, where the Wildcats were national runner-up two consecutive seasons with Pinke as team captain. Pinke earned second-team academic All-American honors and his graduate degree in real estate development. Today, Hunter Pinke resides in his native rural North Dakota, working in his passions of residential construction, family farming, and is a keynote speaker across North America, delivering messages of finding the joy in every day and living a life with no bad days.
Hunter PinkeKeynote Speaker
1:45 PM - 2:00 PM
What Elite Sellers do to Get Noticed in 2026
Jeff SchmidtSenior VP of Professional DevelopmentRAB
Hotel Room Block
$161/night + taxes and fees
Click Here to book a room.
The deadline to book a room in the room block is April 10th, 2026.
THANK YOU SPONSORS!
Sponsorship and Vendors
Interested in sponsoring or becoming a vendor? Reach out to Rosanne.Rybak@minnesotabroadcasters.com.
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