Imagine a fine, guarded community with well crafted homes and up-scale residents. Imagine deep-green manicured yards, and plush vegetation at every turn of the winding roadways. Each of the two hundred plus dwellings here face one of several lakes. Ducks and Egret call this home, too. People are outside doing things. You will see some jogging, some playing hoops in the driveway, kids riding bicycles, and shinny cars coming and going.

Looking around you see dozens of quaint 1920 style light posts that automatically turn on at the first hint of darkness. The only other poles in this modern neighborhood are the few that have flags waving from them in the gentle Florida breeze. Underground access plays a major roll in this community. There are no telephone poles, no ugly electric lines or cable TV drops to ruin this picture.

This is the home of Into Tomorrow. Throughout the week, the staff of Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline assembles here to produce the network radio program. Founder and program host Dave Graveline has the shortest trip of all; it's exactly 10.5 feet from his living room to his high-tech recording and broadcasting studio. Closing the two sound-proof doors behind him, he turns on the "on air" sign and can settle down to some important recording without fear of airplane noise from overhead, or from the big screen TV in the living room.

The studio is equipped with eight telephone lines for doing the business of a satellite radio program. However, several of those lines are very special: the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) line from BellSouth is one. During the three hour program, that one pair of twisted copper wires carries the wide band audio to the ABC satellite uplink in New York. Simultaneously - on additional wires - a DSL line, Cable modem and T1 circuits, Dave is in constant touch with listeners via Email, using one of the latest laptop computers available. There is also the studio web cam available 24/7 and the very active Into Tomorrow chat room. Dave also has several DBS Satellite dishes hanging off his house for hundreds of various TV channels, including just about every HDTV channel available ... from DirecTV, DISH Network. There's also a 2-way Internet satellite system and even the old VOOM TV service dish. In our efforts to monitor local digital TV and their high-defenition signals, he even has an outdoor TV antenna.

The regular telephone equipment is by AT&T and the special -- very expensive -- broadcast phones are from Gentner for the ever-popular 1-800-899-INTO number. Dave's ISDN equipment has become the standard in the broadcasting industry these days. The "TA", or terminal adapter, is an Adtran ISU-128. This device, which can be considered an expensive digital modem, acts as the bridge between the ISDN line and the magic black box above, the Musicam CDQ-1000 Codec, that converts the studio audio into tiny bits of digital information. As a back-up system, Dave has also invested in a Comrex BlueBox that can send the show audio along a standard phone line, if need be. We often use this equipment on our live Remote broadcasts around the world. Outbound audio makes the trek to our satellite uplink site in New York and from there, the audio travels thousands of miles to the StarGuide satellite. This is the Into Tomorrow ISDN/Comrex/Satellite audio system.

The T1 line serves as the "big pipe" for the network of 25 computers here. It connects to a Cisco router then to the big Linux machine from TigerDirect. This computer has gained the nick-name of big blue, for obvious reasons - if you should happen to catch it on the web cam. It is dazzling to look at. Big blue does all the filtering for the computer network. There is a fire wall that is made from blocks of granite, and resembles the Great Wall of China - in non-computer terms. There is also filtering for spam, hacker attacks and spyware.

Dave's office acts as the clearing house for most information; keeping a solid hand on the day to day production efforts. His staff is probably the most accessible in the world. They all have the latest computing technology, cell phones, PDAs, and 2-way alpha-numeric pagers. They each have at least two Email addresses -- one public and the other for business only. Several color laser printers, multi-functional FAX machines and scanners are standard equipment in this home soffice.

About noon on Sunday, the staff members that are directly involved in the broadcast meet at Dave's place. By 12:30pm the broadcast crew is munching down fresh donuts or other delights. The studio and control room are prepped and everything is in place. And more donuts disappear.

About 1:30pm, the guests start to arrive and are made comfortable in the living room, watching the high-def 50 inch flat screen TV. Dave and the crew take time to reduce the guests' nervousness. Being on the radio is much like talking to your neighbor, but with hundreds-of-thousands of other folks listening in.

By 1:45pm the ISDN line is then dialed into the uplink site and the affiliate stations are given information about the following weeks broadcast in a series of promos that are fed to them. At 2pm on the east coast, the Tech News staff settles-in. Microphones are adjusted earphones are checked out.

Air Time: 2:06pm (ET) the broadcast begins and Dave Graveline is introduced. That TechNews hour is the most fun to listen to - anything can happen and you'll laugh most of the way through. They even manage to get-in a little Tech News.

At 3:06pm the show continues, but with guests and a set topic for that broadcast. Remember these shows are all about consumer electronics and technology - a wide area to cover with thousands of new products to look forward to. Over the three hour program, listeners are treated to a variety of information and experiences. The show may be about the latest in wireless technology, home theater, high tech health and fitness, DVDs, computers and the Internet, or one of many other technology related topics.

So hold on to your radio, or your computer, as we take you Into Tomorrow!

This... is the broadband home bringing you Into Tomorrow!
 

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