Issue 58	SMARTS Broadcast Systems	      June  1999

Hello, School is out, or in its last days. Remind your listeners to watch for kids at play. We want them to have a good summer. TRAINING We have a change in the training session coming up in July. If you want to brush up on your skills, or learn some of the finer details of the SMARTCASTER, this is the session to attend. Due to the amount of information, the class has been expanded by one day compared to previous classes. We will have a three day class, now held the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd in Emmetsburg. The fee is $150 per person, with $50 of that being a registration fee, which is due by July 1st. Individuals are responsible for their own meals and lodging. A minimum of four must be registered for the class to be held. Remember, this is the Operator training, and not the Engineering class. That session will be held later in the year. PROBLEMS? Our Support Line and service are there to assist you. If you run into a problem or are planning to make a change, give us a call to talk it over. If it is a problem, we can help you overcome it. If it is a change, we can help you determine if it is possible and show you any shortcuts we may know. I mention this because we recently became aware of a station that had a problem and made major, major changes. We ended up helping them make corrections and get the system working again. A couple of minutes on the phone can sas. TRAFFIC I also heard recently of a station where they put all of their logs in by hand. That means someone spends an enormous amount of time keying in each of the hundreds of five digit numbers. And takes a chance at getting some of them wrong. Let me remind you that if you already have an office system that generates the log, an interface may be purchased that will allow a quick and efficient transfer. If you don't have an office system, we do. Talk to your SMARTS Broadcast Systems Salesperson about making your operation even more efficient. BREAKLOG This ties in with the above paragraph. We are running into more and more stations who are loading their Breaklog the same day as it runs. Doing so means that the computer is trying to copy a file that it already has open. Not a good thing. We recommend that the operator change days to some other day before transferring the log for today. Once the transfer is complete, change the log day back to today. A couple of extra steps to do this will save you the hassle of being off the air. Y2K We remind you to do the Y2K test if you haven't already. The clock is ticking and we want to be as prepared as possible for the end of the year and century. We will be sending out a computer program to help each station convert their end dates from 12/30/99 to a date on the other side of the millennium. We hope to send that program out sometime during the summer. MOTTO Do you remember Avis' old motto? "We try harder." The Support Department at SMARTS Broadcast Systems does, too. When someone calls for support, but gives us an improper phone number, we go out of our way to call them back. First, we call the number they gave us to be sure that we can't get through. Then we check the database to see if there are any different numbers listed. Then we check the log for other possible numbers. After that, we go to the paper files that contain the original contract. Most of the time, we can get through because of our own ingenuity and perseverance. Sometimes we are thwarted. Please remind your staff to use a valid phone number when calling for help. That number should be one that someone will see and pick up, and won't go into voicemail. While the next time someone checks the voicemail they will find out that we called, it won't help the person on the air with the problem. We need to be able to get through to the person working with the SMARTCASTER. Doug Burton

     OFFICE: 800-747-6278	     SUPPORT: 800-765-2930       
       SALES: 800-498-0487             E-MAIL: support@smartsbroadcast.com
				 WEBSITE: http://www.smartsbroadcast.com