ALAMEDA, Calif.—Clear-Com has announced that its DX210 Digital Wireless Intercom was used by Kenya-based CATS Ltd. to help wildlife photographer Jeffrey Wu produce a first-of-its-kind live stream production of The Great Migration in Africa.
Jeffrey Wu was commissioned by video sharing social networking platforms TikTok and Douyin to curate the content of the live stream, allowing a global community of viewers to watch the spectacular display of wildlife that takes place during the Great Migration, when millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles and more to migrate from Tanzania’s Serengeti to the more fertile grasslands in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.
CATS, which works as a distributor, integrator, technical support crew and rental partner for local broadcast needs, decided that Clear-Com’s DX210 Digital Wireless Intercom would be the perfect standalone solution.
The project required continuous communications between two tour vehicles, each outfitted with three cameras, a vision mix, audio mix and streaming equipment, powered by onboard inverters and solar generators during the many hours of operation in the field. The DX210 main station was in one vehicle, with the antennas oriented outside the vehicle and a BP210 2-channel 2.4 GHz wireless beltpack deployed in the second vehicle. This configuration provided the channel to coordinate vehicle movements, technical troubleshooting and any other inter-vehicle communication.
In the open plains, the production team was able to easily achieve 100-150 meters of wireless intercom range which allowed enough distance between vehicles for the two hosts who were narrating the content—one speaking Mandarin and the other speaking English—to not interfere with one another, while still allowing Ayaz and Irfan to communicate over the comms.
TikTok and Douyin also partnered with the Kenya Tourism Board, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Conservation International in this event aimed to promote the importance of biodiversity and to inspire wildlife protection around the world.
“I am honored to be a part of such a noble cause,” said Ayaz Rajput, founder of CATS. “It’s crazy to think that such a small team, with the help of a single DX210 system, could bring this message onto a global platform. After nine years of service in the industry here in Nairobi, clients and crew have become accustomed to our Clear-Com system which is synonymous with the high quality of service that CATS Limited is known to provide.”
