Glen A. Musgrove installing his Plus Sine

1. Introduction

After spending 23 years in broadcasting, I have learned that being a Chief Engineer of a small market cluster generally means being the O-N-L-Y engineer in the cluster! My transmitter sites are in rural areas in four counties in Laurel-Hattiesburg, Mississippi. To visit all of my sites in one day means a trip of over 100 miles! A reliable remote is a must to insure that the stations receive immediate attention in an off-air situation. I have Sine Systems RFC 1/B's at each of my sites because of their proven dependability. Recently, I met an old friend and engineering comrade, Olen Booth, at WEEZ-AM's site. I was reprogramming my Sine System using the connected telephone. Olen walked in and said "You know you don't have to do it that way anymore." I didn't know that there was any other way... and there wasn't until Olen developed software that makes programming this unit a small task instead of a dreaded job of entering number after number (then losing your place when the cell rings with another problem - remember, the O-N-L-Y engineer in the market!) But wait, there's more!!! Plus Sine is not only a programming package, but a whole lot more. Nobody had to convince me to try Plus Sine. I worked with The Hawk Remote, the parent product that was developed by Olen over 15 years ago. Olen's drive to develop a working product is two-fold; the first is obvious. The second is that Olen and his contract engineering company, IBS, depends on Plus Sine at over 50 sites throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. This set-up only makes the Sine better and very user-friendly. Installation and operation, as explained below, is a cinch!

2. Hardware Installation was easy.

Sine Systems packages Plus Sine as an 8 or 16 channel upgrade to existing
remotes, or as a new 8 or 16 channel system. Sine Systems developed a
daughter board called the AD-8 that installs between the existing RP-8 relay
panel and its surge protector. The AD-8 has eight differential analog to
digital converters that continuously sample analog data and send it to the
Plus Sine software.

I got an 8 channel upgrade for an existing RFC 1/B, packaged neatly with
everything included. Hardware installation was really easy. I removed the
surge protector from the RP-8 and installed the AD-8 on five standoffs.
Then I reinstalled the surge protector. I connected the supplied RJ-45
cable between the AD-8 and the COM port of the computer at the transmitter
site.

The installation of the Sine Systems serial data adaptor was just as easy.
I removed the RFC 1/B from the rack and removed the RFC-1 board from the
chassis. I connected the serial data adaptor to the RFC-1/B and installed
the boards into the supplied chassis. Then I installed it back in the rack
and connected the data cable from the serial data adapter to the second COM
port of the computer.

3. Software Installation was even easier.

Plus Sine walked me through the installation of the software. It created a desktop icon, and installed a shortcut in my start up folder (to insure that anytime the computer was rebooted, Plus Sine would start running again). I installed the software dongle into the back of the computer per the instructions in the installation guide, launched the program, and configured the COM ports.

4. Plus Sine set up

Plus Sine came with a default database already set up. By double clicking on a meter on the main tab, it took me to the set up screen for that analog meter. I simply changed the labels, units, and normal values. I then clicked on the quick limit button, and the channel set up was complete.

Next, I set up the text messaging and emailing in order to report alarms. This was a little more involved, because Plus Sine let me define a group of people to receive alarms (not just me). So the first step was to set up a list of "contacts". This was a lot like setting up contacts in Microsoft Outlook or other mail delivery programs. One cool thing I found was that it allowed me to set up two addresses under one contact. Through this, I set up a "cc" (carbon copy), so that Plus Sine will simultaneously send a text message to my phone and an email to my computer for future reference. While setting up my account, I set one up for the program director (so that he could be notified of dead air instead of me).

Next it was time to set up the contact groups. Though I could have set up several groups, I only set up two: an "off-the-air" group and a "dead air" group. Plus Sine allows you to place a pause between contacts. Then, Plus Sine will wait a predetermined amount of time (the pause) before sending a message when something is in alarm. I set up the "dead air" group, so that Plus Sine pages the program director, waits ten minutes, and then pages him again, before ever paging me.

5. Operation of Plus Sine

Plus Sine has an "Overall Page" and multiple metering tabs. The tab that I created had the standard metering: plate voltage, plate current, forward and reflected power. I also wanted to monitor building temperature. Plus Sine created an easy-to-read thermometer with a mercury bulb and a moving mercury level.

The graphical representation of everything important on that page is true-to-life and extremely easy to read. Yellow indicates low, green indicates in range, and red indicates high. There's even a blue bar that indicates "in range" parameters for paging. Status indicators and relay buttons are also located on this tab. Any channel that is out of limits will have a red flashing box around it. This basically gives me an overall view of the transmitter at just a glance.

Since Plus Sine collects data in real time, data is ready to review instantaneously. I love the trend chart, because I can see (in real time) the relationship between different parameters that I have defined. I want to see all 8 channels at once, paying special attention to the forward and reflected power. With Plus Sine's "value at curser" function, I can place the curser at any point in time on the trend chart and view the values for every channel.

6. Running my AM transmitter

Clear Channel's station, WEEZ, is a 10kw day timer with a little post sunset power allowed. So, I need a remote that can handle this task. Even though this can be accomplished with the RFC 1/B, it is easier using Plus Sine's pre sunrise and post sunset tables. I created one timed event called "post sunset control". Plus Sine used its pre sunrise and post sunset tables to determine what time to power up and power down my transmitter. I told Plus Sine which relays to use to control power and what the new parameters would be for logging and paging, and it did the rest. There is a table defining the dates of daylight savings time, and Plus Sine will off-set the time during these months. Since I can alter this table, the next time the date of daylight savings time changes, it will not be an issue.

Bottom line is that in this digital age, everyone on every corner is developing software to do most anything. Plus Sine isn't something new. It's something that is already proven that has been made better! A plus (no pun intended) is that when you need tech support you actually speak with someone inside the good 'ole USA, who not only knows the product but also knows broadcast engineering! Demo versions, as well as tons of other information, are available at www.plussine.com. Go see for yourself that Plus Sine is an awesome product.

Glen A. Musgrove
Market Chief Engineer
WNSL – WUSW – WJKX – WHER – WZLD – WEEZ - WFOR
CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO of HATTIESBURG/LAUREL, MS