Unfortunately, the facility in question had been finished two years previously, and the team that designed and built it had dispersed. Between conception and completion the project specification had changed considerably, but the drawings and other documentation were not properly updated to reflect what had actually been built. In short, reliable source information was a commodity in very short supply! To add to the difficulty, the facility was located in Saudi Arabia.

On the plus side, PDA has considerable experience in the specialised field of broadcast systems, so our authors were able to make the most of what information there was. We also contacted all of the sub-contract suppliers and checked what their records showed them to have supplied against the original project documentation. This way, we were able to build a reasonably accurate overall picture of the facility while still in the UK. We then spent some time in Saudi Arabia to fill in the details. We worked closely with the production staff and the studio engineers to define appropriate operating and maintenance procedures, and to accumulate all necessary information. Finally, we produced a set of manuals to the end-user’s own specification covering everything from operating the radio-intercom systems to maintaining the air conditioning in the outside broadcast van.