[rfu-automation] Automation Monitoring Needed 3/19 to 4/1

[Gary Cziko]

All:

I will be out of town from March 19 to April 1 and therefore unable to
monitor the automation system for WRFU during that time.

The automation has proven itself to be quite robust and I expect it will
continue to crank away while I am gone. But there is one aspect that
requires some regular attention: updating the podcasts that are downloaded
and used for the French, Spanish and German news broadcasts from 7 to 8 am
each morning. These are set up on iTunes and if iTunes believes that no one
is listening to them, it will stop downloading new podcasts after about five
days (iTunes is used only to automatically download new audio files as
podcasts which are then available to ZaraRadio; iTunes is not used to play
the podcasts on the air).

I have tried to get around this problem of not updating the podcasts by
having iTunes play a playlist including the three podcasts in a continuous
loop (with the iTunes volume at zero so it is not heard on top of what
ZaraRadio is playing). But for some reason the loop also stops after a while
and then no new podcasts are downloaded after five days or so. So the three
podcasts in the iTunes library need to be updated manually every five days
or so (I also then set the playlist of the three podcasts to play
continuously again with the volume on iTunes at zero).

I know that Dan and Joe should be able to handle this, but don't know if
anyone else knows how to do this. If somebody else were willing to help out
monitor and automation system while I am away and periodically update the
podcasts, I would be willing to meet with him or her sometime this weekend
at the IMC to show how it is done.

There is also now a user account with password set up on the automation
computer in the production room. I can provide the password to anyone on
this list who requests it to be able to help with this.

It times like this I wish I got have remote access to the automation
computer. I know that there are security issues with using Windows Remote
Access, but Dan had mentioned that there could be more secure ways to do
this.

--Gary
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