Technology

Gerry Pyne had been working on the technology behind Black Star Radio for a long time. His long history in Indigenous broadcasting helped him identify the need to provide programming support and relevant content to remote broadcasters.

The solution was a daily data log with a schedule of events that gets sent to a “Black Box” at each local radio station computer. The computer then reads the log and automatically plays out an event such as music, news/current affairs, sport, sponsorship, community service announcements, weather, emergency alerts etc.

The system automates the very time-consuming task of managing a music library which ensures that each local station has regularly updated music with a wide variety of genres to suit all tastes and ages.

Black Star Radio is designed to be supplementary programming rather than a complete replacement.

The daily data log that is sent to the computer at each radio station is modifiable. Local community broadcasters have the choice of when and where they use the log. With this technology, local broadcasters can run their own focused programming or music their own community wants to hear and then turn on the automated programming for specific events or times when broadcasters are not present at the station.

Using SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), the computer system gathers and analyses real-time data to monitor the equipment. Black Star has adapted this system to our needs and we are now able to closely monitor most of the equipment required to keep remote stations on air.

As soon as a piece of equipment fails, an alarm is triggered and a Black Star technician is able to immediately attend to the fault. Simple solutions such as a system reboot can be done in a few minutes or more complex solutions such as equipment replacement can be organised in a few days compared with previous response times that could take weeks!

Black Star has a success rate of keeping stations on air between 98% and 100%.