In today's Study With Steph episode, Jay Rogina from Spinitar jumps on a call with me because we are talking about site surveys! If you consider yourself a good integrator, you'll know the importance of a job site evaluation and what can go wrong if the evaluation is done the wrong way. Jay walks me through safety protocol, interpreting different plans and more. Enjoy!



Let's talk about gathering customer information. It's an important part of specifying any room — you have to know what the customer needs. Of course, gathering info requires a certain level of communication. What are the best ways to communicate with a customer or client? What questions do you ask to properly find out what the customer needs from the space and from the technology? How has COVID-19 affected these conversations and meetings?

I invited my new friend Jeremy Caldera, senior vice president of Pearl Technology, to chat with me and answer the above questions. This episode is helpful if you need some real-life examples to go with Chapter 11 in AVIXA's CTS Exam Guide, or if you just want to brush up on tips for communication and executive-summary making.

Enjoy!



In the latest episode of Study With Steph, I invite Pete Putman (just in time apparently since he announced his retirement the week after we recorded) to chat with me about wireless radio systems. As you may have learned from Gary Kayye’s Rants & rAVes episode, Pete has had a long and fruitful career in the AV industry, but he got his start in radio! (He even got kicked out of college for it …… kind of. More on that in the episode.) Pete helps me learn about transmitting and receiving waves, allocation of frequencies and all about antennas and why different types matter.

If you’re someone who’s interested in this subject and wants to learn more about having fun with antennas ..... antennae??? (the CTS Exam Guide doesn’t go super in depth about this subject), I’ve also included the YouTube video he references. Check it out and enjoy this episode!



*Lizzo voice*: Y'all been waiting for this one!

Every time I've asked someone for study tips for the CTS test, the first thing I've heard is "learn Ohm's law." So, being the physics-averted person I am, I avoided it like the plague for as long as possible. But I'm back. I'm ready to learn. Jim Maltese from Level 3 Audiovisual was kind enough to join me in this episode (he's also teaching a CTS-D prep course at InfoComm this year). So without further ado: Let's learn about electrical systems and Ohm's law; it's not as scary as it looks!



P.S. If you're still having trouble with Ohm's law after checking out this episode, check out Tom Kehr's recent article. I also found it to be a tremendous help!

Control systems — they’re such a mystery to me. What are they about? What can they do? What do they want?

Steve Greenblatt of Control Concepts, Inc. sits down with me to discuss just that.

So — if you need help studying: commands versus functions, how a CPU communicates, types of control systems, etc. this is your episode!

And — yes, my shirt does say “millennial trash,” thank you for asking.

P.S. Giveaway alert! We’re giving away 50 special “Study With Steph” T-shirts. If you’d like one, fill out this form! Thank you for listening and — as always — send me your questions about any portion, send me your ideas for future guests and let me know how I can continue to help you study for the CTS exam!

It's time to talk about the way we connect. No, not with one another. I'm talking cables and the things at each end you use to plug them into stuff. If you've ever wondered what a Phoenix connector is, why wires and cables are NOT interchangeable terms and why building an AV rack the proper way will save you in the future, this episode is for you. My new friend Hope Roth joins me this week to help me get all this straight — and to show me that I knew a lot more of this than I thought I did.

Also, somewhat unrelated, but I was accepted into the "AV Install Nightmares" Facebook group, so I will be relating everything to posts from that from now on. Thank you and enjoy.

In today’s episode of Study With Steph, I catch up with my pal, Justin Kennington, to help me with networks. We answer the following questions: What is a network? Why does topology matter? What the heck is up with Ethernet (I previously thought it was just a cable. It is not just a cable.)

For clarification purposes, I’ll note that Justin doesn’t have a CTS certification, but I thought he would be the perfect person to walk me through this chapter because he’s 1) funny 2) way smart and 3) a blast to talk to. Enjoy us going over networks between fits of laughter, #AVtweeps!

As promised, below you can check out a picture of the Open Systems Interconnection model. We touch on this a few different times, so feel free to follow along using this. The OSI model is also mentioned in Chapter Six of the CTS Exam Study Guide, so feel free to follow along there as well.

"File:Tun-tap-osilayers-diagram.png" by Ikluft is licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0.

If you have read the entire networks chapter and still need a little help conceptualizing the concepts, Justin recommends checking out the SDVoE Academy and logging into a few of the courses there. (I have an account and can agree that the courses are pretty helpful!) Check that out here.

I took a few weeks to rearrange my episode structure, and now I am back here with all of you — and I am ready to learn! If you're still following the CTS Exam Guide, I'm so sorry that the chapters no longer match the episode numbers. I will let you know we are still on Chapter 5 — I just thought it would make sense to split them into an episode only on light and an episode specifically on video.

That was my long-winded way of saying welcome to the episode on video! I invited my new friend Karl Rosenberg on with me, and he is just the dude for the job (as the mid-Atlantic regional application specialist for Extron and with 32 years in our industry — y'all can rest assured he knows his stuff).

Karl also conducts Extron training in both the U.S. and abroad — and he's taught technical courses at almost every stateside trade show you can think of. Buckle up, #AVtweeps. This is a fun one.



Now that I have some extra time to study for the CTS exam, I decided to take my time with this next section. Instead of hopping right into understanding video systems, I invited Sony Electronics Professional’s Chrissy Sara to discuss some concepts of light with me.

