BROADCAST SIMULATOR Simulating control of a broadcast site

SIMULATOR:

The Simulator Rack was built in my garage;
And now, it resides in my computer room in an empty clothes closet. Simulation work is always done - and can only be done - at my house, on my own time.
The individual modules are polished aluminum with holes drilled for LEDs. The boards (inside the panels) are all professionally fabricated from AutoCad; and I personally paid for the boards to be created.

The simulator can alleviate the hazard of operating expensive equipment, and protect expensive equipment from the hazards of improper operation. No programmer should attempt remote control without simulators. I have two types.

While inspecting the operating logs at a broadcast site, I could see an interesting control problem. I could then set the problem up at home on the simulator. Software programs were created and modified with this thing.

This, huge, simulator-in-a-rack is being phased out. The simulator will no longer be necessary as it duplicates an old, nonintelligent, system. Since I am phasing out the old system, the simulator will also be consequently phased out. I there for will not go into great detail, as I have not used it in many years.

The blue switches on the right are used to duplicate, or artificially simulate, a condition at the transmitter site. Problems can be troubleshot with the simulator without jeopardizing expensive equipment.


The individual panels can be set up to duplicate any panel at a remote site. But, it is more advantages to set individual panels to duplicate an entire host of panels. The simulator can then - almost - simulate an entire particular broadcast site.

---

UART #1
a transmitter

---

UART #2
Antenna transfer

---

UART #3

---

UART #4
Doors and security

---

UART #7

---

---

I built two additional Digitizers: one using red displays, and one using green displays. The channel being digitized was lit by a led. Under the led is a calibration pot, which could NOT be remotely calibarated. The method of locally onboard pots has personal appeal: the calibration meathod is direct, emediate, and intuitive. It is right there! And it is physically by the display.
To simulate a parameter, pots in the back of the unit were adjusted to give any value per channel. There are 32 channels per digitizer. The digitizers operating at Cohasset can accept both positive and negitive voltages. The two simulator pannels can only accept positive voltages; But their power supplies are much simplified: being unipolar. The Cohasset digitizers required two(automotive) batterys; a total waist of resources.



One of the joys of remote control is to know that equipment, located many miles away, will behave as planned. (At least as far as control is concerned.) If I began to worry about it, I would set it up on the simulator.

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." -Albert Einstein