Alcorn Mcbride AM-4 User Manual download pdf

magine having a reasonably simple and

economical device on your bus that can

make announcements based on the phys-

ical location of your vehicle. It would free

up your driver or tour escort so they can con-

centrate more on driving or helping your

passengers. In addition to narrating a sight-

seeing tour, announcing stops and provid-

ing location and information on shuttle runs,

it also has virtually unlimited advertising

possibilities. Add in the fact that this device

is small and is so user-friendly that it can be

set up by virtually anyone comfortable with

computers. We are talking about the AM-4

Digital Audio Machine from Alcorn

McBride, which has numerous interesting

applications in the bus industry.

Alcorn McBride is the leading manufac-

turer of electronics for show control and

audio and video equipment for the theme

park industry. The story behind the com-

pany goes back to 1982 when Steve Alcorn,

now company president, got involved with

show control systems for several pavilions

at the Walt Disney World Epcot Center. It

was his wife, Linda, a show control engineer

with Walt Disney Imagineering, who intro-

duced him to theme parks.

Steve founded Alcorn McBride in South-

ern California in 1986 and initially concen-

trated on theme parks, the music industry

and audio/video products. He designed a

number of electronic musical instruments

as well as a state-of-the-art ﬁgure animation

system for a theme park company. In 1989,

the company moved to Orlando, Florida and

soon purchased its own building.

Since then Alcorn McBride show con-

trollers have become the standard of the

theme park industry. Nearly every attrac-

tion at Orlando theme parks includes Alcorn

McBride control or playback equipment.

One new attraction uses Alcorn McBride

products to play video in a vehicle traveling

at 60 miles per hour.

Due to their rugged use in theme park

applications, Alcorn McBride products are

designed to be highly durable and require

zero maintenance. Everything is engineered

and built right in Orlando. One major advan-

tage of this is that Alcorn McBride can eas-

ily make modiﬁcations to standard products

to suit the speciﬁc needs of customers.

The AM-4 Digital Audio Machine was

originally developed for theme parks, kiosks

and museums. As the product line devel-

oped, it soon found new applications in the

retail market including department stores,

malls and other consumer environments. It

has become the most successful product at

Alcorn McBride. There are several reasons

for this including the facts that it is simple,

very durable, economical, easy to use and

has numerous applications.

Relatively small, the unit is about the size

of a book – less than 10 inches deep, only

seven inches wide, and less than two inches

high. It weighs about four pounds. It can be

easily installed on a bus since operating volt-

age is in a range of nine to 25 volts. It can be

wired into the bus PA system or can be used

in several other ways including connected

to dedicated speakers or an on-board DVD

or entertainment system.

While neither an announcement system

or GPS is new, what Alcorn McBride has

National Bus Trader / June, 2005 • 17

The Alcorn McBride Digital Audio Machine determines the physical location of your vehicle and then makes appropriate announcements according

to your predetermined plan. It has numerous applications in various parts of the bus industry where buses follow a regular or pre-arranged route.

Shown here is a Budget Car Rental shuttle which operates on a route between several terminals at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and the

nearby car rental facility.

NBT

Alcorn McBride’s

Digital Audio Machine

Combining Custom Narration and GPS

by Larry Plachno

1 2 3 4

Summary of Contents

Page 1 - Digital Audio Machine

Imagine having a reasonably simple andeconomical device on your bus that canmake announcements based on the phys-ical location of your vehicle. It wou

Page 2 - ALCORN MCBRIDE

done is to combine these into one simple anddurable unit that is not only economical butalso very user-friendly. Installing the unitrequires no specia

Page 3

You can run the same route in two direc-tions. Using the linear mode, the AM-4 canmake different announcements in each direc-tion including the mentio

Page 4 - National Bus Trader

20 • National Bus Trader / June, 2005tising “. . . Come visit the XYZ Company atbooth 123.” Master copies of the locationsand audio ﬁles can be stored