It’s hard to believe we’re already in March! And yes, it is “in like a lion” so far, especially for our engineers working in northern regions.
Nobody’s as far north this week as Mike Sheehan and Devon Porter. Mike and Devon hustled a truck into Canada earlier this week to be in position for some exciting college sports action. Friday night Mike’s at the University of Saskatchewan’s Physical Activity Complex (catchy name!) in Saskatoon for Canada West Women’s basketball championship. It’s well below zero, and Mike is doing everything he can to keep the truck in good working order in these extreme conditions. Devon’s going to help him move to the next job on Saturday in Calgary, where it’s the Canada West Men’s basketball championship! Stay warm up there, guys!
I’m cold just writing this, so let’s take a break from the weather and talk about some golf.
Golf Channel pro Chris Golden has the C23 nudged up against a palm tree at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, FL this week, where the Honda Classic finishes play on Sunday. From there Chris hustles across the state to Naples, where he’ll be doing a live shot for Golf Channel News early Tuesday morning from The Concession Golf Club. Then Chris takes a couple of days to catch his breath before heading into about 10 days of Golf Channel transmissions at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass starting at the end of next week.
Out west, John Jennings and the Atlas truck are at the Omni Tucson National Golf Course in Tucson, AZ for the Cologuard Classic, providing tournament coverage through Sunday for our friends at Golf Channel.
It’s quite a weekend for us in the great state of Arizona.
Spring baseball is starting up, and Chris Hovden will be running the NT25 for this Saturday’s broadcast of the matchup between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs, live from Sloan Park in Mesa. This is the first in a series of Cubs games we’ll be covering over the next few weeks.
Not too far from Chris, Wes Hill will be setting up the C49 truck for more AAF action. We’re back at Sun Devil Stadium, home of the Arizona Hotshots, who will host the Atlanta Legends on Sunday. Wes will be multiplexing and transmitting multiple cameras over satellite to our team at the PSSI International Teleport. From PIT we’ll put the mux on the AT&T GVS network to Sneaky Big Studios back in Scottsdale, where Paul Blomstrom sits alongside a stack of decoders ensuring all feeds get in and out of Sneaky Big in time for broadcast. Wes will also be providing the crew at Sun Devil with comms and data over satellite, a custom 2-way service between our truck in the field and PIT.
Kyle Meyer’s at the helm of the K34 production/uplink truck outside Sneaky Big, where he will EIC the remote productions of each AAF game’s pre-game and halftime shows. He will also provide backup satellite transmissions of a couple of games out of the K34’s antenna.
Still more AAF out in the field. Rick Ball’s in Memphis this week, where the Memphis Express host the San Diego Fleet in Saturday’s first AAF game. Rick has a similar transmission plan to Wes’s in Arizona – a multiplexed “at-home” uplink ingested at PIT and sent to Sneaky Big, with data over satellite for the production crew at Liberty Bowl Stadium. This is a complex group effort, but as each week passes our engineers in the field and at the teleport – and our project manager, David Gallardo – are all working in unison to make the entire process seamless for our friends at AAF, AT&T, and Sneaky Big Studios. Nice work out there!
Back out West, we have two trucks at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, UT. Todd Harvey and Steve Chaisson will be providing primary and backup transmission paths for the big game between the Salt Lake Stallions and Orlando Apollos on the NFL Network Saturday.
Gary O’Donovan is also in the AAF mix this weekend, just down the road from Rick in Birmingham, AL. Gary’s in the C24 truck at Legion Field, where the Birmingham Iron will host the San Antonio Commanders on Sunday. In this case Gary is providing a backup feed for the big game, which will air on CBS Sports Network.
We’ll have a lot of traffic going through the CBS transmission headquarters this weekend, as we continue our busy basketball schedule on the way to March Madness.
Steve Toth’s in K38 for Saturday’s game at the University of Richmond’s Robins Center, where the Spiders will host the VCU Rams.
