Bexel Global Broadcast Solutions, Vitec Group’s Production Services business unit and a leading worldwide provider of broadcast services and solutions, chose Clear-Com®’s FreeSpeak II as the communication system for its clients’ major events, venue installs and media productions. Hell’s Kitchen, Henry Danger, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Pope Francis’s recent U.S. visit are just a few recent productions for which Bexel Global named FreeSpeak II as the wireless intercom solution.
FreeSpeak II has been the wireless communications backbone for the last two TV seasons of FOX TV’s Hell’s Kitchen. “With close to 70 UHF wireless devices being used concurrently in the studio production of Hell’s Kitchen, space in the UHF band is at a premium,” explained Rod Allen, Bexel Global’s Senior Project Manager. “We opted to keep the equipment we used for Intercom out of the UHF spectrum by moving it to the 1.9GHz frequency band. The upgrade from CellCom to FreeSpeak II allowed us to give the customer the flexibility for their wireless communications and free up much needed spectrum required for the wireless microphones.”
“It’s not just the FreeSpeak II’s operating range of 1.9 GHz that attracted us; we also liked the ease of setup,” said Allen. “Being able to add coverage areas by running a piece of CAT6 and adding a transceiver, made the set up very efficient.” System components such as the transceiver antenna and wireless belt pack in this distributed antenna wireless solution can operate in either the 1.9 or 2.4 GHz band, or can be intelligently mixed to expand the communication system for large-scale productions.
In addition to Hell’s Kitchen, Bexel Global also deployed FreeSpeak II in other productions. “For instance, we have installed a single base which serves two different stages with different production crews operating simultaneously for Nickelodeon.” added Allen. “With FreeSpeak II beltpack’s programming capabilities we have beltpacks paired to the same base being used by different work groups with complete building coverage.”
In its role as a solutions provider, Bexel Global has sold FreeSpeak II as an integrated wireless beltpack solution with Clear-Com’s Eclipse-Median digital matrix frame to CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as well as providing FreeSpeak II and HelixNet systems to major newsgathering organizations to cover the recent visit of Pope Francis and various important news events.
“FreeSpeak II has been a consistent, solid wireless solution for many media and live productions,” said Kari Eythorsson, Regional Sales Manager/Southwest USA at Clear-Com. “Customers really favour this system for a variety of reasons: high quality sound, versatility, flexibility, innovative built-in features and dependability. It just works where and when you need it, even in a crowded RF space. We are extremely pleased that Bexel Global continues to deploy FreeSpeak II as a complete wireless intercom option.”
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