Mark J. Colombo, (aka Trip Ericson…a Star-Trek pseudonym) is not only familiar with the spectrum auction, he helped develop the software used for it by the FCC. The FCC was so pleased with it that they awarded Colombo and two of his colleagues the FCC’s Excellence in Engineering Award in 2015. His private company, RabbitEars, has developed the following data and map resources involving the auction and repack.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Columbo has worked with Luken Communications in Chattanooga, TN and in 2013 joined the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) where he was involved with development, maintenance, and support of the TVStudy software used for the auction and repack.
He started RabbitEars as a student at UVA as a static page tracking the DTV transition. “As the years have gone by,” Columbo said, “I’ve slowly added features to it, with the repack tools, released simultaneously with the FCC’s release of the Closing and Channel Reassignment Public Notice, being the newest additions.” The site is operated as a hobby which brings in no money (and as an FCC employee, it can’t), and is hosted at no cost by SatelliteGuys in exchange for the brief mentions of it seen around the site.
Inside Towers readers are invited to use and share these data resources.
May 1, 2017
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