Issue 63		SMARTS Broadcast Systems	    November  1999

Ah, fall. What a beautiful time of the year. In the month of Thanksgiving, there is so much to be thankful for. Family, friends, etc. Another thing I am thankful for is that the end of the century only comes once every 100 years. Y2K While it will be a wild celebration due to the end of one century and the beginning of another, it is also possible that it will be a time of pain and agony for those who did not look ahead and prepare. Making sure you have our latest software and have done the Date Conversion will allow you to attend that New Years' Eve party rather than keeping vigil near your SMARTCASTER as it rolls over midnight. Those who have not done the Date Conversion will find their lives interrupted when the clock rolls over to 12:01 on 12-31-99 and all of their TFN spots dated 12-30-99 are listed as outdated. Yes, they can be changed by hand one at a time through the Edit feature in the Record Screen. But why would you give yourself extra work when we can change the date on hundreds of cuts IN SECONDS through the Date Conversion? Thousands of disks have been sent out to help all of our clients cross over into the new year. Follow the instructions included in the packet or call the Support Line to receive assistance in installing these disks. Obviously, the sooner you do this, the better off you will be. ONE MORE TIME Imagine that suddenly none of your audio will play from the SMARTCASTER. No commercials, no actualities, no jingles, no I.D.'s, no music. Would your station be in trouble? The system will see all of your material as outdated on 12-31-99. The new software allows the system to use dates into the new year and the Date Conversion allows all of your TFN dates to be converted to a date in the new century in one operation. AND If you put the software in yourself, please take just a moment to call the Support Line and let us know you're done, so that we may update our records. OPTIMIZE I haven't given this sermon in some time, so it is time to preach it again. Many stations optimize on a regular basis to maintain the integrity of their systems. Some have no idea what Optimization is. For those individuals, recording and deleting audio from the hard drive causes gaps in the files stored on the drive. Gaps can eventually be heard in the audio on the air as the disk head races from place to place in an effort to play all of the parts of the fragmented file. Sometimes the audio will just stop altogether. Optimization or Defragging will cause all of the scattered parts of an audio file to be stored back-to-back so that the disk head doesn't have to go far to find the next part of the file. If your station has not been Optimizing, now is a good time to start. Call the Support Line for details. A FAVOR? Would you do me a favor? We have noticed through some of the phone calls that we receive, that some station operators NEVER see the newsletter. Please do me a favor. When you are done reading this letter, would you physically hand this sheet to another staff member in the station and ask them to read it? I know this won't help in the station where NO ONE reads the letter, but in your station, at least one more person will pick up some information on the SMARTCASTER. And, would you ask around to see where past issues to the newsletter are kept? This way, if they still exist, they can be used as a reference library of information for staff questions. Thank you. Doug Burton

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