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World Radio History
Site Technology: Scanners, computers & software.
Preparing each document
for publication on worldradiohistory.com
is a process involving 
a detailed series of steps.
using the most
advanced hardware
and software available.
  • Computer hardware
  • Scanning to JPG files
  • Processing bitmap scans
  • Optical Character Recognition
  • Conversion to compressed PDF for the Internet
  • User Contributions of publications
  • How to send your own scans
Our
Equipment


We have four computers doing processing, book scanning, sheet-fed scanning and wide document scanning, plus four independent NAS storage devices..


The most advanced computer is the site design and scan processing unit. It employs an Asus Zenith II Extreme Motherboard with a Ryzen Threadripper 3960x processor,


Memory is 256 gb of G.Skill DDR4 3600, and it has an Asus RX6800 video Card, Asus water cooling, a Corsair AX 1600i  power supply, a Seagate Firecuda PCIE Gen 4 m.2 SSD boot drive.


This computer has an internal RAID array of four more Firecude 2tb PCIe M2 SSDs for most site work. There are also 6 x Seagate Exos 16tb internal backup drives for daily fill system incremental backups.


Four Synology NAS systems with over 80tb of storage are used for additional backup and storage of all raw bitmap scans..


. Monitors are Asus ProArt 32" 3840 x 2160 displays on the work computer and Dell UP301730" monitors on the scanning computers.
 

The main computer case is a bequiet! Dark Base 900 full tower.
 

We use customized WASD Mechanical keyboards and Corsair M65 mouses on all units.


Additional hard drive backups are maintained offline in separate secure locations.


Each of the three main scanners has its own computer set up for the best performance for that specific scanner. We have 3 scanners for sheet feeding, wide documents and open-book scanning.


At present, all three scanners are attached to individual computers using Corsair iCue cases, power supplies and liquid coolers with AMD Ryzen 9 CPUs and 64tb of Corsair memory.


We use customized WASD mechanical keyboards and Corsair Nightsword gaming mouses on all systems.
 

Clicking on many of the items will bring up that product's description page.



Clicking on most images will  link to a full description. 

  • Asus ROG Zenith II
    Extreme Xtreme
    Motherboard

    256gb of G.Skill
    DDR4 3600 Memory

    Highpoint RAID Controller 
     
    6 Seagate Exos 16tb drives
     for daily backup in system.


    Asus ROG Ryjin II
    Liquid Cooler 280

    Corsair 1600 Watt
    Power Supply
     
    Seagate Firecuda boot drive
    with 2 parallel backups and
    4 x 2gb in RAID array
     
    Asus Radeon
    RX7900 Video Card

    be quiet! DarkBase 900 case

    Ryzen 3960x 24 core CPU

    Synology NAS with
     5 x 8tb drives


    Sinology NAS #2
    with 5 x 12tb drives
    Each Scanner has its own Computer 
     
    Corsair iCue Cases
     
    Corsair iCue H100i Liquid Cooler

    AMD Ryzen 9 2900X CPUs 

    Corsair RMX Power Supplies 
  Creating the Website 
Hosting

We have a dedicated server at one of HiVelocitiy's "server farms" centrally located in Dallas, TX.

At that location we have a redundant RAID array that has given us 99.999% up time over the last six years.

Scanning Decisions

The first step in putting a document on the site is scanning. Depending on the publication, a sheet fed scanner may be employed,. For non-destructive scanning the camera based  library scanner or a large format flatbed can be used.

Click for Details
Kodak i4250
Document Scanner
Bookeye 5 V3
Open Book Scanner
Centex IQ Quattro X for wide documents.
Sheet-Fed
Scanner

When we scan documents that do not have to be returned "intact" to their owner, the preferred method employs a sheet-feed high resolution scanner. We use the Kodak i4250 which can do a 1000 page document in less than 10 minutes. The resultant scans are the best of all the possible alternatives. The downside is that publications have to be separated into single pages.



The scanner is "duplex" meaning it takes a picture of both sides of a document in a single pass: it accommodates pages up to 12" by as long as 150".








