Formula 1 by Multi-Link Holland
The Dutch satellite uplink company Multi-Link Holland is responsible for all Formula 1 EBU (European Broadcasting Union) transmissions. This company travels the world since 2004 for the Formula 1. You can regonice them easily by their green uplink dishes. Since 2004 they produce satellite uplinks at the Formula 1 for many broadcasters, RTL Netherlands, RTL+ Germany, ORF Austria, Sky Italia, Ferrari TV, ViaSat Sweden and more. They will give us an inside look through the whole season in what they must achieve on every location they land with their equipment, starting this weekend in Melbourne Australia and ending 25 november in Brazil. At this last race in Brazil we will do a special report about this company on the Interlagos circuit.
Melbourne Australia - 2012 Quantas Australian Grandprix:
3 huge Gigasat FA370 dishes for the EBU transmissions
Multi-Link Holland is using 3 fly-away uplink solutions in Melbourne Australia, 3 huge dishes of the Gigasat brand, type FA370. In Australia Multi-Link had to solve some local problems. They have to transmit in C-Band, this because of the unpredictable weather in Melbourne. "But some C-Band frequencies can not be used because of interference with the local police communication network" Gerben Vissers told us." it is the first race of the season so there are always 'new things' , this location is always relaxed, nice weather will make it a perfect season opener for us".
The dishes from the backsite, underneath the new construction.
This year Multi-Link improved their setup again. Gerben explains that they changed some things last months on the dish construction so they will never need a special construction on location anymore to get the dishes on a safe height, it is now build-in in the fly-away itself. Meanwhile they also found out a better method for the transport of these huge dishes. On the technical site they will use NS3 in stead of DVB-S2 to save a lot of bandwidth on several satellites.
The local mobile EBU F1 MCR from Multi-Link Holland in Melbourne , Australia
After the race we have to pack all immediately because it must go on transport to Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia the same night for next weeks race. All transport is done by D.O.T. They are very experienced in these kind of huge and tight logistical operations. Monday and Tuesday after the race we receive already our equipment in Malaysia and start to build up again.
More photo's available on our Broadcast Brazil Facebook page, you can find them here. Like us if you want ;)
Next week more from Multi-Link Holland
mentioned:
Multi-Link Holland
EBU
D.O.T.
Gigasat