Mike Howley and the NT22 truck will be at Gampel Pavilion at UCONN in Storrs, CT on Sunday, when the Huskies take on the South Florida Bulls.
Craig Henry is in the newly upgraded NT26 in Carbondale, IL getting ready for Saturday’s game between the Southern Illinois Salukis and the Illinois State Redbirds.
Up the road a bit from Craig, Dave “Mitch” Mitchell is at Milleett Hall in Oxford, OH for more MAC basketball. Friday it’s the Miami (of Ohio) Redhawks hosting the Buffalo Bulls.
Also in Ohio, Steve Hagerty’s got more MAC hoops coming out of the K18. Steve’s at the Stroh Center in Bowling Green, where the Falcons host the Kent State Golden Flashes on Friday night.
Dave Buckman’s back at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA for some Patriot League hoops on Saturday. Bucknell hosts the Army Black Knights.
And not too far from Dave, new dad Blake Blomstrom is back in action providing transmission services for Fox on Saturday. Butler is in town to take on the Villanova Wildcats, live on Saturday afternoon from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA.
Big time college and high school hoops going on in the Pacific Northwest, and that’s keeping Seattle-based engineer David Meyer busy. David Meyer and the K20 truck were at Quinn Coliseum at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, OR on Monday for the CCC Women’s Basketball Championship.
Then on Wednesday David and his truck were at Albertson’s Activities Center at the College of Idaho in Caldwell, ID for the CCC Men’s Basketball Championship.
He’s back in Seattle on Saturday, when it’s the 2019 Washington High School Basketball Championship, live from the Tacoma Dome. Nice run!
In spite of the cold temps, we’ve got some exciting soccer matches on our schedule, too. We continue our exclusive partnership with Concacaf, and we’ve been at all the exciting Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League games. Benny Griffis and Kevin Spangler were at Fifth Third Bank Stadium on Thursday, and we’ll be at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ and BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston next week.
Benny Griffis has a soccer doubleheader, as he’ll be at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, TN on Saturday for the 2019 SheBelieves Cup. It’s the USWNT versus England, live on Fox Saturday afternoon. Should be a great match!
The NASCAR season continues full speed ahead. Vegas local Joe Cox will work alongside Jonathan Ayala at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for all the action this week. Joe will get a chance to see what our NASCAR team does every single week – multi-modal transmission services out of the C27 mobile teleport, which is the central point-of-presence (POP) for the AT&T Global Video Services fiber network at tracks around the country.
More racing down in Texas. Ron Ford the K26 truck will be at the Circuit of the Americas Track in Austin, TX on Sunday for the GT World Challenge.
And it wouldn’t be a weekend without a little fighting on the PSSI Global Services schedule.
Our team in the Worcester, MA shop made some key repairs and upgrades on Mati Kerpen’s NT34 Sprinter uplink this week, and Mati’s all set for boxing from the Barclays Center in NYC on Saturday. Mati’s encoding the fiber for Showtime and monitoring the international feed, as well, while project managers Michael Hollander and Victor Verno ensure a quality broadcast for boxing fans around the world.
And last, but never least, we have another UFC pay-per-view in Las Vegas. UFC all-star team Tracy Michaels, Jim Flowers, Brian Blomstrom, Garrett Hunt, and Keith Valeri have all converged on the T-Mobile Arena with the CK35 mobile teleport and the C43 for an exciting weekend of MMA. Our friends at Concom have multiple feeds running in and out of truck for the weigh-in, prelims, and main event of UFC 235. Fleet maintenance manager Matt Huennekens will join the crew on Saturday to run the disaster truck, as well, and will catch all the action leading up to the main bout between Jon Jones and Anthony Smith. Some of our Vegas office staff took a quick field trip to T-Mobile on Friday to watch our team in action. We’re usually so busy in the offices that it’s rare to get a chance to see what our engineers in the field are really up to, so it’s great our crew in Vegas took the opportunity today.
From all of us at PSSI Global Services, have a safe and happy weekend. Here’s to a busy March!