SEN is a sports talk radio station owned by PacificStar Network, a public company. SEN covers a wide range of sports, 24 hours a day, including live broadcasts of AFL, A-League football and NBL basketball. High-profile sports media personalities for programs and live sport coverage include Tim Watson, Billy Brownless, Kevin Bartlett, Anthony Hudson, David Schwarz, and Dermott Brereton.
Business Need
SEN broadcasts from its studio but also live from the various sporting stadiums and ovals. Much of the broadcasting equipment is digital and computer based so even momentary power problems can result in minutes of lost broadcast time as the computers are started up again. SEN knows listeners are very intolerant to dead air (silence) and wished to avoid program interruptions in the case of mains power outages or power quality issues.
How NPS Helped
SEN engaged Natural Power Solutions (“NPS”) because they were looking for a company who could provide expert advice on solutions for their specific requirements and provide a product which was suitable for deployment in their mission-critical environments.
Initially, NPS provided a replacement for a failed UPS in the main on-air studio. The studio complex power is backed up by a diesel generator, so it required a UPS that could hold up for the start-up and switch-over duration and then be able to function without complaint with the less-than-optimal frequency control of a generator set. NPS recommended and supplied a Powerware 9125 double-conversion UPS for this application.
When SEN won the AFL Commercial Radio Broadcasting Rights, they asked NPS to provide UPS systems for all the broadcast boxes at the AFL sports grounds. Either Powerware 5115 or 9125 model UPS systems were installed in these sites. At the sporting grounds with no back up generator supply, the UPS’s were sized to maximize the battery run time.
Result
“We are now confident that regardless of the power supply problems we suffer at our studios or at remote sports grounds, the broadcast will continue without interruption. During the heat of last summer, we suffered several mains power “glitches” at our studio. Non-critical computers, not protected by the UPS’s rebooted; but the studio computers and audio equipment just kept going and the listeners never knew.”
Peter Smerdon, Chief Engineer, SEN Radio, May 2007
