Scoreboard - Technology

Technology

Prior to the 1980s most electronic scoreboards were electro-mechanical. They contained relays or stepping switches controlling digits consisting of incandescent light bulbs. Beginning in the 1980s, advances in solid state electronics permitted major improvements in scoreboard technology. High power semiconductors such as thyristors and transistors replaced mechanical relays, light-emitting diodes first replaced light bulbs for indoor scoreboards and then, as their brightness increased, outdoor scoreboards. Light-emitting diodes last many times as long as light bulbs, are not subject to breakage, and are much more efficient at converting electrical energy to light. The newest light emitting diodes can last up to 100,000 hours before having to be replaced. Advances in large-scale integrated circuits permitted the introduction of computer control. This also made it cost effective to send the signals that control the operation of the scoreboard either through the existing AC wires providing power to the scoreboard or through the air. Powerline modems permit the digital control signals to be sent over the AC power lines. The most common method of sending digital data over power lines at rates less than 2400 bits per second is called frequency shift keying (FSK). Two radio frequencies represent binary 0 and 1. Radio transmission such as FSK sends data digitally. Until recently radio transmission was subject to short range and interference by other radio sources. A fairly recent technology called spread spectrum permits much more robust radio control of scoreboards. Spread spectrum, like the name implies, distributes the signal over a wide portion of the radio spectrum. This helps the signal resist interference which is usually confined to a narrow frequency band.