We thought our readers/viewers might like to learn about some of the folks that work at IdahoPTV. Because there are so many people who work behind the scenes, you may have seen some of them, or maybe only heard about them. Today we would like to introduce Chief Engineer, Andy Miles.
IdahoPTV’s Carol Beres sat down recently with Andy. “I am essentially the one that manages all operations on air at the station; all the operators which control all seven channels on air, and three of our engineers who do maintenance, upgrades and changes throughout the station.” When things go awry, Andy leads the team that keeps us running on the air. “As problems arise, and/or things fail, or servers crash, we find out where the problem is, address what the problem is, what crashed, or if there is a problem and fix it.”
Andy grew up in Boise. “I grew up watching PBS as a kid.” He earned his degree at Boise State University in broadcast engineering. “I graduated in 2010, and I got really lucky. Roughly a year later I landed a job as an engineer. I had been working here part-time as an operator for the (Idaho) Statehouse…and an engineer had just retired, and they were talking about trying to find someone to fill in…and I piped up and said ‘Hi! I have a broadcast engineering degree.’ And they said, ‘Wait! What? Let’s chat.’ I was brought on part-time because it was during our Festival events and they needed more people. And they needed them quickly because we were still live in the morning and at night. I stepped in as an engineer for two weeks to fill in and eventually landed the job.” And about seven months ago, Andy was promoted to chief engineer.
In his hobbies, Andy doesn’t stray too far from his job. “Primarily electronics. Computers. I build my own computers. I’ve done it ever since junior high,” he says. “It’s been a little hobby of mine for many years and I’m actually in the process of doing another one now.” And when he and his family and friends build a new computer, they don’t build the typical computer with a noisy fan to keep it cool. “We do water cooling in the computer. So we set up all these little pipes that go to all the hot components, and then they all connect to a radiator with fans on it. The radiator cools the water, then the water returns and hits the component, pulls the heat off of it and goes back to the radiator. It’s a giant water pump system inside the computer.”
He’s also a fan of card and board games, such as Magic: The Gathering. And in a “normal” year, Andy and his dad will go camping or ATV riding in the mountains. “When I was in high school, I went on a hiking trip with my dad,” he remembers. “We started a couple of miles outside of Boise…and it took a week to hike to the Seven Devils (Mountains). We camped there for three or four days, and then took a week to hike back.” He says they walked ten to fifteen miles a day and then made camp every night. “There’s a couple switchbacks that are quite hard,” Andy says. “There’s one of them called ‘Heartbreak Hill’. They call it that because it takes 10 hours to get up the hill. There’s 20 switchbacks as you climb the side of the mountain.”
In the snack area, Andy likes M&Ms. “They’re my favorite thing in the world.” He goes back and forth between Elmo and Cookie Monster as his favorite PBS Kids character. Andy remembers watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood all the time. He remembers the train scene in that show, another favorite hobby. And his favorite part of the Gem State is Boise. “Mainly because there’s a lot of stuff in this valley…Boise is the one city that’s different from the rest. We have all the big city toys, but we’re not a real big city… a lot of smaller cities don’t have event centers, or sports arenas and stuff like that, and we do, which is different from normal. So we can do a lot of the big city stuff in this smaller city, which is super fun.”