WATERLOO, Canada—Dejero has announced that its technologies are being used by renowned storm chaser, Reed Timmer and his crew, Team Dominator, to push the boundaries of live streaming and scientific data collection from inside tornadoes and hurricanes.
In Spalding, Nebraska, in May, Team Dominator captured a 55 mb pressure deficit with its microbarometer in what is being described as the best tornado intercept in U.S. history. Even with winds between 160 to 170 mph, inside the wedge tornado, Timmer had uninterrupted internet connectivity thanks to the resiliency of the Dejero EnGo 265 with GateWay Mode.
Timmer’s armored vehicle, the Dominator 3, has been equipped with a Dejero EnGo since March 2023. The mobile transmitter not only provides live video transmission and encoding; its GateWay Mode also enables the storm chasers to access a supercharged internet hotspot from any location, even in the most challenging terrains.
“Our mission is to increase awareness of the dangers of a storm to the public, provide live alerts and status, gather scientific information, and continuously engage with our subscribers as we intercept a storm,” explained Reed Timmer, extreme meteorologist.
Timmer said that video does this better than any other medium.
“We often start with over 20,000 concurrent live viewers on YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms, all wanting to see us execute our mission,” Timmer explained. “If we lose the signal, our entire mission is at risk and viewers begin to drop off. Dejero’s reliable connectivity not only helps us to keep people informed about a tornado heading towards their town, it also enhances our brand and credibility as storm chasers.”
With the EnGo’s GateWay Mode, ultra-reliable, high-bandwidth internet access is made possible from the Dominator 3 vehicle using Dejero Smart Blending Technology. In this case, the Dejero device is blending six cellular connections from network carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon to deliver enhanced reliability, expanded coverage and greater bandwidth. Dejero Smart Blending Technology is capable of blending multiple wired (broadband/fiber) and wireless (3G/4G/5G, Wi-Fi, satellite) IP connections.
Using GateWay Mode, live feeds from vehicle-mounted, handheld and drone cameras are transmitted from storm locations using an SRT / WebRTC / RTMP / NDI / RTSP / RIST streaming camera app to the Team Dominator production office located in Austin, Texas. There, graphics and context are added, and the packaged video is delivered as a continuous live stream to Reed Timmer’s internet subscribers.
“Thanks to our mobile streaming capabilities with Dejero, we have been able to reach about 20 million people a month during peak tornado season, and we hope to use this technology for hurricane season as well and continue streaming life-saving information to those in the path of these dangerous storms,” said Timmer.
The EnGo’s GateWay Mode also enables Timmer to transfer large hi-res video files from the field, after the live stream, for post-production editing and upload. Reed can also access important meteorological systems and scientific data via the internet, and his team can access it from multiple devices.
“The GateWay Mode of this unit has been a dream come true for our live streaming platform inside the Dominator 3 as we are attempting to intercept tornadoes directly for science,” Timmer says.
Video feeds of Reed Timmer chasing storms can be found on YouTube here.
