Globo TV DENG site
Globo TV’s new ENG reception site is located in the western area of Rio de Janeiro at the top of a 557ft mountain. It faces the neighborhoods of Jacarepagua on the north, Barra da Tijuca on the east and the Atlantic Ocean on the south. The Barra da Tijuca neighborhood is known as a culturally and economically developed area and is one of the main districts of the region, with a total area of 64sq mi and a population of approximately 220,000 people. The region has 17mi of ocean beach, the largest in Rio de Janeiro, three large lagoons and also smaller lagoons and canals, making it a desirable tourist location.
Most of the 2007 XV Pan American Games facilities were installed in Barra da Tijuca. Moreover, the infrastructure built for the event will be used during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
The cited growth has driven the need for live news coverage in the area, but Rio de Janeiro’s mountainous terrain does not allow good RF coverage with the ENG receptions installed in the central part of the city. All live news coverage in Barra da Tijuca for the Pan American Games was made via satellite.
The main challenge of installing the new ENG system was to guarantee the coverage area and make it future-proof, because many high buildings are being built in the neighborhood. Other challenges in the project included shielding the receptions against interference and delivering the signal to the studio.
The reception system covers the frequency ranges of 2GHz and 7GHz and is compatible with both the DVB-T and LMS-T (Link Research’s proprietary modulation scheme) standards. The receiver, model L2134, has four antenna inputs, which allows reception of mobile transmissions with maximum ratio combining.
The RF switching system, Junction Box, was developed at Globo TV with the main functions being to switch between the 2GHz and 7GHz bands and provide DC power to the RF block downconverters. The Junction Box and the downconverters are installed atop the tower where there are filters against 3G cell phone interference. The Junction Box is integrated and commanded by the Troll S350 slave controller, which also controls the receiver, sending commands and reading its status.
The demodulated RF received signal is sent in DVB-ASI (HD and SD) to the Globo TV main reception site using two pairs of bidirectional telecom PDH-E3 (34Mb/s) radios in the 15GHz band.
The site is unassisted, so it is remotely operated through an IP connection over the PDH radios. The reception control was totally integrated with the existing central reception system of the main station site.
After the installation, a coverage test was performed using fixed and mobile ground transmissions as well as helicopter transmission, the results of which came out as expected. The operational team was also trained during the tests and commissioning.
Nowadays, almost all the live news reports along that area are made through this new ENG site, improving capacity and agility for daily news production.
- New studio or RF technology — station
Submitted by Globo Comunicação e ParticipaçõesDesign teamCarlos Eduardo Cosme Ribeiro, eng.; Josiaureo Santana Fernandes, eng.; Marcelo de Azevedo Miguel, eng.; Maximilliam Nunes Starling Vieira, eng.Technology at workGlobo TV: Junction Box
NEC: PASOLINK PDH E3
Link Research: L2134, L3025-2024, L3030-6875
MRC: SectorScan II SEC13-2/7V-NLNF, Sector Scan II 2GHz/7GHz flat-panel sectorized antennas
Patropi: ONM-2G
Scopus: IRD-2980 MPEG-2 decoder
TANDBERG: TT6120 base format converter TTV E3/DS3
Troll Systems: S350
© 2010 Penton Media, Inc.
