Morning all

I hope someone can help

We had an issue with our news automation PC over the weekend which means we’ve had to change it to a new one. That PC was running the free software Automute from Charlie Davy, but looking around that website, I can't find it anywhere and there's no mention of it. I've tried emailing them to get a copy but haven't had a reply sadly.

Just interested what other stations use to automate their news and take it without someone physically being there? 

The Automute software was fantastic and I really hope there's something similar that can be used for community radio stations that are on a budget.

Any help is really appreciated. 

Thanks 

I've not heard of the software but Google pointed me to http://auto-mute.com/ - not sure it's the same thing. 

We use a switch to turn the news on and off with a news bed running in Myriad underneath it but you can just as easily use a silent cart or just absolute times.

Hope that helps.

Neil Ogden
Hospital Radio Basingstoke

Thanks for the reply Neil. Sadly, that's not the software we were using. The only issue we would have with running the way you do is the news beeps would still go out. The Automute software would mute the line in port on the PC and unmute it to broadcast the news at the top of the hour. Really simple but effective bit of software.

Hi Valleys

this seems like a way to acheive what you need:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

you can then use the Myriad Macro command language to call the application, with the relevent command line switch - these can then be programmed in the log, or attached to a particular cart (i.e. a news in / out jingle)

I have not used it, but it might be worth a play.

Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

Thanks David. I've downloaded and tested that and it seems to work. The only issue I now have is the best way to get the audio for the IRN feed receiver into Myriad. Any ideas on how's best to do that? 

When we were using Automute. The software was on a standalone PC under the desk that took the line in from the IRN receiver and then a line out back to the mixing desk

Thanks for your help

Ah right, 

OK well in that case, if you are using the audio input on Myriad for recording it is not going to work :-( I was thinking that this was on a separate automation pc.
You might be able to trigger the batch file to run on the other PC, but that could be difficult and has a potential for a lot of issues.

If you email into hello@broadcastradio.com we do a stereo audio switcher box and GPIO device. So you would wire the SAT RX into the switcher, the Switcher into the mixer and the Swithcer into the GPIO connected to Myriad. In the log you put a hardware command in to turn the Switcher on (wait 2 mins) then off again. Depending on the mixer, the GPIO card might be able to directly turn the channel on/off on the mixer.

Give us an email with more info, and we'll see what we can do.



Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd