Issue 61 SMARTS Broadcast Systems September 1999
Hi…
Here are a couple of thoughts from the boss.
MAKE SURE YOU TRAIN YOUR STAFF ON THE SMARTCASTER…
Are you the only one at your station that knows how the SMARTCASTER works? Then you are in big trouble. What if you are ill, have a family emergency, or even contemplate a vacation? Please make sure you have at least one backup person at the station who knows where the equipment is located, what your network options are, and how to record, schedule, and play back. Our Support Staff can assist in your absence, but we can NOT train your backup over the phone.
KEEP THE SYSTEM INTEGRITY!
For many years our company has had a firm policy designed to make it possible to help our customers in emergencies. That policy has been to maintain the integrity of our systems in a documentable way so that when you call, we know exactly what unit we are working with and what is inside that unit. Armed with this information we can often shortcut problems and get stations back on the air very quickly.
Our Support Staff has immediate access to a database with all this information, even if you call at 2 am. We want to be sure that the information is entirely accurate and up to date. For this reason we strongly discourage any changes in a SMARTCASTER system that have not been previously approved by SMARTS.
Hard drives are one example. We know the brand and capacity of every hard drive in the thousands of systems that we have sold over the years. Each hard drive has certain characteristics that are not printed any where on the drive itself, but things that must be known if there is a problem. For example some SCSI drives need information on the number of heads, landing zones, sectors, etc. that can only be determined by having the information on hand. When we get an emergency call, if we know the drive we can often bring it alive. However, if there is another brand hard drive in the machine, and we are unfamiliar with it, we can do precious little.
Likewise, we want to be sure that motherboards, audio cards, and other internal components of each unit remain the same. We sometimes run into problems with customers who move additional audio cards from unit to unit, making a record/play/audition out of what used to be a playback only machine. When the machine fails we find our records are not up to date on either unit.
You can help us maintain the integrity of a system by doing the following:
- Do not add any hardware to a SMARTCASTER unit without first talking to our Support Department. We may urge you to let us ship hardware to you. In off air emergencies we will recommend you buy it locally, but then record the changes in our database.
- Do not change hardware in any unit without first talking to Support. If you need to change capabilities of the system, we can talk you through the process and help you avoid pitfalls.
- Do not move a unit from one station to another, or one location to another without informing Support. Normally this does not present a problem but we need to track that unit under different call letters once it has been moved.
- Do not add additional nodes to a Smartcaster LAN network, or additional data port switching to remote record units without calling Support first.
- If you sell the Smartcaster, please call Support to inform us who bought it so we can change our records.
- If you buy a used Smartcaster from another station, please call us right away to tell us who you bought it from.
Our intention has never been to force you to purchase from us, but rather to retain the system integrity that is vital to our support operation. Smartcasters are critical pieces of broadcast equipment and need to be treated differently than an off-the-shelf computer system. By keeping it all together we both benefit.
John Schad
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OFFICE: 800-747-6278 SUPPORT: 800-765-2930
SALES: 800-498-0487 E-MAIL: support@smartsbroadcast.com
WEBSITE: http://www.smartsbroadcast.com |