Consoles that boot up in an on-air mode?

[BigTimeEngineer]

Techs:

With Spring upon us, our station is going to experience a number of long term outages from our utility company.

When our Arrakis ARC consoles come back up from a power shutdown, we have go and reset their fader controls (off to on, etc.). We have them on UPS, but if we have an extended outage, the UPS backup is not a solution.

Does anyone have any suggestions for current audio boards that default to an operating status in such occurrences?

Thanks.

 

[Grounded Grid]

If you're just feeding a single audio source (computer, etc) through the board during non-live times, you might consider putting something like Broadcast Tools' "Audio Sentinel" in the board's output line. If the power goes out (or you choose to switch manually), you can run the audio source around the board and directly to the output, effectively bypassing the board until you next need it.

 

[BigTimeEngineer]

Great idea! I'll give it a try. Thanks.

 

[bigdonho]

If you stick one of the Broadcast Tools 4 X 2 switchers in the circuit you can switch the automation directly to the transmitter and free up the console for production of maintenance. It also eliminates the chance of someone pulling down the fader on the console or just switching it off. I believe the B switcher can be set to switch to input #1 to the output on power up or hold its position during a outage with latching relays.

 

[xmtrland]

I have used the Universal 4.1 MLR web based switcher by Broadcast tools. It has a web interface and silence sensor that can be used as needed. It can be used for analog and AES too. Just log in and switch/monitor from Home our your office.

 

[BigTimeEngineer]

Xmtrland: I ordered a BT Universal 4.1 from SCMS this morning. It uses XLR's and with 4 inputs will be an plug and play install between the console, a sat rec, the automation and phone hybrid into the Omnia processor. Thanks.