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01 May 2007
Cross Channel record for DMX link up
Supplier: dAFTdATA
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UK-based wireless specialists dAFTdATA; Belgium-based Luminex, manufacturers of Art-Net products; leading UK rental company Essential Lighting; and French equipment distributor Sonoss, all joined forces recently to send the first 'eDMX' wireless DMX signals across the Channel from France to England.
The link up took place on 15 March between Cap Gris Nez, west of Calais in France, and the White Cliffs of Dover in the UK. The distance covered was, according to GPS, 20.82 miles/33.49km, believed to be the world's longest ever wireless DMX signal transmission to date.
The experiment germinated from a meeting between dAFTdATA and Luminex which resulted in them working together to produce systems that talked to each other. dAFTdATA's Chris Crockford and Fabrice Gosnet from Sonoss, Luminex's French distributors, then started thinking about various ranges of equipment and maximum distances.
From this the Entente Cordiale project (ECP) was born, an Anglo-French experiment to prove that DMX could be beamed internationally across the channel between different manufacturer's equipment.
dAFTdATA are the only radio DMX manufacturer currently offering a 5.4 GHz system that can run dual frequency. Using both 5.4 GHz and 2.4 GHZ frequencies, which operate on completely different microwave bands, this provides a fully redundant fail safe system.
The system has been developed in association with Essential Lighting to provide them with a wireless eDMX rental stock to cover every eventuality - indoors, outdoors, across the English Channel, even covering 2100ft up the face of a mountain in Scotland.
Crockford had already experimented with long-distance eDMX transmission between his office window and the nuclear submarine pen at Barrow-in-Furness, which, using GPS, he calculated to be 23 miles.
dAFTdATA approached the UK authorities with regards the legality of the event, and Spike Hughes, manager of Dover's Rescue Co-ordination Centre (Coastguard) gave permission for the Project to use the Coastguard Station at Dover as the signal reception point. This is very near to the site of the first England-France radio transmission by Marconi in 1899.
As the searchlights were fired up, the coastguard broadcast to all shipping in the Channel that the searchlights would be shining out over the channel and changing colour.
Essential Lighting supplied two 7K BigLites that were positioned on top of the cliffs in Dover, along with the Avolites Pearl lighting console on the French side, used to control one of them. Sonoss supplied all the Luminex encoding gear, and dAFTdATA all the radio transmission and reception kit.
The receiver in Dover was located on top of a World War II gun battery, approximately 300ft above sea level, overlooking the ferry port. Lighting & Sound International Editor, Lee Baldock, witnessed the Dover end of the link, whilst Isobelle Elvira from Sono magazine witnessed the Calais end.
The signal went from the Avolites Pearl to a Luminex Art-Net box to a dAFTdATA 5.4 GHz wireless transmitter. This beamed it over the Channel to the dAFTdATA 5.4 GHz wireless receiver in Dover, then into the dAFTdATA Art-Net decoder which then fed DMX out to the two searchlights. The exact frequency used was 5.47GHz, which Crockford and Gosnet checked was compatible with both French and UK outdoor wireless 802.11A transmissions.
To lift the antenna off the ground on the French side, thus avoiding surface reflections coming off the water, the team used a 'Landycam', a specially customised Landrover with independent hydraulic suspension and a superlift attachment at the rear.
This was originally designed to lift a camera on a gimble head up to 26ft, the camera head being replaced on this outing with dAFTdATA's wireless transmitter.
Afterwards, Crockford said: “I was always confident that it would work. It was a great exercise in inter-company relations, like-mindedness and teamwork.
"Above all, it's really put the system to the test, and has lifted the bar to new heights, with regards what is possible for wireless show control systems!”
And, yes. From the transmission point in Calais they could see the light in Dover move.
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