We've done our share of studio workarounds for talent. But an "alarm clock" for the morning guy? We had no idea our WheatNet-IP system was being used for that.
Greg Manfroi, the CE for WUIS-FM in Springfield, Illinois, said he was asked by management to come up with a solution for the new morning talent who was having a difficult time adjusting to his early sunrise schedule. The public station's automation is programmed to stay with the NPR overnight feed until the morning guy arrives in the wee hours of the morning – if, in fact, he arrives at the appointed hour. A no-show could be a big problem.
So, Greg decided to set off an alarm using WheatNet-IP scripting that could alert staff should the new guy hit the snooze button one too many times. A remote control dials out to the home phone of the morning host followed by the home phone of the news director. To make this happen, Greg found an old dial-up remote control switch and through custom scripting he developed himself using our tools, is now monitoring the WheatNet-IP audio feed from the news studio to the air studio. When it doesn't "see" the feed between the two studios within a certain window of time, the remote control closes a relay that then activates a logic command (if/then) in one of the station's WheatNet-IP BLADEs (or nodes). He programmed the BLADE logic so that the remote control dials out with a recorded message that the morning host has not shown up yet.
Greg is probably one of our more advanced users, so his creative use of his WheatNet-IP system shouldn't surprise us. He recently set up a remote studio in the Illinois Capitol Bureau building using just two SideBoard turret surfaces and a WheatNet-IP BLADE. As our WheatNet-IP fans know, the SideBoard is a small rackmount or turret-sized console with just the basics -- a few faders and buttons and some metering and monitoring (it's small, that's why we call it a SideBoard). Greg swapped out full-size boards with these for a new team of reporters who wanted more desk space in their studio at the state capitol. He used scripting to control which SideBoard would feed the phone hybrids and the ISDN link from the state capitol to the home studio, and he used scripting again to add program and audition to the SideBoards so that the reporters would have all the functions they needed and still get more of an office feel in their new studio.
With that kind of attention to talent, we bet Greg has a lot of friends at the station.