Sorry, late to the thread...

(02-09-2015 01:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I remember the first game against UH, I was spotting for JFred in those days and sat next to the scoreboard controls. The vendor had sent some tech rep who looked like he was about 19 to baby sit the first night. When time came to turn the board on, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. When it came on and worked, the look of relief on his face was priceless. Of course, those of us who were Rice regulars were so used to nothing working that we would have just accepted it as typical Rice, par for the course. But he didn't know that, and he was very obviously frightened nearly to death.

(02-09-2015 01:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Because the party with whom we contracted went under (I think that's right, in any event they haven't performed on any maintenance contract), and we didn't have a contract with Daktronics, we have had some maintenance issues.

I remember that installer guy; I was up in the booth that day, too. Regarding the maintenance issues, of which there were many, with- or without a contract we didn't do ourselves any favors. For example, we pinched pennies to save on electricity costs, partly by shutting off all of the main breakers. Unfortunately, there were HVAC units up atop of that thing -- behind the owl screen that shielded the speaker array from view -- and that same first day I recall that tech saying that we shouldn't shut them off. I'm really amazed that most of the equipment still worked after so many months, each year, without working climate control in the Houston heat and humidity.

(03-03-2015 05:03 PM)Orange County Owl Wrote:  Will we just go with the older elevated board over the R Room or put something temporary around the construction project as well?

With the scoreboard gone, there's no more public address system, either. I would love to know what they currently plan to do for that. Lack of P.A. is going to make the facility a lot less appealing to whomever tends to use it on Friday nights, etc. (If that's even going to happen during the construction phase.) Are there NCAA/conference rules regarding public address requirements? Fire code for evac instructions in such a large facility?

If I had to guess, the solution is probably portable arrays set up at the corners and/or around the field -- in on game day and back out again. My concern with that approach would be the sound level exposre to those in close proximity (players, band members, or people sitting in the first rows near the corners).