Radio Automation

In an era when convergence of media is a reality, a broadcast system should empower a radio station to reach out its listeners in many ways than one – through webcast, mobilecast, podcast and of course through the FM radio. There are many radio automation software available in the market but Nomad recommends an open source award winning platform called GRINS, which is an initiative of Gramvaani Community Media, a project funded by the Knight Foundation and currently housed in IIT, Delhi.

Following are some of the features of the system:

Plug-n-play:

It is truly a plug-n-play server to run a community radio station. It enables radio station operators to schedule broadcasts, preview programs, make and receive phone calls, record live transmissions, and maintain an extensive semantically searchable library, all through a single user-interface. GRINS has been designed specifically for community radio stations to keep costs low, provide extremely robust functioning, and enable rich features for greater community interaction.

Single management console:
Radio stations have many moving parts, especially if rich features such as phone calls and conferencing have to be supported. Nomad-GRINS simplifies the management and running of the radio station by providing a single console to archive conversations, schedule programs, receive phone calls, and search and manage content.

Service oriented design:
All functionality provided by GRINS is handled by different services, such as the Audio Service for playout, Archiver Service for recording, Library Service for storage, etc. Each of these services can be run either on a single machine, or off multiple machines. This makes the deployment of GRINS extremely flexible to be able to fit into any kind of a radio station setup.

Easy to use UI:
The GRINS user interface has been especially designed keeping in mind the target population of non-professional broadcasters in India and other developing countries. The use of large icons and simple navigation makes GRINS easy to use even for radio operators who are new to computerized systems.

Diagnostics:
A key feature of GRINS, the system can actually detect any network faults or audio cable errors or poor audio quality through Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and guide the operators on how to fix the problem locally. This reduces the down-time of the system so that radio stations located in remote rural areas do not have to wait for a technician to visit them and fix small problems.
Overview:

The system include following features;

1.4 x Mike input with phantom power
2.22 x Aux input channels for external source
3.Master fader for transmission levels
4.Aggressive pre-broadcast preview mechanism
5.PSTN telephony support
6.SIP telephony support
7.GSM telephony support (optional)
8.Streaming Support
9.IVR support
10.Robust database system with keyword, tags, time, theme, format, language based searchability.
11.Automated diagnostics system.