5.0 SWCSR 12-14-2023Sherburne Wright Cable Commission
Equipment and Technology Report
December 2023
Big Lake, Buffalo and Delano Parades
Parades
The summer parade season went very well. We added a larger talent monitor for our announcers
to make it easier for them to identify the parade participants. You can see it in the photo of the
Cokato announcers. At the end of the parade and concert season we worked on the trailer to fix
all the cable reels, cameras and other equipment.
Cokato, Delano and Dassel Parades
Monticello Parade
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Movie in the Parking Lot (The Sequel)
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Elk River hosted a movie in the parking lot at The Furniture and Things Center on August 15,
2023. It was a very good turnout with over 100 vehicles. They also had food trucks available.
Movie in the Parking Lot in Elk River
Rocktoberfest
It was another huge success covering Rocktoberfest in Rockford. There are 2 stages and the
bands play continuously throughout the night. We setup scaffolding in the middle of the field so
that the cameras can see over the crowds. We also have a camera in front of each stage to capture
the action closeup.
Rocktoberfest in Rockford
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Cable Converter Change Out
Most of the cities have received letters from Spectrum/Charter announcing that they will be
changing out the cable converters.
We are currently updating the converter inventory that we last did in 2019. Once that’s
completed, we hope to get the new cable boxes. Many of the current boxes do not have HDMI
connections and are extremely old and outdated.
If you are contacted by a Spectrum/Charter sales please give them my contact information.
Other Events
We also covered parades and coronations in our cities as well as numerous concerts.
Dassel Coronation
Monticello Concert and Rockford Parade
Cokato Coronation
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Elk River and Buffalo Concerts
Bookkeeping Service
Buffalo staff met with Tina and myself earlier this year to let us know that they are having
difficulty dedicating the staff time to do the Cable Commission’s bookkeeping. They have done
an amazing job over the years doing this thankless job and we really appreciate their hard work.
I did an informal survey of the other cities and everyone already has staffing challenges that just
don’t allow them to take over this job. The suggestion was made that we outsource this work.
During the Treasurer’s report Taylor will be joined by Chrissie Estrada from the Buffalo Finance
Department. Chrissie has been assisting Taylor with the Commission Financial reports and check
cutting etc. Chrissie has searched for outside firms that do this work and will share with us her
findings. I’ve attached one proposal in the packet.
Installs and Upgrades
We had numerous installs and upgrades in addition to ongoing repairs and staff training. Here are
just a few of them.
Big Lake Police Department
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Monticello Community Center
We received a very nice Thank You email from the Monticello Community Center staff for the
new podium, concession area and for other meeting room equipment. They mentioned that it has
helped them book clients into renting their meeting rooms thru 2024.
We also designed a podcasting system for the Monticello Communications staff.
New Elk River Council Chambers Audio Equipment
Some of the other projects included building a Zoom Cart for the Dassel Fire Department,
training new staff in multiple cities, providing channel feeds for a new service provider in Elk
River (Arvig), service calls.
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Transitions
Rockford went through some big changes with Dan Madsen leaving to work at Deephaven.
Anna Carlson is the new City Administrator and Debbie Buoy is the Assistant City
Administrator. I have had the opportunity to meet with them and invited them to our meeting.
We’ve had some very brief training on the council chambers equipment as well as the Clickshare
equipment in the upstairs conference room. We welcome them to the Commission!
Leightronix InCodeX Vier
We have Live Streaming in every city now except for Dassel and Maple Lake. We were holding
off on them until their network infrastructure was improved. They did not have enough
bandwidth on their city networks to support this equipment.
I met with the Dassel IT support staff and they believe with the recent improvements to the fiber
system that the system will now support this equipment. (Next meeting I’ll be researching the
upgrades in Maple Lake to see if they can support it).
Action Requested: Approve the purchase of a Leightronix InCodeX Vier Live Streaming
appliance for a onetime equipment cost of $4,495 plus a yearly subscription fee of $1788
Channel Playback Equipment Upgrades
We have ordered the Leightronix ipMergeNX for Elk River that was approved at the last
meeting. We will be installing this in the first quarter of 2025. Then we will install the next two
in Buffalo and SWTV.
Monticello has requested that we update their channel next.
Action Requested: Approve the purchase of a Leightronix ipMergeNX for the City of
Monticello plus training for a onetime equipment cost of $13,825.00.
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