It feels a little like fall in LA and Vegas, and we’re anticipating a snowstorm in the path of at least one of our trucks this weekend. Winter is coming!
But let’s start in the Sunshine State, where we’re in week 2 of a major, nationwide corporate event. Our Satcom team in Orlando put in some long hours the past few weeks to get our Southeastern Ku-band fleet in tip-top shape for this event, which has multiple uplink and downlink locations across Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Dennis Smith, Justin Roszak, Steve Hagerty, Steve Toth, Chris Golden, and Mike Howley have their trucks parked outside the finest resorts in the country to provide flawless transmission services this week and next. Great job, guys!
Strategic Television project manager, Michael Hollander, put all the paperwork together for this show, and he’s got a couple other irons in the fire this weekend, including another multi-truck event right here in Los Angeles. It’s time for another live, simulcast opera for our friends at the LA Opera. This year it’s Puccini’s La Bohème, and we have trucks and engineers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Santa Monica Pier (Opera at the Beach) and the Columbia Regional Park in Torrance (Opera in the Park). Mark Huss and Michael are at the headend in downtown LA for testing on Friday, while Larry Sheets and John Jennings are ready to take in Mark’s signal of this great production. GM Clint Bergeson will take over for Michael for the event on Saturday night, because Mr. Hollander is in high demand…
He’ll be part of a big crew down at the Staples Center for Fox’s second pay-per-view boxing event ever: Errol Spence, Jr. versus Shawn Porter, live on Saturday night. EIC Tracy Michaels and Strategic Television project manager, Victor Verno, have been in LA all week getting prepped for this huge fight. We kicked off the live events down at the Intercontinental Hotel, where Chris Hovden threaded the needle between huge skyscrapers to provide satellite transmission for multiple press conferences, satellite media tours, and the weigh-in. Chris makes his way over to Staples to provide engineering services on one of Fox’s multiple fight pathways. Over at Staples, Tracy and Victor have met up with Brian Blomstrom and the CK35 mobile teleport – perhaps the world’s most powerful transmission vehicle – to set up multiple fiber, IP, and satellite transmission pathways for Fox’s extensive broadcast. Michael Hollander has arranged for the fight’s international distribution, a plan that will include the PSSI International Teleport as an essential link in the worldwide delivery chain. He and Victor will be making calls to takers around the world to ensure they’re getting exactly what they need, from closed captioning to format adjustments to international audio. No one else in the country can do what Strategic Television can do on an event of this size. Great job, guys!
We’ll stay in California, where a couple of golf tournaments are keeping our engineers busy. Wes Hill’s at the Silverado Country Club in Napa, CA for Golf Channel’s coverage of the Safeway Open. Tony Romo’s playing pretty well at this pro-am event, so stay tuned!
Meanwhile, Sacramento-based engineer, Dave Brin, is at the beautiful Pebble Beach Golf Course for the Pure Insurance Championship, with play through the weekend.
More golf in the middle of the country. Joe Cox is at the Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis, IN for the IWIT Championship. Joe’s there for Golf Channel’s tournament coverage along with a special feed for Japanese broadcasters. Plenty more golf on the schedule to take us through the fall!
We haven’t even talked about college football yet! Let’s start with the SEC on CBS game of the week in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Alabama native Rick Ball wouldn’t miss a Crimson Tide game for anything, and he’s all set up for CBS’s afternoon coverage of the game between ‘Bama and the Ole Miss Rebels. Next week Rick’ll be in the Swamp!
4K guru Rick Varney is back on the road. This week’s 4K game of the week on Fox Sports 1 features Texas Christian versus the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday night. Rick’s there at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Ft. Worth, TX alongside Ron “Roadrunner” Ford, who’s getting his first introduction to the world of UHD broadcasting. Nice job, guys!
Sticking with Fox, we’ve got a Friday night game this week at the University of Maryland. Mike Lemieux’s all set for the game between the Terrapins and the Penn State Nittany Lions. From there Mike will fly forward for some golf in Wisconsin. He gets around!