As it happens, light works similarly to sound! Chrissy and I discuss the similar concepts and some ways of keeping all the facts straight. She also helps me delve into a few *physics* concepts.

So, if you need a little help with the video section of the exam, this is a great place to start!

P.S. Chrissy and I are loosely following the beginning of Chapter 5 in the CTS Exam Guide (Third Edition.)

P.P.S. The next episode will cover more specific video systems concepts — so if you're looking for that, join me next time!



In case you live under a rock and didn't know, AVIXA has postponed InfoComm 2021 to Oct. 27-29. This news was a big sigh of relief for many in our industry because there is no way that Integrated Systems Europe and InfoComm in the same month was going to be easy for anyone.

This week is LAVNCH WEEK 3.0 (It's happening! Everybody stay calm!), so Gary Kayye sat down with me for a short podcast so we could discuss how the InfoComm decision will affect Study With Steph.

TL;DR I am still taking the test at InfoComm, and I am eternally grateful for the extra months I will have to study. Plus, the postponement allows me to break up some of the longer/more challenging chapters, enables me to add in fun opportunities for prizes and some other cool stuff.

Buckle up, #AVtweeps. We're just getting started!

This week, it’s the subject many of you have been dreading: audio. I (very stupidly) thought this would be one of my best subjects — and I now know how much physics goes into understanding sound. I invited AVIXA’s Chuck Espinoza on with me this week to talk about sound propagation, acoustics and more — and it was so much fun! Big thanks to him for taking the time to chat with me and giving me multiple examples for each question I had.

So, sit back, relax and let’s talk about ~sound~.

If you want to follow along in your CTS Exam Guide, we are discussing Chapter 4. 

As per usual, you can subscribe for Study With Steph email alerts here, and you can watch the videocast on rAVe’s website and on YouTube — or you can listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

P.S. If you are still having trouble with the audio section (even after this), AVIXA has some videos that detail this subject as well, like Chuck mentioned.

Hello #AVtweeps, this week's podcast is a support group for any of you who have ever had trouble understanding the difference between analog and digital signals. Or, alternatively, if you understand the difference by concept but not by much of anything else. Tom Kehr, systems designer and trainer at Almo Pro A/V, was kind and patient enough to spend the time walking me through this. He jumps right in with a presentation, so you may find the video component slightly more helpful than the audio this week! Tom and I go over the differences between these two signals, and he walks me through the part I was least looking forward to for this lesson — the calculations.

So, if you have found you need a little help with bit rate, bit depth and signal compression during your CTS studies — this episode is for you!

As always, you can subscribe for Study With Steph email alerts here, and you can watch the videocast on rAVe’s website and on YouTube — or you can listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.



Welcome to episode 2 of Study With Steph! This one goes out to all my homies who have decided they want to take the CTS exam — but then get confused about what to expect of the test and what is expected of you. In this episode, I met up with two of AVIXA’s be Greg Bronson, technical adviser and Justin Watts, CTS certification program steering committee member. They both had great advice about how to make sure you are in tip-top shape when it comes to exam day.

In this episode, we discuss the “CTS Certified Technology Specialist Exam Guide, Third Edition” (we are loosely following Chapter 2) and the AVIXA CTS Candidate Handbook. In the handbook, you’ll find most of what we talked about, but you can also find that information on AVIXA’s CTS microsite.

As always, you can subscribe for Study With Steph email alerts here, and you can watch the YouTube version below or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Hey everybody! Welcome to the very first episode of Study With Steph. In case you haven’t heard, I am on a mission to become a Certified Technology Specialist. Word on the street is — it’s no easy feat. But that’s what I’m here for! I am taking a look at a test subject per episode with some help from others in the industry — so I can knock this exam out of the park and help you to do the same.

Last month, Gary Kayye was kind enough to invite me on Rants & rAVes to discuss this new endeavor — so I figured I’d return the favor by making him my first victim/guest. In this episode, we’re talking about why the heck I decided to do this to myself and why you should too. So, if you’re on the fence about taking the plunge with me at InfoComm 2021, I hope this episode will convince you otherwise!

We are loosely following Chapter 1 of the “CTS Certified Technology Specialist Exam Guide, Third Edition.” Follow along if you’d like!

*A note: In this podcast, Gary mentions that when you take the CTS exam, you only have to pay if you pass. The actual rule is that you pay the fee the first time when you schedule your test. If you fail the first time, you are allowed up to two retests. You do have to pay a retesting fee each time. However, the retesting fee is smaller than the initial testing fee. After two retest attempts — you have to wait 90 days and completely start the application process over. I've attached a copy of the fee schedule below for your reference and will be mentioning this in my next episode. The rest of the test rules can be found in the AVIXA CTS Candidate Handbook.

rAVe’s own Steph Beckett joined Gary on his latest videocast to talk about an all-new podcast logically titled: Study With Steph. Steph’s been in AV for a few years now, and Gary challenged her to get her AVIXA CTS certification. Well, challenge accepted. But, since Steph never does anything alone, she’s taking you along on her CTS journey — so any and all AV’ers (who want to get their CTS too) can listen to her weekly Study With Steph podcast coming your way in January 2021. And, it’ll all culminate in a “Stephception” at InfoComm 2021 where Steph and all her CTS study buddies will take the CTS test together (and drink wine, too). Listen and watch to see how you can participate in Study With Steph!