Tethered Flatbed Scanner

The Kodak sheet scanner is attached to a Kodak flatbed which runs automatically when no document is on the sheet feeder. This allows for mixed sheet fed documents and fragile pages or thin items to be scanned with the same settings.
 

Scanning Adjustments

The scanner features considerable flexibility in document handling and scanning. here is a view of one of the setup menus that allows customization by document type, size and resolution.

Adjustments to contrast, brightness and document type can be made. The scanner is "smart" and reads graphics differently from text to get crisp letters and sharper pictures.

It also does hole removal, de- skewing, blank page removal and has ultrasonic detection when more than one page at a time is fed to the LED scanning array.
 
Binding Removal

Preparing publications for sheet feeding. The spine or binding must be removed using an industrial paper cutter.

Note: when items are on loan, this procedure is not used. See the Bookeye scanner below for the non-destructive process used in such cases.
Loaned Documents:
Non-destructive scans.

Documents which can not be stripped at the binding for single page scanning can be scanned with no damage, wear or stress using the Bookeye 5 V3 Overhead Book Scanner..

It takes a digital photograph of two pages at a time and adjusts for curvature and shape distortion.
Click for additional data.
 
Software Enhancement

Proprietary specialized software is used to enhance the scans. Here is another view of the book scanner showing the screen which allows for a range of adjustments to the final scan.

We buy our scanners from

They are knowledgeable, fair and truly nice people!
 

Large Document Scanner

Schematics and large "fold out" pages are now scanned on a Contex IQ Quattro X 3650 36" large format scanner.

These are scanners used by architects, engineers and system designers and can scan big fold-out diagrams in equipment manuals and poster-size inserts in magazines.

Click picture for scanner's website.
 

Flatbed Scanner

Big projects of very large or very delicate documents are scanned on a  DS 5000 12" x 19" flatbed scanner from Epson. While this is the slowest method by far, with a 100 page document taking upwards of an hour, it is the best way to capture brittle old publications or oversized documents. Click picture for Epson website specifications and pricing.

 
Flatbed Software

With the flatbed scanner, we employ the Professional version of VueScan, the absolute best scanner software for both the average consumer and the professional. It's available at a reasonable price in two versions at
http://www.hamrick.com/

The consumer version is only $39.95 and is much better than anything that comes bundled with lower-cost scanners.
 
BookDrive Editor

Whether a page is scanned on the sheet fed Panasonic, the Bookeye or one of several flatbed scanners, the JPG originals are processed in BookDriveEditor.
Here things like contrast, brightness and color gamut can be adjusted. Background removal is possible, as is de-skewing, resizing and sharpening. It's possible to take poor and discolored originals and make them very legible and useful with this application.
 
Foxit PDF Compressor Pro 8.0

Once documents have been optimized in BookDrive Editor, they are processed in Foxit PDFCompressor Professional (Formerly CVision PDF Compressor) , where huge jpg files are converted to manageable PDFs for Internet viewing.

At the same time, the documents are processed for Optical Character Recognition so that they can be searched.


Click the graphic to see the PDF Compressor home page.
Indexing for Search

Publications that are part of large collections, like Broadcasting Magazine, are globally indexed so that the entire collection can be searched.

We use Zoom Search Engine from Australia's PassMark. It creates highly configurable search databases that are callable via css functions. 

Click the graphic and you can visit the Zoom Search website. 
 
Why do all this?
This site is your webmaster's homage to the radio industry. It serves a practical purpose of demonstrating my commitment to my profession and my consulting clients naturally appreciate that and gain an understanding of my knowledge of the radio industry. That aspect of my career makes this site totally free and open.
A wonderful side benefit lies in being able to pass something forward after 62 years in a sometimes frightening but always exciting field of endeavor: radio.
Contributions

We welcome site user contributions.
If you wish to simply give items, email us! If you wish to loan documents which are to be returned, we can provide shipping via UPS or USPS both ways.
 If you have scanned documents yourself or want to do so, contact us for our preferred file  formatting information and access to our DropBox account.