Burk -vs- Sine Systems

[zach_morton]

Anyone using Sine Systems remote controls? I used to be at a station that had the ARC-16s from Burk with Autopilot, and it was a blast to set up and make work. Sine Systems seems to be a bit more difficult to setup.

 

[callfm]

We use a Sine Systems unit and it works great (has for more than 7 years). It's simple and straight forward to use with the help of the manual. They also include some handy circuit designs in their documentation for things like an "loss of audio" alarm that you can build for less than $5 and connect to the unit.

 

[zach_morton]

Great...I'm using the older firmware and software, so an upgrade is in order for sure. I'm also looking at a way to automatically log the transmitters. Any thoughts?

 

[ElCheapo]

Anyone using Sine Systems remote controls? I used to be at a station that had the ARC-16s from Burk with Autopilot, and it was a blast to set up and make work. Sine Systems seems to be a bit more difficult to setup.

The Sine Systems boxes can be a bear until you get to know them.

One thing that makes it a lot easier is the javascript apps for channel programming on their website. Check that out...

 

[HD_Ready]

upgrade your firmware! this thing is way better than sine systems!

you can write scripts to do anything. (transmitter swaps etc)

I have mine selecting individual towers and calulating ratios, comparing them to the liscense and adding that value to the log.

 

[mr_elbows]

Zach;

I've got both

The SS are great for 'simple' stuff....FM's for example with 'just' meter readings.

I'm running A-P 2 on a 6-tower DA-2, and Burk assisted in writing an antenna monitoring script to keep an eye on the ratio/phase readings and a 'power trim' script to keep TPO in limits

The SS are somewhat of a pain to program, and the clocks tend to drift badly, which makes resetting a part of the weekly transmitter look-see where I have one on the new daytimer.

 

[taylorengineer]

Burk remote controls attract lightning like nothing I've ever seen. I have owned a dozen Burks and ALL have been back to Burk for $1000+ strikes. And, yes, I had the Burk protector installed to a proper ground. Everyone I have ever talked to has had the same experience with a ARC 16. The ONLY protection that seems to keep Burk damage away is the Optolator.
Now....a Sine might not do all the bells and whistles but I have NEVER sent one back for repair! I have had to repair the protection circuit dozens of times but never have I lost the meat and potatoes stuff.

 

[zach_morton]

All our Fm's have sine-systems installed...had a few burks, and they worked great at the last places I worked, but didn't have to deal with lightning too much in the mountains of wyoming. Here, a different story. Yeah, I really need to budget getting the firmware upgraded...can't hardly understand these.

 

[HD_Ready]

what version you got now?

 

[zach_morton]

4.4...yeah i know, it's OLD! I just took over as chief at this group.

 

[HD_Ready]

its well worth it....

I'm still using AP-2 with firmware 5.4 , i haven't seen a need to goto AP-3 yet

 

[yelloradio]

I made a conscious decision 13 years ago that I would steer clear of B*** remote controls. I liked having an interface at the studio for operators to monitor and control each transmitter site, have dial-up access and it was beneficial having status indications for the operator to notice and react to, but those days are over! They don't "get" the lights anyway and with a clear operations manual they can operate the Sine Systems remote as good as any and engineering can easily speed-dial the remote and have things straightened out in 30 seconds if necessary. I'm often surprised how easily even the part-timers pick it up.

The B***s sensitivity to lightning may be the dial-up interface, I don't know, but engineers around here are carrying spare units in their cars during the summer because there will be a failure. Not a single input failure, but the entire unit will be inoperable. I'm not wasting my time with that crap. I've had one Gentner go up in smoke, out of a couple dozen MRC-1600's I've experienced single input failures occasionally or a Telco card failure, but all in all it was a fine remote. I believe that I was one of the first (or only for all I know) to install the dial-up speech option, which unfortunately wasn't good.

I currently have seven Sine System units with 48 channels, it's true there are no frills, but I can count the number of failures I've had in the past 9 years with no fingers or toes. I must also add that I understand the RFC-1B is stale and with no advancement I'm not sure the company will be around in 10 years, but for now I'm sold on it's simplicity. At some point it'll be necessary to supplement the site monitoring with IP enabled equipment to keep tabs on critical parameters like power, VSWR, generator, temp, security, tower lights, etc. and it will have to be well protected since it'll probably be a PC of some kind which is scary in itself.

Do yourself a favor, forget the light-show, buy a Sine and enjoy not having to pull it out of the rack every summer.


A

 

[rivminc]

The "swine" system sucks. Its price is the only plus. The Burk is much easier to program and tech support is good.

 

[mr_elbows]

I was going to sit back and not reply any more, but here goes

I've got two Burk ARC-16's

one at a 6-tower DA-2 that has a Burk-written antenna monitoring (phase/ratio) script, and also a self-written script for power trim

in almost a year, only one problem, one day it refused to release the phone line

the other is at a hill-top FM that gets more than its share of hits in the summer
the first year (04) it got whacked right away
sent to factory, they repaired and sent the suppresor
I installed the suppresor directly on a 4" strap that runs to the ground ring around the tower
no more problems, except that I can tell if a hit occurred as it calls me with totally whacked-out readings, I clear it, hang up and call it back and all is well

there are 3 SS units, two at FM's and one at a daytimer

the ones at the FM's just keep chugging away

the one at the DT was programmed to do the power on-power up (CH)-power down power-off.
As I said before, using one of these in a 'timer' mode is a weekly exercise in clock resetting

the SS is a pain in the *ss to set up, but once set, it is simple to operate (autoscan is nice)

 

[littlejohn]

Other than that they both produce contact closures and both measure analog values, aren't we kind of comapring apples and parakeets here?
The price and mode(s) of operation are substantially different between the two boxes.
Past that, the Sine Systems is quite simple, somewhat unintuitive to set up, and is a single - ended box meant to be called via telephone. The Burk is feature - rich, has a studio display, and works on the rather more traditional 'push the button' sort of operation.
One place had the two in parallel in each plant. The jock had the Burk box to take readings and turn things on. The engineers could call the Sine Systems from anyplace, autoscan the readings, and tell the plant to do whatever very quickly.
If you're willing to dig into it, the Sine is actually more flexible... but you have to dig in it. Both have excellent support anymore. The Burk allows minimal multi - sitiing, and the jocks like a readout with numbers in it. The Sine is less expensive.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. Unless Pete has added it, the Sine Systems is still the only one which will answer the phone with "Hello, this is Curly. Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk!"
My personal fave was always the DRC-190 which Harold Hallikainen built 20 - odd years aog... far ahead of tis time. Did it all, totally flexible, and nobody much bought them, which was a shame. Fully floated samples, multiple sites, etc. And it had Micro$oft's 8K BASIC resident - if you could write a program in BASIC, you could automate anything with it.