Straubing, Germany RTS is pleased to announce that its RTS ADAM (Advanced Digital Audio Matrix) intercom system is playing a key role in the presentation areas at BBC Wales. The 80-port system, with seven KP-32 keypanels, allows operators and producers to communicate with each other in the new play-out facility at Broadcasting House in Cardiff, as well around the complex's control room, television presentation studio and gallery.
The RTS system was chosen to replace the previous talkback system used by Broadcasting House in Cardiff. It has to work with an existing four-wire router (not RTS), accepting inputs from that device and sending back inputs, in addition to connecting to the RTS intercom panels, in addition to third-party audio monitoring boxes and headphone points.
The RTS intercom was specified and installed by a BBC Wales team headed by broadcast engineer David Carnaby, as a separate "mini-project" running alongside the main play-out installation, which was designed and project managed by primary contractor Siemens IT Solutions and Services and built and installed by systems integrator by TSL.
The two systems were installed independently of each other but the play-out area was connected easily to the RTS intercom system due to the nature of the ADAM crate, or frame, which holds all the cards and master controller and connects to the user panels. Siemens/TSL were presented with a CAT5e cable to each area for the intercom panels and landed jumpers appropriately to take feeds to and from red lights, mic live logic circuits and so on.
Replacing an old intercom system is always difficult and is often described as a "heart transplant", with existing talkback facilities needing to be replicated as near as possible. The installation was helped considerably by the RTS UPL (User Programmable Logics) statements, which allow specific functions to be programmed into the new system. For this project it included On Air tally LEDs from a GPI, muting of studio loudspeakers, studio routing status and integration between ADAM and other systems in the presentation and play-out areas.
The UPL functionality allowed this to be relatively seamless and the Ethernet connection to these cards made loading revised configurations both quick and convenient, compared to the old method of serial port updates.
For more information, visit the RTS Intercom website: www.rtsintercoms.com
