Anyone else here loosing a lot of sleep due to Dial Global satellite issues?
I have to say, that I posted a complaint here about a year ago which resulted in some good discussions with VPs of Dial Global. I must say that their staff is always attentive to needs, friendly, and do their best. I give them an A+ for customer service, as I realize they are doing their best to deal with a bad situation.
But I must ask the question when do you cut your losses with the Wegener system, and move to the tried and tested XDS system. While the Wegener has some good features, and do sound great, XDS has all the features (programmable channel changes, show shifting with relays, station specific commercial copy splitting) as the Wegener system, and is actually much more flexible with the “netcue” relay setup. The XDS would be much easier on their tech staff as well, as most functions of the system are programmable by the end user.
My opinion of the Wegener receiver units was not high from Day 1. When Dial Global first deployed them, I had a few fail out of the box with bad power supplies or hard drives. These failures still occur often. More often that I would accept if I were Dial Global. DG has to be forking out a ton of money in shipping replacement receivers all the time. Many of these failures in my opinion are due to poor design. Bad ventilation, and too much crap smashed in a 1 rack space unit that is two feet long, and has to be mounted on top of something else to keep it upright in the rack. The unit should have been two rack units high, and shorter. Then bigger fans could have been put in as well. The units run quite warm. I thought they would have figured that out after so many units failed in the first year of service, but even the newer models I’ve seen still have pretty much the same design. The only receiver failure I’ve had with an XDS has been a fan, one ONE unit. That’s it!
Now the system that controls the relays, channel changes, and pretty much all functions of the receiver except the live audio streams themselves, is this COMPEL system which is apparently part of the Wegener system installed at the Denver TOC. It appears failures with this system is what has been causing the numerous relay and control outages over the past year.
Oddly enough, the problems of the past two days may not be related to that system, but it is good to see that Wegener is finally being called on the carpet. I can only highly suggest that Dial Global strongly consider moving to XDS. They have had the top RADAR ratings for several periods now, and I would hope are bringing in some good capitol, so this may be the time to make the move. Now that most services have been moved off of their starguide carrier, I’d suggest that they just replace their starguide system with XDS, deploy receivers out to affiliates of some of the bigger formats and shows, and begin to move services over to that.
Again, it’s hard to ask Dial Global for better response in dealing with the issues caused by this system, but it’s time to cut the losses, make everyone’s life easier and switch to XDS.
I have to say, that I posted a complaint here about a year ago which resulted in some good discussions with VPs of Dial Global. I must say that their staff is always attentive to needs, friendly, and do their best. I give them an A+ for customer service, as I realize they are doing their best to deal with a bad situation.
But I must ask the question when do you cut your losses with the Wegener system, and move to the tried and tested XDS system. While the Wegener has some good features, and do sound great, XDS has all the features (programmable channel changes, show shifting with relays, station specific commercial copy splitting) as the Wegener system, and is actually much more flexible with the “netcue” relay setup. The XDS would be much easier on their tech staff as well, as most functions of the system are programmable by the end user.
My opinion of the Wegener receiver units was not high from Day 1. When Dial Global first deployed them, I had a few fail out of the box with bad power supplies or hard drives. These failures still occur often. More often that I would accept if I were Dial Global. DG has to be forking out a ton of money in shipping replacement receivers all the time. Many of these failures in my opinion are due to poor design. Bad ventilation, and too much crap smashed in a 1 rack space unit that is two feet long, and has to be mounted on top of something else to keep it upright in the rack. The unit should have been two rack units high, and shorter. Then bigger fans could have been put in as well. The units run quite warm. I thought they would have figured that out after so many units failed in the first year of service, but even the newer models I’ve seen still have pretty much the same design. The only receiver failure I’ve had with an XDS has been a fan, one ONE unit. That’s it!
Now the system that controls the relays, channel changes, and pretty much all functions of the receiver except the live audio streams themselves, is this COMPEL system which is apparently part of the Wegener system installed at the Denver TOC. It appears failures with this system is what has been causing the numerous relay and control outages over the past year.
Oddly enough, the problems of the past two days may not be related to that system, but it is good to see that Wegener is finally being called on the carpet. I can only highly suggest that Dial Global strongly consider moving to XDS. They have had the top RADAR ratings for several periods now, and I would hope are bringing in some good capitol, so this may be the time to make the move. Now that most services have been moved off of their starguide carrier, I’d suggest that they just replace their starguide system with XDS, deploy receivers out to affiliates of some of the bigger formats and shows, and begin to move services over to that.
Again, it’s hard to ask Dial Global for better response in dealing with the issues caused by this system, but it’s time to cut the losses, make everyone’s life easier and switch to XDS.
