Chapter 135

Thursday was clean up day at the college. Our board wanted to be spic and span, clean and professional, at any time a full tour was going to be given to another college board. I made several rounds with different administrators checking things out. I had the contractor straighten up their act as well. They had gotten sloppy with storage. I had Richard Bozman - the auditor - put the screws to them.

Thursday night we had the meeting with Katz and Bradberry. It was four hours long. All of us were there, even Jeanna, because Mid West Bank Delaware branch was going to do the financing on the equipment. They had been there setting up for their presentation since two in the afternoon. They or the girls had placed parts of the presentation around the gym. They had those little cutaway display doors with the security locks on them that you see in hardware stores. They had installed the operating system on one of our servers, linked it to one of the flat screens and had issued activated ID cards to our employees as part of the demo for tonight. They began as soon as we were all there.

"The system is new and revolutionary. It incorporates space-age wireless technology and mixes it with the latest 900 megahertz frequency swapping security features and that is just to run the wireless cameras and ID card identifiers. We can watch the cameras from anywhere there is internet as long as we have the secure access codes and an interface program.

The cameras are totally wireless as far as their communication link. The power for the camera can be two ways, AC plug or a sodium-oxide lithium hybrid battery pack; either direct mounted to the camera or remote mounted and wire connected. The batteries have a 3 year warranty and are rechargeable. A battery pack can power a camera for six months and when down to 5% life left it will send a warning to the console that they need to be replaced. The cost of the special charger is numbing, 3500 dollars, and recharge takes a week. The charger can charge 25 at a time and will indicate when each battery is fully charged. 25 spare batteries will come with the charger and can be left in the charging rack until needed.

The communications link is where most of the security is built in to the system. The 900 megahertz uses 10 radio frequencies with 10 sub-frequencies and can be randomized or mixed and matched as often the operator wants. You can use the same one all day or a different one every two minutes. The computer will choose the frequency and at off times sends a packet containing the day's order to each device. A simple key-code locked all devices into a basic pair if there is any trouble.

The same battery pack would be installed in the dorm door card locks if AC power is not available. On some doors the system will be installed in the door handle or the striker plate, with a card reader pad on the frame, depending on the usage. All 510 doors will need refitting with one or the other. The main entrance and high use doors will use the pad type and require AC power. The individual dorm rooms will have the hotel style that would unlatch the door handle so it could be turned when authorized by the proper ID card. Next is the bad news.

The system with 600 door locks, 200 cameras, new flat monitors, computer terminals and 1000 ID cards with locator chips - the same as we used at KCC - and 25 terabit storage with the servers and installation is a cool 750,000 dollars. Since this is the first full retail field trial of this system, if we will allow them to demonstrate and use the college in an ad campaign they will waive the installation charges of 25,000 to bring the installed price down to 725,000," Robert Bradberry said as he finished up the presentation. "The system had been in testing for two years."