Week of  11th October 1999

Last Week

Monday, 11th October

I start off-site training for the new kit today. It's quite a long drive to get there - 50 odd miles each way, and they are apparently very gung-ho on punctuality - this will be a culture shock for some of the guys (and gals!) since time-keeping is sometimes not of the best.

8 pm: A very interesting day. I'm not entirely convinced about the way this system is designed, but once you catch on to the logic behind it, the software is easy to drive. It's all keyboard driven - control key combos (Windows standard!) and function keys, and quite fast, even with inexperience. Once I've learned the keyboard fugues needed, it should be easy to use. Even for a first attempt, we built practice playlists in not very much time.

Current reports have it that only one more body has been found in the last remaining carriage of the wrecked Inter-City express train. The authorities now believe that the death toll should not exceed 40, still horrendous, but it could have been worse. The great and the good continue to visit, often with media cameras watching.

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Tuesday, 12th October

We learnt about the part of the automation system that controls loading programme material onto the servers today. Operation is very similar to the transmission side (most of the keystrokes are similar, if not identical) but there wasn't enough hardware to get any practice. We'll remedy this tomorrow, when we start using our own kit (if we can get past the installation engineers!)

In the evening the Old Girls' Association committee descended on us, to write up the newsletter. A great time was had by all, seemingly, judging by the gales of laughter emanating from the dining room.

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Wednesday, 13th October

As I expected, today's training went like a charm. The software proves to be as easy to use as promised, despite word of mouth comments from elsewhere, although the operator front end is still irritatingly incomplete. Whole wodges of functionality are marked "not yet implemented" in the 'new, inproved' Windows NT based client - which I succeeded in crashing comprehensively!

That said, since it's a client/server system, the recording I was doing just kept on running - I just lost control of it for a moment. This is good.

Hands-on transmission tomorrow, again dodging around the installation people.

There's a funny thing (if not several!) about the Xircom card. With it plugged in and the correct hardware profile selected (disabling the Infra-red port), Fujisan boots and presents the logon menu as one would expect. Dr. Solomon's Antivirus then starts behind the login window. If I hit [esc] to dismiss the login window before Dr. Solly completes, Fujisan crashes to hardware reset. Even after this there is a tendency to lock up at random times, if the Xircom card is plugged in. I hope this is due to legacy entries in the registry, 'cos I can't afford to replace this card, even at radio amateur swap meet prices.

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Thursday, 14th October

I've now finished official training - must get some more hands-on time before we go live early mext month. Installation works, fault-finding and configuration continue to happen, even while we're trying to learn to drive it. I tried to do a couple of things that are routine in the manual suites, but were not possible ('not enabled') upstairs. The message about this will, I hope, get through to the engineers from the training people, but I have my doubts. These guys seem to be a little autocratic at present (as in 'we will give you this, but no more'). Maybe I'm maligning perfectly nice, cooperative people, who are under pressure (that last is undoubtedly true) but that's the impression I get.

We've been worried about getting the new area completed in time for on-air. One of the major problems has been the archiving system. Even with the size of the hard disk "bucket' - 7 units of 380GB RAID arrays - we can only store about 200 hours of TV. The existing programme videotape library amounts to about 11 thousand hours. Thus we will need some form of archiving system. This does not yet talk to the servers and the control computers. There was, of course, a Plan B (which no-one condescended to tell us about - the 'mushroom theory' again) which has resulted in several cabinets containing robotic tape handlers and extra VTRs arriving for temporary installation. At least someone else knows and respects Mr. Murphy.

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Friday, 15th October

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Saturday, 16th October

Katy and Jenny have gone to a Guide activity day - orienteering and swimming at a site in Bracknell, and the Italian girl has left us (early) in favour of independent living. We sort of expected this last; she was supposed to stay with us for two months, as arranged by her parents, but independence won out.

I've got to do various bits of typing for Jane - newsletter and such. Most of it is already done - the meeting  on Tuesday saw to that. I've got to finally pull it all together and do the address labels.

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Sunday, 17th October

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