David Meyer’s back from a well-deserved vacation, just in time for some Pac 12 football! He’s our guy in Seattle for the game between the Huskies and the USC Trojans on Saturday night. Welcome back, David!
John May’s only using the C-band antenna on the CK48 mobile teleport on Saturday, but as always he’s ready with the Ku antenna for any last minute surprises! He’s at the University of Oklahoma’s Memorial Stadium for the game between the Sooners and Texas Tech.
Dave Mitchell’s no stranger to the state of West Virginia, and he’s back at Joan C. Edwards Stadium for some Thundering Herd action on Saturday. Marshall hosts Cincinnati on the CBS Sports Network, and Mitch is ready to roll.
New Yorker Mati Kerpen is headed into the wilds of Michigan for Saturday’s game in Kalamazoo, where the Western Michigan Broncos will host the Central Michigan Chippewas on Saturday.
More CBS Sports Net football in Colorado: Mike Sheehan’s back in his home state for the Air Force Academy game against the San Jose State Spartans under the Friday Night Lights.
Another Friday night game: Nick Ray’s in Washington DC for ESPN’s coverage of high school football matchup between Mater Dei and St. John’s College High School.
Still another Friday night matchup: Steve Chaisson is waaaaaaaaaayyy north of the border at the University of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, where the Calgary Dinos are in town to take on the Huskies in a rematch of the Hardy Cup. There’s snow forecast during Steve’s drive back to the States. Snow!
Much further south, Paul Blomstrom rounds out our college football lineup for this weekend at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, UT, where the Utes host Washington State in the late game on Saturday night.
But we’re still not done with football. Paul’s brother, Blake, is working with production specialist, Marc Sarazin at the New Era Field in Buffalo to provide the NFL Network with production and transmission services on another live tailgate show. This time it’ll be in the morning before the big matchup between the Patriots and the Bills.
OK, enough football for now. Let’s go back into the corporate world, this time at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Kevin Spangler’s there on behalf of Microsoft, who is hosting MINECON Live this weekend. Strategic Television project manager, Garrett Hunt, is there with Kevin on this event, and we will be providing 1080p encoding and transmission back to Microsoft headquarters in Washington. More live Microsoft next week from the Big Apple!
Not too far up the road from Garrett and Kevin, Dave Buckman’s all set up at the Wellmont Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, TN, where we’ll provide the transmission for another live surgery. Dave heads to Greenville, NC next week for another installment of the Pat McAfee show for our friends at DAZN. Earlier this week, Craig Henry was our man on the McAfee show in Memphis, providing uplink and cellular data services for DAZN’s production team. This has been a great run!
Staying down South, our NASCAR team is rocking and rolling at the Charlotte Motor Speedway for a weekend full of NASCAR racing. Kyle Meyer and Ben Bradshaw have the C27 mobile teleport firing on all cylinders as we provide the NASCAR team with extensive transmission and data services via fiber and satellite. Bill Sciolla and the team at PIT are ingesting multiple feeds from the track and interfacing with NASCAR HQ to ensure everything goes smoothly all the way through the 2019 Bank of America Roval 400 on Sunday.
Before we move onto another continent, we had a few exciting news events to report. PSSI News Group’s Connie Yen and Ryan Fisk did a great job for our friends at CNN all week at the United Nations General Assembly. And none other than Beto O’Rourke made his way to our live insert studio in downtown Pittsburgh on Thursday for a live shot on CNN’s Erin Burnett Out Front show on Thursday.
As if that weren’t enough, we’re doing live television in Copenhagen, Denmark. Jim Flowers and Senior Project Manager, Keith Valeri are working with our friends at Mobile Links to provide extensive international transmission services for UFC Fight Night, live from the Royal Arena on Saturday night. Jack Hermansson and Jared Cannonier square off in the main event, but there’s a whole evening of undercards to keep our guys busy, with multiple transmission pathways going out to MMA fans around the world. In the past month, Keith’s done shows in China, Dubai, Mexico City, and now Copenhagen. Not bad!