Omnia Direct: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Watch the video: Frank Foti gives an overview of Omnia Direct at NAB 2013

Visitors to the Omnia and Nautel displays at NAB 2013 walked away excited by the potential of new technology jointly developed by our two companies. (So excited, in fact, that we brought home two major awards for it -

see above.) 

Omnia Direct finally solves the problem of maintaining program audio loudness using a pure-digital connection between the station audio processor and the FM transmitter. Not only that, it eliminates the old bugaboo of noise created by A/D converters, and helps significantly reduce the chance of peak overshoots.

Because of the amazing positive response and potential benefit to the industry, we and our partners at Nautel have decided to make this groundbreaking technology available to anyone who's interested.  Omnia Founder Frank Foti: "Although both Omnia and Nautel expended a great deal of time, energy and resources in developing the interface, we feel it is important enough to the Radio industry to make it an open standard for all manufacturers."

Find out more by clicking over to the Omnia website.   

Nigam Upadhyaya of Rajkot, India writes, "We have Telos Nx6 Talkshow Systems at both our studio and transmitter sites. They are connected with a wi-fi Motorola 5.8Ghz Canopy. Both work nicely with PSTN line and also IP setting. Can I connect via Axia Livewire on an IP based Canopy? If yes, than how would it work?"

Telos/Omnia/Axia Support Engineer Matt Rockwell replies, "Livewire over radio is possible and known installations are indeed doing this. The key points are as follows: 

• "A seamless Ethernet bridge protocol should be used.
• "Only "Standard Stream" Livewire streams should be used.  Each standard stream averages 2.5Gbit/sec bandwidth.
• "The IGMP querier and Master Livewire clock should exist at the station, not the remote side.
• "Any Livewire gear at the remote side should be set to Livewire Clock Priority of 0-STL."

Fond numeric memories.

These days, if you want to do some quick math, chances are you'll whip out your smartphone and punch some numbers into the calculator app. It wasn't always that easy. After the age of slide rules, the electronic calculator was an essential geek accessory. 1960s desktop devices were the size of a PC, but shrank in size and pocket models evolved as the de facto tool for mathematical calculations. The most sophisticated devices were programmable, and formed a bridge between basic electronic calculators and computers. As these devices pass from our collective memory and into landfills, Tony Thimet, Senior Software Engineer for the Telos Alliance (and one of the  team responsible for the original Telos Zephyr), is cataloging, collecting and preserving the history of electronic calculators for future generations.

Thimet began his collecting in the summer of 2002. "My feeling is that the age of pocket calculators is coming to an end. They are being replaced by much more powerful PDAs (personal digital assistants), palmtop and laptop computers." To date, he has over 360 calculators and five slide rules in his collection. Since he lives in Germany, there are a number of machines in his collection that were distributed in the European market but were never offered for sale in the United States. He considers RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) superior to algebraic entry, thus many of the machines in his collection use RPN. Which is the ultimate? "That's a hard decision! The HP-67, HP-15C, HP-28S, HP-32SII and Casio PB-2000C are my top favorites. They are very powerful yet simple to operate. Scientific calculating may become a lot easier in the future, but I fear that we won't ever see anything like the HP-67 again!"  

As Thimet's collection grew and he began to catalog his acquisitions, he created a web site and virtual calculator museum to share his work with other collectors. The site also contains links to other resources, pictures and descriptions of his collection, and places where vintage machines may be purchased. Grab a snack before you visit - there's a lot to see!