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Broadcast Engineering and the Anchor Trap With the world of broadcast television relying so heavily on new technology to remain competitive, broadcast engineers find themselves continuously facing unfamiliar problems. These problems are most evident in the acquisition of newer equipment or new equipment to them. The resulting search for knowledge about this equipment can easily cause an engineer to accept the reasoning of another without further inquiries and/or testing. Thus, the anchor trap has been set. Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (1998), describe the anchor trap as, “when considering a decision, the mind gives disproportionate weight to the first information it receives. Initial impressions, estimates, or data anchor subsequent thought and judgments.” Although this concept of influenced decision making can be applied to almost every thing we do, I have realized that it can be found in my profession in abundance. This week for me has consisted of repairing my one kilowatt analog transmitter. Up to this point, this transmitter has been plagued with multiple problems that have required more knowledge for its repair than I possess. A total of three field engineers have been flown in to assist in the repair of this transmitter. It has been said the third time is the charm, and in the case of this transmitter, it is true. The first engineer that was flown in had more than 15 years of transmitter repair experience. He was originally from France and works as a freelance transmitter installer/repairer. He was also known to be experienced with the company that manufactured the transmitter. I expected to gain a deep insight of this transmitter from this engineer.
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