The supplied system included four Raycom RTB3211 talkback base stations. One base station is shared between Studios 1 and 2, a second is in the Green Room covering all the downstairs areas outside the studios, the third is located on the roof performance area and the fourth unit is used for the outside performance area. The latter two base stations used ‘down-firing’ antennas to contain the coverage of the radio signals.
Raycom also supplied and programmed 21 Icom IC-F22 UHF radios with belt packs, headsets, cases and chargers and other ancillary equipment to work with the base stations. The base station and aerial systems allow each of the belt pack radios to work in the four different areas ensuring maximum flexibility for the production teams.
Seven Lectrosonics IFB-T5 presenter transmitters were also supplied, four in the studios with passive antenna splitters to feed each studio, one in the Green Room, one in the roof area and the final one for the outside performance area. Four matching IFB-R5A receivers were supplied and more have already been ordered to increase flexibility.
Chris Pemberton, Raycom’s general manager, engineered an intermodulation-free frequency plan for the four Raycom base stations in the 462/469MHz band, 10 Sony radio microphones in TV Channels 67 and 68 and the seven Lectrosonics IFBs in TV channels 55 to 58. The frequency plan was sufficiently resilient to have since allowed extra radio microphones to be added in TV channels 67 and 68.
Raycom’s engineers installed and commissioned the system for Neil Wilson Enterprises on behalf of Corinthian Television. GMTV’s ‘Diggit’ programme will use the studios and exploit the flexibility of the system to its full potential. Raycom is now part of the sbs group of companies, which now includes sbs, Eddystone Broadcast and Raycom.
(Lee Baldock)
