Arcadia24 MaxxCasting Deployed at Bonneville San Francisco

RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, March 23, 2023

GEO Broadcasting Solutions and Burk Technology

GeoBroadcast Solutions has integrated Burk Technology's Arcadia24 monitoring into its recent MaxxCasting installation at three Bonneville stations in San Francisco. The Arcadia24's secure web-based remote control accessibility allows the station engineers, managers and the GeoBroadcast team to remotely monitor and be alerted to any engineering issues from virtually anywhere via mobile, desktop and tablet devices. The technology will be featured as a live demonstration during the NAB Show, April 16-19 in Las Vegas.

KOIT-FM, KMVQ-FM and KBLX-FM upgraded and modernized its signals last year with MaxxCasting using a five-node Single Frequency Network and HD Radio. Burk's cloud-based platform, hosted on AWS servers, provides reliability and access 24/7. Additionally, web links from mobile devices to the Arcadia24 server are locked down and encrypted using the latest generation of Transport Layer Security (TLS), ensuring that only authorized users can access and control each remote facility. Encrypted VPN tunnels and firewall protection also guard communications between Arcadia24 and each remote site.

"As we were building out the project it became clear that we needed a degree of on-call management to monitor and troubleshoot the technology, particularly at launch, since it was spread across the entire Bay area," said Bonneville Regional Director of Technology Jason Ornellas. "Not only has the MaxxCasting solution exceeded expectations, but the complementary Arcadia24 monitoring has truly changed my perceptions of how large-scale implementations like this can be monitored."

"The scalability for such a large project with multiple sites and transmitters demonstrates the versatility of Arcadia24 and the benefits it will continue to provide as MaxxCasting builds out into the Bay market and other metropolitan areas across the country," said Burk Executive Vice President Chuck Alexander.

Mid-way into the Bonneville installation the GBS team contacted Burk to see if they offered a monitoring solution for multiple sites. Once the discussion began it became clear that they had a solution.

"When we approached Burk on this project, they immediately recognized the opportunity to implement Arcadia24 as it was conceived and designed," said GeoBroadcast Solutions Chief Technology Officer Paul Littleton. "It has since provided a lot of peace of mind for our client to have a unified site view across all of the new equipment through a smartphone app or while sitting at my computer," said Paul Littleton, chief technology officer at GeoBroadcast Solutions. "We see it as a game-changer for large-scale implementation like this."

MaxxCasting combines radio and cellular technology with patented designs that enable FM Broadcasters to enhance their signals with the deployment of a strategically located cluster of low to the ground, highly directionalized synchronized booster sites.