Merry Christmas from Sonifex
Welcome to the December edition of the Oracle with only a few short weeks left until Santa arrives.
On behalf of everyone at Sonifex I’d like to wish you and your families a safe and happy time over the festive season and thank you all for your support over the past 12 months. 2015 has encompassed many highlights for us such as our official rebranding at July’s SMPTE show, but has also been tinged with great sadness at the recent passing of original company founder, John Innes. John’s impact on the broadcast industry was profound and he will be sorely missed.
Around this time of year John was always very keen to reinforce the message of good transmitter site maintenance especially here in Oz where our summer conditions can be quite extreme. In homage to John, I have republished an article he wrote for the Oracle in early 2009.
Thanks again to our valued suppliers and customers for your support during 2015 and we wish you all a prosperous 2016!
Karen Olliver
General Manager
John Innes at SMPTE 2015
Christmas Closure
The Sonifex office will be closed for the Christmas period from 5pm Wednesday 23^rd December 2015 and will reopen on Monday 4^th January 2016.
Best wishes to all for a happy and safe festive season.
ORBAN Optimod-5700FM Digital Audio Processor available for demo now!
Why not start 2016 with a great new sound for your station? Orban’s Optimod-5700FM offers the popular 8500 sound in a compact, cool-running 1U package at a very affordable price. It provides stereo enhancement, equalization, AGC, multiband compression, low-IM peak limiting, stereo encoding, and composite limiting—everything that you need to compete in your market.
More than 20 excellent sounding, format-specific factory presets will get you started on your way to a signature sound for your listeners. For a demo of this world class audio processor, please call (02) 99870499 or email [email protected]
Sonifex is your exclusive ORBAN dealer in Australia
Studio Illuminated Signs
The SignalLED range of illuminated RGB LED signs are a fantastic range of signs designed for outside recording, on-air and production studios, meeting rooms, conference rooms and fixed installations. The sign itself contains the control electronics with RGB LEDs so it can be simply configured onsite for your particular requirements.
Custom signs are available for your company logo, slogan or graphic of choice and can be programmed in a range of 9 different colours. For more product information please click here or call us on 02 9987 0499.
Nautel put to the test!
Nautel’s new NX10 transmitters were recently put through their paces at the Halifax factory by engineers from Broadcast Australia and passed with flying colours. Pictured here are Igor Nedinic and Alan Hubbard from BA with Nautel’s Abdel Alkuor, Adam Middelkoop and design engineer Alex Morash.
Sonifex Product Warranty – Have you registered yet?
Did you know you can extend your warranty on our Sonifex products? Simply register your purchase online (https://www.sonifex.co.uk/technical%2Fregister/index.asp) and your warranty will be extended to 2 years.
New Flashlog 8 Feature
Internet streams can come from anywhere in the world therefore version 8.03 of Flashlog 8 / Flashback 8 allows a time zone to be selected in the stream setup dialog box so that on playback, the displayed date and time use that time zone instead of the logger’s local time.
All of Flashlog’s recordings are timestamped in UTC so the time zone adjustment is made in the player, with any daylight saving automatically applied according to the playback date and time.
Our thanks go to Campbell Swinton at Nova Entertainment for suggesting this feature.
Flashlog and Delay Master Notice
Windows 10 Upgrade to become an Automatic Update
In early 2016 Microsoft intend to make the Windows 10 upgrade a “recommended update” through Windows Update on Windows 7 and 8 systems. If you have a Flashlog 7 (FL7111 or later), Flashlog 8 or Delay Master 7, take heed!
We’re assured the upgrade will prompt for permission before proceeding so you’ll have the chance to opt out (which we recommend), however if you decide to proceed be sure to follow the instructions in our Windows 10 upgrade guide at https://www.sonifex.com.au/?media_dl=8285
It appears that the motherboards used in earlier Flashlog and Delay Master systems don’t meet the upgrade requirements so they should be unaffected.
Nautel NVLT Series Software Update Bulletin
Attention all NVLT Customers
Please be advised
new software has been released for your Nautel NVLT Series Transmitter.
Nautel NVLT Series 4.3.3 contains several improvements including:
* Resolves RDS ALL CAPS when using ASCII over IP or Serial
* Improvements to Mod Loss Timeout Preset functionality
* Improved RF On ramp up alarm masking
*Please review and understand the complete set of instructions prior to beginning your upgrade.
Contribution to The Oracle April 2009 by John S. Innes
Watching Grass Grow
Weather is always a topic of interest, and recent rain is no exception. While we can hardly miss it when floods threaten the studio, the effects at the transmitter site can be overlooked in the excitement. I have seen several AM sites where the grass has grown waist high, and both grass and weeds have grown inside the fence round the antenna mast. When vegetation is high enough to reach the “hot” parts of the antenna and ACU, it can easily be set on fire by the RF. Not only radio stations have the problem; Department of Civil Aviation (when it was called that) lost some Non Directional Beacons through grass fires started this way. Clearing it out, at least round the antenna, is an obvious need, but a lot of work can be saved by measures that stop plants growing in the first place. The gardening department can help, but as anywhere with safety, the price is eternal vigilance.
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