Playing Announcements

Multiple VRA SIMMs

If you have multiple VRA SIMMs, you can play more announcements simultaneously. Using DSP-ONE cards, each logical VRA SIMM can play announcements simultaneously to 55 channels. Two logical VRA SIMMs can play announcements simultaneously to 110 channels.

If a particular announcement is played frequently, you should download that announcement to multiple VRA SIMMs so that the announcement can be played to more channels simultaneously. When the host commands the Excel platform to play a particular announcement, the Excel platform searches for the announcement on all VRA SIMMs. As soon as the Excel platform finds the announcement, it plays the announcement from that VRA SIMM.

Erasing Voice Recorded Announcements

You can erase individual announcements using the procedure described in the Single Message Deletion section of this chapter.

You can also erase all announcements from a SIMM using the Recorded Announcement Delete message (0x0054). It takes approximately 30 seconds to erase a VRA SIMM. Before you replace or download announcements with this message, you must wait for an Alarm message indicating VRA Erase Complete.

Replacing Voice Recorded Announcements

To replace an announcement with a new announcement, we recommend that you download the new announcement with a new, unused ID. You can then use the new ID to play out the new announcement.

If you cannot use a new ID, you must re-use an existing ID, so you must erase all SIMMs that contain the existing ID. You must then download announcements to any erased SIMMs before those SIMMs can play out announcements again.

If your Excel platform contains more than one SIMM, you can maximize the number of available voice recorded announcements by erasing and downloading one SIMM at a time. While one SIMM is being erased and downloaded, other SIMMs can continue to provide voice recorded announcements.